LATIN AMERICA: "The More Guns, the More
Violence"
By
Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY (IPS) - Traffic in light
weapons and small arms is one of Latin
America's major disarmament concerns,
because they fuel urban violence, especially
in countries like Mexico, Guatemala and
Brazil.
This is one of the issues on the agenda of
the 62nd Annual Conference for
Non-Governmental Organisations associated
with the United Nations Department of Public
Information (DPI/NGO), attended by 1,700
delegates from 75 countries under the banner
"For Peace and Development: Disarm Now!"
"These weapons, trafficked illegally for
huge profits, are used by common criminals
and organised crime to attack society and
the members of the security forces," Mexican
Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa said
Wednesday at the start of the conference,
which is being held at a former convent near
the historic centre of the Mexican capital.
Small arms are a particular scourge in
Mexico, because of the widespread activities
of drug cartels. An undetermined number of
weapons are acquired on the legal market in
the United States, or are smuggled in from
Central America.
Defence Ministry statistics indicate that
between 2000 and 2006 a total of 257,993
firearms were destroyed, 723 lost, 2,367
stolen, 238,838 registered and 31,931
transferred between owners or jurisdictions.
Since taking office in late 2006,
conservative President Felipe Calderón has
deployed thousands of soldiers around the
country to fight drug trafficking. However,
since then drug-related killings have
soared, leaving over 14,000 people dead up
to August this year, according to unofficial
counts.
Behind these deaths are the small and light
arms which provide the drug mafias with most
of their fire power.
Worldwide there are more than 500 million
light arms in circulation, an average of one
for every 12 people. They were instrumental
in 46 out of the 49 major conflicts fought
since 1990, and were responsible for the
deaths of four million people, most of them
civilians, women and children, according to
the United Nations.
It is estimated that only about half the
global trade in small arms is legal.
Furthermore, legally exported weapons often
end up on the black market.
Illegal dealing in small arms is estimated
to net between two billion and 10 billion
dollars a year, according to the
International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA),
founded in 1998 and made up of 800 NGOs from
120 countries.
Nearly seven million rifles and handguns are
manufactured every year, mainly in the
United States and the European Union.
To tackle the problem, a United Nations
Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small
Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects
was held Jul. 9-20, 2001 at U.N.
headquarters in New York.
"In Mexico, armed violence and violence
against women are severe problems. The more
guns, the more violence," Héctor Guerra,
IANSA representative in this country, told
IPS.
IANSA is proposing legislation to ban or
revoke firearm licenses for people convicted
of using guns to commit gender violence.
The high levels of violent crime in this
country of over 107 million people have had
an impact on life expectancy, shortening it
by more than half a year, according to a
study by researchers from the United States,
Canada and Switzerland published late July
in the British journal Criminology and
Criminal Justice.
Mexico is a keen supporter of efforts toward
an international agreement on the small arms
trade and fighting illegal arms traffic.
The proliferation of nuclear weapons is
another concern at the DPI/NGO Conference,
which runs through Friday. This is the
second consecutive year that the meeting has
been held outside of U.N. headquarters in
New York.
In his opening address, U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that
there are 20 million nuclear warheads on the
planet, available for instant use, and
called on the international community to
work towards nuclear disarmament.
"There can be no development without peace
and no peace without development.
Disarmament can provide the means for both,"
Ban said.
The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty
(START-I) signed in 1991 by the United
States and the then Soviet Union, which
imposed a cap on the nuclear arsenals of
both powers, expires in December.
On Sept. 24, a special session of the U.N.
Security Council will discuss global nuclear
non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament.
A conference to review the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), in force
since 1970, will also meet in New York in
May 2010.
U.S. activist Jody Williams, winner of the
1997 Nobel Peace Prize for her campaign
against land mines, told reporters Wednesday
she would "press for a convention on nuclear
weapons," because "if we continue to talk
about the eventual elimination of these
weapons," they will never actually be
banned.
The Latin American and Caribbean region is a
nuclear weapons-free zone under the Treaty
for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in
Latin America and the Caribbean, better
known as the Treaty of Tlatelolco, which was
signed in Mexico City in 1967. Mexico was
one of the sponsors of the ban.
The U.N. strategy for achieving a world free
of nuclear weapons proposes that disarmament
must enhance the security of nations, be
reliably verified, be rooted in legal
obligations, be visible to the public and
anticipate emerging dangers from other
weapons, Ban said.
Williams said that if, at this critical
juncture, NGOs did not step in and push for
the abolition of nuclear weapons, the moment
would be lost, and a new, uncontrolled and
terrifying arms race might ensue - a
frightening prospect for the future.
In Guerra's view, this week's conference
should conclude with a strong declaration
against all kinds of arms, particularly
small arms and light weapons. |
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