UNITED NATIONS: A UN conference on small arms opened on Monday with a renewed call for urgent measures to stop the illicit trade in light weapons, which claims at least 500,000 deaths worldwide each year.

The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), a coalition of over 500 civil society groups and peace activists, complained that two years after a UN agreement to stop the proliferation of small arms, few governments have made much progress.

IANSA director Rebecca Peters told reporters that nearly all those deaths by small arms — including rifles, military assault weapons and handguns — are preventable. “It’s time for government and civil society to work together to stop the killing,” he said.

The 2001 UN conference on small arms produced an elaborate programme of action (POA) urging the UN’s 191 member states to make illicit gun production/possession a criminal offence and calling for the establishment of national coordinating agencies on small arms.

The POA, which was a politically binding document, also urged member states to identify and destroy surplus weapons, keep track of officially-held guns and mark guns at point of manufacture in order to track them down rapidly.

But a 192-page study by IANSA, released on Monday, said only 19 member states have launched a review of national small arms legislation; only 65 states have submitted national progress reports to the United Nations; and only 37 states have established national committees to coordinate action on small arms.

The 37 states range from Angola and Botswana to Sri Lanka and Uganda. Of the five permanent members of the Security Council, who are also the world’s largest arms exporters, only Britain and the United States have set up national coordination agencies. The other three permanent members — France, China and Russia — have been lagging far behind.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told delegates on Monday that “it is difficult to overstate the importance of implementing the Programme of Action. After all, small arms and light weapons cause mass destruction”.

“They kill about 60 people an hour or half a million people a year, 90 per cent of them women and children,” he said.

This week is the first opportunity member states have to exchange information on how far they have come in implementing the POA at the national, regional and global level — “and to take stock of how far there is to go”, Annan added.

“Less quantifiable, but no less palpable, are the wider consequences of small arms proliferation, in terms of conflicts fuelled, peacekeepers threatened, aid denied, respect for law undermined, and development stunted. As I have said before, they are truly a global scourge,” the Secretary-General warned.

Nicola Reindorp of the London-based Oxfam told reporters that over one million people have lost their lives in incidents involving small arms since the 2001 U.N. conference.

“The international community must act now to stop the trade in small arms before the death toll rises even further,” she added.

Reindorp said that the illicit trade in small arms stymies development, deepening poverty by fueling conflict.

“Civilians around the world need more than what the Programme of Action can provide. They need all governments to agree to binding international standards for arms transfers,” she added.

Paul Eavis of Saferworld said that in many parts of the world, little has happened since the UN action programme was agreed, although significant progress has been made in some countries.

This week’s conference, he said, is a vital opportunity for states to reaffirm their commitment to curb the flow of small arms.

In a briefing paper released on Monday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that small arms have been misused by governments and rebel forces in Burma, Colombia, Cote de’ Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Macedonia and Nepal, and in fighting in Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories.

“In post-conflict Afghanistan and Iraq, the widespread availability of small arms has threatened security, undermined the rule of law, harmed peace-building efforts, and put civilians in grave danger,” HRW said.

The New York-based human rights organisation also said that small arms are used to carry out abuses in countries not affected by war — such as Cambodia, Guatemala, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria and Serbia.

“Governments have a long way to go to address the scourge of small arms,” said Lisa Misol, arms trade researcher at HRW. “They should start by cleaning up their own behaviour.”

IANSA said that the most successful initiatives in the last two years have been partnerships between governments and non- governmental organizations (NGOs), and the progress has often been slowest in countries where civil society is excluded.

The IANSA study urged member states to review and strengthen legislation controlling manufacture, possession, trade, transfers and brokering of small arms.

The study also called for the creation an international instrument to mark and trace small arms, and an international treaty regulating arms transfers.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.