ASEAN must solve arms trafficking

By Rizal Sukma

JAKARTA (JP): In Southeast Asia, the question of illicit arms trafficking has been a decades-long problem. During the 1960s and 1970s many Maoist insurgency movements in the region -- such as in the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia -- relied on weapons smuggled from Communist China.

As various forms of violent conflicts persist in many parts of the region, it is believed that arms smuggling activities have continued until today. Last week's major arms haul in Southern Thailand, in which rogue elements within the Thai military allegedly tried to ship weapons to the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Indonesia, has only highlighted the growing problem of illicit arms trafficking and smuggling in Southeast Asia.

It is true that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has, since the end of 1990s, begun paying attention to the problem of small arms proliferation. The issue was first raised in the 1997 ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in Malaysia.

At ASEAN's Second Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime in Yangon on June 23, 1999, ASEAN recognized the problem of arms smuggling as a serious transnational crime and noted that the growing arms trafficking in the region needed to be checked.

The meeting even approved a program of action to combat illicit arms and ammunition trade. However, if this problem is not given top priority through a concerted effort by regional countries, it will certainly aggravate the already growing problems of other non-traditional security threats facing the region.

The urgency for ASEAN to tackle the problem of illicit arms trafficking is also reinforced by at least four crucial factors. First, most weapons being traded or smuggled usually fall within the category of "small arms" or "light weapons", namely weapons that can be carried by an individual.

This includes pistols and revolvers, rifles and assault rifles, hand grenades, machine guns, light mortars, light anti- tank weapons such as grenade launchers, and anti-personnel land mines. Being highly portable, they become the most preferred weapons for many groups involved in "small-scale" conflicts, including for the armed forces of poor countries.

The light weight and small size of these weapons also makes them easy to smuggle and are thus easily available on the black market. And due to the limited capability of most ASEAN governments, illicit arms trafficking in the region is difficult to track and control.

Second, it is also important to note that the spread of small arms beyond legal authorities may originate from the problem within the military establishment of individual ASEAN countries.

Soldiers in armies lacking discipline have been known to steal and sell weapons from their own arsenals.

Last week's thwarted smuggling attempt in southern Thailand and the more recent theft of 30 Glock pistols from an air force warehouse in Bangkok are illustrative. In Indonesia, military personnel have been arrested a number of times for selling weapons to GAM.

Third, the nature of Southeast Asia as a region in which conflicts remain pervasive, serves as a lucrative market for arms dealers and smugglers. Demand for small arms has not only come from armed separatist movements, such as from GAM in Aceh or the Karen in Myanmar, but also from criminal organizations and other interested buyers.

In Indonesia the inter-religious conflict in the Maluku islands has also reportedly been aggravated by the inflow of smuggled weapons from abroad. In such circumstances, small arms are much preferred as they can easily be assembled and re- assembled, and do not require sophisticated training for maintenance and operation.

Fourth, Southeast Asia is also becoming an important source for small arms. Indeed, as some regional states are in fact post- war states, they also serve as a source of weapons for the regional black market.

Cambodia, for one, is littered with unregistered weapons; the legacy of almost three decades of civil war. One estimation puts the number of small arms currently in circulation in Cambodia at 500,000 to 1 million units.

Thousands of these weapons have reportedly been illegally shipped overseas and might have ended up in several places in Indonesia, such as Aceh. And, as admitted by Cambodia's Co- Minister of Defense Tea Binh, thousands of weapons in circulation throughout Cambodia could threaten security in the region in the absence of proper arms control (The Cambodia Daily, Feb. 20 2001).

Indeed, the factors mentioned above clearly indicate that illicit small arms trafficking is increasingly becoming a serious non-traditional security threat, both at the national and regional levels.

At the national level, such trafficking strengthens criminal organizations and domestic terrorists, therefore posing a threat to citizens. At the regional level, because such weapons cross borders easily and affect countries' internal politics, inter- state relations may be complicated and thus pose a problem to regional security and stability.

What needs to be done?

Even though ASEAN governments have begun to pay attention to the problem, controlling the flow of small arms remains a difficult task. There is a limit to the governments' efforts in handling this problem unilaterally.

Small arms trafficking is, again, both internal and transnational in nature. Within the ASEAN context, the difficulty is reinforced further by the fact that member countries are still "allergic" to raising suggestions relating to their neighbors' internal activities.

It is still difficult to imagine a particular ASEAN country suggesting that its neighbor be more serious in curbing small arms trafficking.

Therefore, there is no other way for ASEAN but to overcome the problem through a concerted effort at the bilateral or regional level. The recent agreement between Thailand and Indonesia to exchange information in a bid to block the flow of illegal weapons to Indonesia is a good example.

At the regional level, the framework for better cooperation is already laid out, agreed upon, and in some cases already operational. For example, the ASEAN Plan of Action to Combat Transnational Crime, adopted in 1999, would provide the basis for the agreement among ASEAN countries to establish the ASEAN Center for Combating Transnational Crime.

There has also been close cooperation in combating transnational crimes through other bodies such as ASEANPOL and ASEAN Senior Officials on Drug Matters.

Yet such cooperation might not be sufficient. Within the existing arrangement, small arms trafficking is seen as an integral part of broader transnational crimes -- terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, piracy, and human trafficking.

Apart from cooperation on such broad issues, ASEAN countries must acknowledge that small arms proliferation needs to be addressed as a distinct issue and given higher priority.

Indeed, the Bangkok-based non governmental organization Nonviolence International Southeast Asia has warned that combining small arms under the broader topic of transnational crime leads to the issue being "often overshadowed by other pressing issues, such as drug trafficking and human trafficking".

In order words, due to its devastating impacts on human security at the sub-national, national, and even regional levels, ASEAN needs to pay more attention to this problem by planning a joint action to curb the activities of arms smugglers throughout the region.

Dr. Rizal Sukma is Director of Studies at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta.