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WFSA News and Information



December 2005

December 26, 2005

African gathering concerning SALW

In mid-December more than fifty African countries were represented in a meeting in Windhoek, Namibia, setting the stage for the 2006 Programme of Action for the Small Arms and Light Weapons Conference, which continues from 2001.

While it is generally recognized that the African continent is not a large producer of small arms, it is also recognized as being among the most affected by criminal misuse.

It was agreed that the United Nations should be approached for monetary and technical help in preparing new legislation. Security of armouries and the management of arms stockpiles are vital in preventing theft for criminal purposes.

The African Union's Director for Peace and Security, Geofrey Mugumya, is quoted as calling for global support for the work. Preparing developing nations for more sophisticated management of their ordnance will include the need to manage borders and keep records.

According to The Namibian, the meeting discussed the need for all countries to look to causes behind conflict so these could be rectified, but it also made mention of the need to allow defensive arms in order to resist invasion.


December 9, 2005

South Africa's new gun laws faltering

Heavy criticism directed at the recently-altered gun laws in South Africa has resulted in the likelihood of further amendments.

The Safety and Security Minister, Charles Nqakula, is reported by Business Today ( http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A123198) to have taken advice from firearm groups, subsequent to meetings held with them in September. Spokesman Trevor Bloem admitted that the Minister had been consulting widely upon becoming aware the legislation needs amendment.

It has been widely reported that since enactment of the new laws, the Central Firearms Control Register has been falling further and further behind in attempting to carry out its processes. This has rendered unlawful the ownership of guns by longstanding legitimate users who are trying to obey the laws but who cannot be relicensed because of the long delays.

The South African Gunowners Association is reported to have suggested the police should undertake an audit of existing licences to "confirm and verify the details of such firearms", leaving all existing licences remaining valid. The present requirement is for all licences to be nullified, so the licence owner is required to apply for it afresh. This has caused the administration to be completely swamped with applications which have been processed so slowly that the backlog has now grown to many years and is considered completely unmanageable.


December 8, 2005

Pressure on Pakistan

A report in the UK's Daily Telegraph has said that pressure is being brought to bear on the arms bazaars of Pakistan to changes their approach to arms sales. For over two decades, military-rifle copies have been made in Dara Adam Khel, and the government under President Pervez Musharraf is concerned that the North West Frontier province is being used by al-Qa'eda.

The article suggests the US is attempting to have the local emphasis change from military-rifle cloning to the production of sporting arms. A senior Pakistani spokesman, Shahzad Arbab, is quoted as saying, "We want to legalize the market by allowing them to produce weaponry, in particular hunting rifles for the US, under licence," said Shahzad Arbab, a senior administrator. It is also intended to have direct sales restricted to those with licences.

It is unusual to find a news report acknowledging that firearms manufacture is easily maintained as a cottage industry, in which case very little can be done to regulate it thoroughly. The metal used in the case of the Pakistani production is mostly scrap from shipyards. The components for turning out military-style automatic weapons, both the raw materials and the skilled labour, are readily available everywhere and all the more so in an environment of poverty. As usual it points to the wisdom of keeping policymakers aware that regulation of the lawful trade does not magically obliterate either the local expertise or the raw materials available to those who do not wish to be regulated.

The article suggests that not only small arms but light weapons such as anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns are similarly manufactured in neighbouring areas. According to a local worker interviewed for the article, governmental attempts to draw workers away from the cottage trade and into governmentally-approved areas of production have been unsuccessful, because the pay offered has not been a sufficient inducement.

(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/12/02/wpak02.xml&sSh eet=/news/2005/12/02/ixworld.html)

December 4, 2005

Czech Republic focus on guns

Students of firearm-related matters may be interested to learn that Czech Radio Praha has devoted a number of programs over the last months to matters surrounding both their own local, civilian firearm ownership and the wider, international implications of it.

The rate of Czech arms production is high and it has traditionally been important for the economy. There is a very substantial hunting culture throughout the region, and there have long been respected civilian arms makers filling an important niche in manufacture of high quality sporting rifles and shotguns. After WWII the communist Czechoslovakia continued arms production, but the emphasis was diverted into extensive manufacture of military-style arms, and today there are still about a hundred countries which buy their exports.

A February interview delved briefly into the owner density for the country, using the figures published by the Swiss Small Arms Survey, and concluding that the Czech Republic at three per cent of population having gun licences is in the lower bracket of ownership in Europe, on a par with Netherlands and Hungary. With about six registered guns per hundred of population, the Czech Republic is said to be similar in gun density to Italy

The number of registered guns used in crime in the Czech Republic is so low as to be statistically negligible.

In the material proffered in various pieces published on the radio station's website (for instance, (http://www.radio.cz/en/article/63325) there is, as usual, no meaningful comparison of actual murder and violent crime rates between those countries with high lawful gun densities and those with low. Much of the coverage makes the usual error of an underlying assumption that there must be something more inherently desirable about low legal gun densities. But the requirements for a licence to own a firearm legally in the Czech Republic are very stringent. A doctor has to certify mental and physical fitness, and ownership of even hunting longarms is not permitted before eighteen years of age.

In a piece that went to air in September 2005, a Filip Pospisil is quoted as having been "campaigning for better transparency" in all arms transfers, because the large-scale exports of arms have not been confined to stable regions. He also said that there are no end-user certificates, which would be designed to force customers to declare that the product will be used in approved countries. Annual record-keeping is also lacking, so that total numbers of arms exported are unknown. The Czech Republic as a member of the EU has to abide by its rulings. Some attention is now being paid to its conduct in export of arms.

An NGO has now been formed, called Transparency International. Barbora Pechotova speaks for it: "Our idea is that parliamentary control could bring more transparency into the arms trade. But at the same time we have to be really careful that people do not say that public control is not important any more. So we have to push through both kinds of control: parliamentary, executive as well as public."

In this country as in many others it would appear that activist groups intend to agitate against private gun owners under the banner of preventing illicit large-scale governmentally-permitted transfers of military arms. At government level, there are huge quantities of munitions subject to movement of various kinds. The same report revealed that the Czech Army has 20,000 tonnes of redundant ammunition. 46,000 tonnes are expected to be disposed of ecologically. A number of countries, including Afghanistan and Georgia, have each received several thousand tonnes. Very large amounts of ammunition exist in the country and in fact it is still being dug up in usable condition from dumps dating as far back as WWII.


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