ASEAN must solve arms trafficking

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.