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Terrorists are increasing because of Small Arms
Added: (Thu Jul 28 2005)
Terrorists are increasing because of Small Arms
Kamala Sarup,
Small arms are dangerous
People who kill innocent men, women and children for any cause are terrorist. The terrorists are engaged in illegal arms trade and threat the innocent people. They must be hunted down and brought to justice.
Any support for them is totally unacceptable. Support for terrorism must end completely and permanently.
Every nation are currently facing the crisis of small arms. Even though no civilian is issued a license for small arms, administrative measures have failed to control illegal arms trade. Illicit small arms as a huge global threat.More than 5 million people have been killed by small arms used in conflicts over the last decade. The use of these weapons has crippled economies and impoverished millions.
Every nation should control small arms by monitoring its borders more effectively and should established to regulate legal and illicit arms transfers. Because of illegal arms trafficking in the country undermined country's ability to sustain peace and blocked sustainable development.
Small arms did enormous damage to Innocent people beyond death, injury and causing forced displacement. Terrorists routinely recruit children and youths for combat and often forced to become fighters, human shields, and sex slaves. Many children are abducted and more than a half of the armed groups are under 12.
Many youths are unemployed, when someone promises them money and gives them a weapon, we cannot prevent these young men from murdering.
Socio-economic development and employment promotion policy would help those jobless youths to resolve their problems and would never join the terrorist force. Thus, political, socio-economic, corruption and ideological factors that must be addressed for the terrorism to be finally resolved in any nation.
People who have suffered from direct attacks by small weapons, experience emotional trauma. Terrorist's violence has a devastating impact on tourism, which is the leading source of revenue.
The last decade was seen terrifying abuses of human rights in armed conflicts around the world including Nepal. More factories and more countries throughout the world are legally producing small arms and developing countries are exporting them.
There are around half a billion military small arms around the world.
Some half a million people around the world are killed by small arms.
Estimates of the black market trade in small arms range from US$2-10 billion a year. There are at least 639 million firearms in the world today, of which 59% are legally held by civilians.
According to the UN report one half billion small weapons are circulating throughout the world and these arms are not expensive, easily available and easy to use. UN also said "unlike nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, there are no international treaties or other legal instruments for dealing with these weapons, which States and also individual legal owners rely on for their defense needs."
The Inter-American Development Bank has estimated the direct and indirect costs of small arms violence at $140 to $170 billion per year in Latin America alone. According to the Independent Small Arms Survey 2002, small arms are implicated in well over 1,000 deaths every single day.
According to the findings of an independent study commissioned by the UNDP and IOM in Congo, an estimated 70,000 small arms and light weapons fell into the hands of terrorists during the conflicts of 1993-1999. Of these, 40,000 are still thought to be in circulation, constituting a serious threat to security and sustainable development.
"The five permanent members of the UN Security Council - France, Russia, China, the UK, and the USA - together account for 88 per cent of the world's conventional arms exports; and these exports contribute regularly to gross abuses of human rights." as a report from the control arms campaign, Shattered Lives, mentions.
The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) describes that, in effect, small arms are weapons of mass destruction.
For the first time in the United Nation's history, the issue of small arms was finally a topic of conversation at a UN Security Council meeting in 1999, where Kofi Annan also noted the efforts of NGOs in this. Even in Oslo, Norway, July 1998, there was a meeting where representatives from a number of countries were present to tackle and control the spread of small arms.
UN must impose, monitor and enforce in situations where civilians are targeted by terrorists, where widespread and systematic violations of humanitarian and human rights law are committed by terrorists, and where children are recruited by terrorists.
The most effective ways to prevent small arms are strict export and import controls, strong laws, and secure stockpiles.
In this critical context, can the UN play an effective role controlling arms especially in south Asia and resolve terrorist violence?
A Nepali journalist Kamala Sarup is an editor of peacejournalism.com