| Issue 24 Vol I, September 30, 2006 | Archive |
|
|
|
 |
|
Arms and the Man SMALL arms and light weapons are the principal instruments through which persistent and deeply-rooted political conflicts are altered with frightening frequency into war. Through war, crime, domestic violence and suicides, more than 10,000 lives are lost each week in which only small arms are used. How lethal! The easy accessibility intensifies and protracts armed conflicts, retard economic and social development, nurtures culture of violence, and produces an astonishing burden of personal tragedies and public crises.
Yet every day around 1,000 persons are killed and many more maimed worldwide in incidents of armed violence that involves small arms and is not much known. In this armed violence every year half a million people are killed or one person every minute. Is this not ironical that in poor countries of Asia and Africa, there are more arms than schools or hand pumps for clean drinking water or dispensaries to provide health care and medicines? At the global level, experts say, there is one weapon for every 10 persons, including men, women and children. How could world be safe? A united nation study puts the number of small firearms at 75 million in South Asia, 63 million of which are in civilian hands. India has a fair share of 40 million firearms; a large chunk is under government control. Let us not forget the small gun factories in Bihar, Rajasthan Gujarat and many other states. There is no precise data of illegal arms in the country, rough estimates put this number nearly half of the legal arms are. A Debased Arms Trade The world desperately needs a tough and well-enforced arms trade treaty to stop the present flow of weaponry to precious human lives. The governments across the globe and the United Nations ought to take concrete steps to check the sale and supply of arms. There had been discussions at several levels and those who wish to see the world more peaceful have been pressing hard for a total ban on the manufacturing and supply of these weapons like AK rifles, revolvers and pistols and ammunition besides, material used in making RDX and other plastic bombs. Not many governments support this just demand. They surely have a vested interest in the production and supply of these arms. The trade in small arms and light weapons may be only a fraction of conventional military equipment, but is just as lethal. data, based on estimates of military articles and services traded by value, claims that 35 countries are responsible for 90% of the world’s arms exports, and that, during the period 1997-2005, developing countries’ share of such imports increased to 68.5%.is this not pitiable that these countries should be concentrating on food, education, health, but are busy spending on the import of arms. Seven of the world’s top arms exporters - Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the US and Britain - belong to the Group of Eight (G8) richest countries. Amnesty International (AI), Oxfam International and the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), acting together in the Control Arms Campaign, published a report in June 2005 revealing how these countries supplied equipment, weapons and munitions and contributed to large scale killing of innocent children, women n and men. The rich counties thus undermine their commitments to poverty reduction, stability and human rights. These irresponsible exports by some G8 countries went to such poor and conflict-ridden countries as Sudan, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia and the Philippines. China and medium-sized, arms-producing states such as Brazil, Israel, the Netherlands, Singapore, North Korea, and South Africa make huge money in this business that adds to human misery. Take another example where governments act irresponsibly to meet their hegemonic interests. In June 2005 Amnesty International called on the governments of India, Britain, America, Belgium, Germany, South Africa and France to suspend all military and security-related transfers to Nepal until its government halted human rights violations. When India, America and Britain temporarily suspended supplies in 2004, the Nepalese government secured arms from China, covert supplies from the US government and Pakistan. Smugglers and dealers often work in networks along with transport and financial agents. Only about 35 countries have laws regulating them, so they collaborate with government officials to supply cheap weaponry to rulers and warlords besides insurgents. In July 2005 large quantities of weapons and ammunition from the Balkans and Eastern Europe were flowing into Africa’s Great Lakes region. Amnesty international has revealed the role played by arms dealers, brokers and transporters from Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Israel, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Britain and the US. It has traced the supply to the governments of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda and its distribution to armed groups and militia. Easy access to small arms undermines the disarmament and demobilisation. It contributes to violations of the ceasefire, inter-ethnic conflict and the use of child soldiers. Women and children are the worst sufferers from this armed violence at home and get little help. Glamorises gun culture and macho behaviour, increases sexual assaults on women and restricts their daily lives because of intimidation. The threat is greater during and after armed conflict. Most displaced people are women and children. Illegal armed groups and former military men use small arms to kidnap, sexually abuse and kill them with impunity. Noble laureates, Amnesty International and Oxfam International and IANSA have expanded their Control Arms Campaign to over 100 countries. It was launched in October 2003 to address the lack of a global system to track small arms and ammunition, and to hold arms traders accountable for weapons reaching gangs and war criminals. A UN mechanism on marking and tracing was finally agreed in 2005, but it excluded ammunition and is not legally binding. It has been of little help till now. According to Oxfam Control Arms Policy Adviser Binalakshmi Nepram, so many people are killed in armed violence but there is no legally binding instrument to effectively bring weapon trade under control. We should all be concerned over the proliferation of sophisticated arms in illegal hands. Binalakshmi says,” There are more regulations for film and music trade than for the arms trade. In a study conducted across Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, 93 per cent people wanted regulations on the arms trade. In India, it is so easy to get a firearm, under sports, ceremony or self-defence category… Licences bought in Nagaland under the garb of self-defence are being sold in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Bihar.” Small arms problem is huge enough to destroy the entire humanity without nuclear weapons being hurled on it. Global approach was initiated way back in 1990 after terrible conflicts in Africa and the Balkans including genocide in Rwanda. There is need of tough control and for that countries have to agree to a common approach and controls. Only vigilant public can exercise enough pressure to make this possible. |
|
‘War on Terror’ leads to Islamic Radicalism THE relationship between the Iraq war and terrorism, and the question of whether the United States and the world are safer, have been subjects of persistent debate since the Sept. 11 attacks. Stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown. The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document. The broad judgments of the new intelligence estimate are consistent with assessments of global terrorist threats by American allies and independent terrorism experts. The panel investigating the London terrorist bombings of July 2005 reported in May that the leaders of Britain's domestic and international intelligence services, MI5 and MI6, "emphasized to the committee the growing scale of the Islamist terrorist threat." More recently, the Council on Global Terrorism, an independent research group of respected terrorism experts, assigned a grade of "D+" to United States efforts over the past five years to combat Islamic extremism. The council concluded that "there is every sign that radicalization in the Muslim world is spreading rather than shrinking." According to Dr. Emile Nakhleh who has spent 15 years in the CIA and retired in June as the Director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program, "I have come to believe that our presence is part of the problem and that we should begin to seriously devise an exit strategy. There's a civil war in Iraq and our presence is contributing to the violence. We've become a lightning rod–we're not restricting the violence, we're contributing to it. Iraq has galvanized jihadists; our presence is what is attracting them. We need to get out of there." The Bush administration, on the other hand, has all along ignored the NIE and has consistently argued its Iraq policies have made the American people safer from terrorism. "The world is safer," Bush argued last month, "the Iraqi people are better, the cause for liberty is more advanced because Saddam Hussein is no longer in power." "America is safer. ... We are safer because we are on the offensive against our enemies overseas." "I've heard this theory about everything was just fine until we arrived [in Iraq]," Bush said last month, "and kind of 'we're going to stir up the hornet's nest' theory. It just doesn't hold water, as far as I'm concerned." When confronted with a poll showing most Americans think our actions overseas are creating more terrorists, Dick Cheney said, "I can't buy that." (Cheney also has dismissed the suggestion "that by liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein, we simply stirred up a hornet's nest.") "We will replace violent dictatorships with peaceful democracies," Bush said in Atlanta recently. "We'll make America, the Middle East, and the world more secure." The report mentions the possibility that Islamic militants who fought in Iraq could return to their home countries, "exacerbating domestic conflicts or fomenting radical ideologies." The new National Intelligence Estimate was overseen by David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats, who commissioned it in 2004 after he took up his post at the National Intelligence Council. Mr. Low declined to be interviewed for this article. The estimate concludes that the radical Islamic movement has expanded from a core of Qaeda operatives and affiliated groups to include a new class of "self-generating" cells inspired by Al Qaeda's leadership but without any direct connection to Osama bin Laden or his top lieutenants. In early 2005, the National Intelligence Council released a study concluding that Iraq had become the primary training ground for the next generation of terrorists, and that veterans of the Iraq war might ultimately overtake Al Qaeda's current leadership in the constellation of the global jihad leadership. But the new intelligence estimate is the first report since the war began to present a comprehensive picture about the trends in global terrorism. In recent months, some senior American intelligence officials have offered glimpses into the estimate's conclusions in public speeches. "New jihadist networks and cells, sometimes united by little more than their anti-Western agendas, are increasingly likely to emerge," said Gen. Michael V. Hayden, during a speech in San Antonio in April, the month that the new estimate was completed. "If this trend continues, threats to the U.S. at home and abroad will become more diverse and that could lead to increasing attacks worldwide," said the general, who was then Mr. Negroponte's top deputy and is now director of the Central Intelligence Agency. For more than two years, there has been tension between the Bush administration and American spy agencies over the violence in Iraq and the prospects for a stable democracy in the country. Some intelligence officials have said the White House has consistently presented a more optimistic picture of the situation in Iraq than justified by intelligence reports from the field. Meanwhile, the macabre dance of death continues in Iraq. The civilian death toll has risen inexorably for the entire duration of the US-led military presence in Iraq following the initial invasion. That is the grim reality uncovered by ongoing tracking of media reports by the Iraq Body Count project (IBC). It counted the total lives lost between 43500 and 48500 since the attack. According to an Associated Press count at least 2,682 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 2,133 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. The British military has reported 118 deaths; Italy, 32; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 17; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, El Salvador, four each; Slovakia, three; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Romania, one death each. |
|
|
A fact known
worldwide is that major violent conflicts have claimed millions of lives
since the First World War. It is also well documented that 20th century has
been the bloodiest century in human history. These are not the lethal bombs
alone that play havoc with human existence and nature. Since the World War
II several million innocent people have died in countries like India,
Vietnam, Korea, Cambodia, Congo, Nicaragua, former Yugoslavia, Western
Africa and other countries. No country and no civilization have remained
untouched by war and violence. If during the war like the present day
Israeli attacks on Gaza, Lebanon and Syria and American daily bombing in
Afghanistan and Iraq leads inevitably to destruction and death, the small
arms in the hands of insurgents, separatists , war lords and criminals play
an equally fatal role in destroying human life.