In a world concerned about the proliferation of the weapons of mass destruction, much less attention is given to the spread of light munitions that are truly the weapons of civilian destruction

IN a statement not long ago, the Interior Ministry announced its plan for re-launching the de-weaponization campaign. One wonders if such announcement was made in the wake of preparations for the UN biannual meeting — scheduled for early July — on the issue of curbing the proliferation of small arms and light weapons.

As the time approaches for the first UN biannual meeting, it is necessary for individual states in South Asia and, indeed, around the globe to review the progress that has been made by them in meeting their commitments towards fulfilling the UN programme of action that had been agreed upon by all the member states in July 2001.

As part of the programme, states had agreed to framing and streamlining laws and taking measures to control the spread of this category of weapons. More important, the issue is not just of meeting international obligations, but about securing their own societies and ensuring peace and stability within states and regions.

In a world concerned about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, much less attention is given to the spread of small arms and light weapons that are truly the weapons of civilian destruction. There are more people killed through the use of such weapons than during major conventional conflicts.

According to the estimates of Geneva-based Small Arms Survey, approximately 500,000 people die each year due to the use of small arms and light weapons. However, one does not see a major movement or protest against the spread of these weapons. Unfortunately, any debate on containing the proliferation of these weapons is not as fashionable as that against the WMDs.

Perhaps, it is the ‘unattractiveness’ of the issue that has allowed neither the civil societies not the governments in South Asia to attend to the menace that has certainly challenged peace and stability in the entire region. If a map of the region highlighting local conflicts is drawn up, particularly noticeable would be the wars fought across South Asia primarily through the use of small arms and light weapons.

A disagreement or agreement on the political agenda of these conflicts apart, what has made these wars possible is the easy availability of weapons. In fact, a gun culture became rampant in the region during the Afghan crisis of the 1980s when the region, particularly Pakistan, became a transit point for weapons going to Afghanistan.

During the course of the ensuing years, there were other sources as well that became significant in the business of the trafficking of small arms and light weapons. Weapons were flowing in to the region from the sea (destined for Sri Lanka), as well as from the Indo-Bangladesh and Indo-Burma borders.

In addition, most of the states had an indigenous weapons manufacturing capability. Darra Adamkhel in Pakistan is one such source the significance of which the authorities have consistently tried to downplay due to the fear of negative publicity. The fact remains that such sources have played a crucial role in maintaining the channels of illegal supply within the country and the region. The hundred or so units in Darra were used to manufacture and refurbish small arms that were then supplied to different parts of the country, using a highly complex supply network.

However, even more complex was the network that allowed various militant and sectarian groups to acquire the deadly hardware, and use it in different parts of the region. The net effect of this was a proliferation of small arms and light weapons that, in turn, had a negative impact on societies in the region. From Pakistan’s perspective, one saw an increase in violence and crime that went hand in hand with the general breakdown of law and order, and growing poverty in the country.

Incidentally, successive governments have been conscious of the impact of the spread of such weapons on both the state and society. That is why there have been so many attempts, though feeble, at deweaponization. Nonetheless, most of the activities were primarily restricted to campaigns and rhetoric.

There has been an absence of a strategic assessment of the problem that would, in particular, desist certain governments from contributing towards the proliferation problem. For instance, the Benazir Bhutto government was known for awarding licenses of non-prohibited-caliber weapons to its party members. There were about 25,000 such licenses dished out during her second tenure at the helm.

Hence, one of the projects undertaken by the military government installed in October 1999 was to de-weaponize and clean the country of illegal weapons. It was to this effect that a campaign was launched in early 2001.

The de-weaponization programme, which was spearheaded by Moinuddin Haider, the then Interior minister, had a seven-point agenda: imposing a ban on the public show of weapons; non-issuance of arms licenses; collection of data on licensed equipment; starting a weapons buy-back programme; starting forced recovery of illegal weapons; bringing illegal production under the legal net (this would have been achieved through a dialogue with illegal manufacturers in tribal areas); imposing a quota system on weapons production (both in legal and illegal sectors).

The programme endeared the government to some sections of the civil society and to the audience during the UN conference on small arms and light weapons held in New York in July 2001. Pakistan’s official delegation to the UN that was headed by the Interior minister did not lose any opportunity to publicize the fact that the law-enforcement agencies had apprehended about 83,000 weapons, and that the programme was on track. There was certainly the realization in Islamabad that it needed to improve the country’s image abroad that had started to be known for the Kalashnikov culture.

Negotiations were even carried out with militant organizations with the request that they desist from a public show of weapons. This was certainly the only part of the de-weaponization programme that was fully implemented and remains effective to date.

The other points on the agenda were neglected due to a lack of will of the government or the changed circumstances after September 11, 2001. For instance, Islamabad lifted the ban on the issuance of new licenses for non-prohibited-bore weapons in March this year. The change in policy might have been in congruence with the political changes in the country, but one is certain that had this issue been high on the government’s agenda, it would have been possible to convince the newly formed political regime to honour the commitments laid out in the campaign.

It is quite possible for the military leadership to have prevailed upon the civilian governments that tend to view the issuance of licenses as a political sweetener needed to please influential members of their constituencies.

The other areas on the campaign agenda were found to be equally problematic. The government did not show enough will nor did it have sufficient resources to spare for the proposed buy-back programme that, in any case, would have been extremely complex. In fact, the collection of data was based on a parallel programme of people submitting their licenses and surrendering prohibited-bore weapons (that in most cases were semi-auto-loading and auto-loading weapons) to the government.

For this, Islamabad announced an amnesty period during people could surrender weapons voluntarily without facing any questions. At the end of the amnesty, police were to seize weapons forcibly. The plan suffered from some basic limitations such as the inability of the government to give confidence to the people that they would not be victimized or harassed by the police while surrendering illegal weapons.

Interviews with people who had tried to benefit from this scheme suggests that they were of the view that the state bureaucracy’s behaviour was most discouraging. The procedure was cumbersome, with the police providing the least help, if at all. Hence, it was only 88,759 weapons and 200,461 ammunitions that were collected from all over the country during the amnesty period. Most of these weapons were .12 caliber guns, pistols, and a very limited number of automatic weapons.

In the post-amnesty period Mid-July 2001-March 14, 2003, the police seized 146,421 weapons and 14,01,205 ammunitions. This record is, indeed, abysmal for a country that has a reputation of being awash with small arms and light weapons, and a transit point for weapons flowing into and from Afghanistan.

Interestingly, adding up the per-month recovery of weapons brings one to the same number of seizures that the Interior Ministry had declared prior to the de-weaponization campaign. One of the senior officials had stated during a meeting in 2001 that the police recovered about 54,000 weapons each year. However, there was no detail available regarding the disposal of such weapons.

In fact, in a recently published report based on statements from Interior Ministry officials, it was stated that weapons seized during the campaign were given to the law-enforcement agencies with the remainder getting publicly destroyed. As far as one can remember, it was only twice that the weapons were destroyed, and reports indicate that most of these were, in any case, obsolete.

Furthermore, the concerned civil society stakeholders, especially the non-governmental organizations that were present during the UN conference of July 2001 and had shown keen interest in de-weaponization, were not even informed of such action even though it had been part of the agreement that the government had signed in New York.

So, then, what happened to the campaign? There are three issues that one would like to highlight. First, in a country with a peculiar foreign policy agenda it was problematic to run such a campaign efficiently.

Second, there was no mechanism devised to assess the implementation and results of the campaign. For instance, official and non-official sources were of the view that in a number of cases, police would collude with illegal manufacturers and obtain obsolete equipment that would then be presented as seized weaponry. The police engaged in such a practice to earn accolade from senior management.

However, at no point was any assessment made of the patterns of seizure. In fact, one of the problems is that the government has no estimate of the number of illegal weapons floating in the country. The officials are quite aware of the lacunas in the campaign and the negligence of the police. They also understand that de-weaponization has to be relevant to the local environment with the need to shift the focus away from the quantitative approach where the numbers of weapons seized are important, to a new concept of linking it with the general increase in the sense of security of the public. However, this can only be made possible where the authorities are convinced of the need to clean the country of illegal arms.

Third, the campaign suffered from a lack of continuity. Some officials are of the view that the entire campaign was Moinuddin Haider’s brainchild. The moment he left, there was no one to take the ownership of the process. Furthermore, little effort has been made to meet the requirements of the UN programme of action. The laws to control the illegal trafficking of small arms and light weapons exist, but these have not been updated or revised after the aforementioned international meeting in New York.

Therefore, it is not surprising that there was no compilation of data on the quantity and quality of the collected weapons. The district administration all over the country has not provided the inventory of seized hardware. It is believed that this lack of action is primarily due to the fact that de-weaponization was never a priority of the central government.

Then, there was also the problem of erroneous assessments. For instance, bringing the illegal weapons manufacturing sector in the legal net required a more mature planning and understanding of issues than was exhibited during the course of the campaign.

Convincing illegal manufacturers in Darra and other places definitely needed a better approach than just bringing some weapons manufacturers to organizations like the Pakistan Ordnance Factories and placing them on the payroll. The idea was to put Darra manufacturers on the government payroll and dissuade them from illegal production by providing them alternative means of employment. This approach, however, is not sensitive to the reality that illegal manufacturers in the tribal areas are more receptive to laws of profit-maximization, and might not be pleased with limited resources that they would earn through government employment.

Of course, any campaign would have lacunas and problems, but what is essential for the government is to appreciate the link between the spread of weapons and its impact on society. The increase in crime and levels of violence in the country and various segments of the community are factors that need to be understood and highlighted during the course of a campaign.

There has to be an understanding of how women, children, minorities and other segments of the population suffer because of the violence caused due to the availability of arms. Cleaning the country from this menace is a huge task that can only be achieved through a public-private partnership. The government has to reach out to the concerned NGOs and seek their help in eradicating the menace.

Furthermore, it would be difficult to achieve this objective if the state policies, particularly in other key areas, contradict the goals of de-weaponization. What goes without saying is the need to strengthen law enforcement in the country that involves the police and the judiciary. In a country where the legal system seems to have collapsed, there is very little that can be achieved in the way of de-weaponization.