GUN CONTROL - US rebukes UN

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U.S. rebukes U.N. gun control proposals

By Betsy Pisik, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

NEW YORK -- The United States laid down a stern assessment of international gun-control efforts yesterday, telling scores of governments and the United Nations that Washington will not accept any limits on civilian possession or arms transfers already allowed under U.S. law.

"The United States will not join consensus on a final document that contains measures abrogating the constitutional right to bear arms," Undersecretary of State John Bolton said.

His remarks were a vivid contrast to most of the other speeches made on the opening day of an international conference to limit the flow of illicit small arms and light weapons, and were quickly criticized by gun control advocates and even other nations.

"Like many countries," Mr. Bolton said, "the United States has a cultural tradition of hunting and sport shooting. We, therefore, do not begin with the presumption that all small arms and light weapons are the same or that they are all problematic."

He warned delegates that Washington cannot accept any program of action that includes restrictions on civilian ownership of military-style weapons, limits production or sales that fall within U.S. laws or restricts sales to opposition forces.

Instead, he advocated focusing efforts on regions of conflict and instability.

The new Small Arms Survey finds more than 500 million small arms and light weapons around the planet -- enough, it says, to provide one weapon for every 11 persons. Analysts say that 90 percent of all illegal guns start out as legal ones, requiring a more comprehensive solution to a problem that claims an estimated half-million lives a year.

Mr. Bolton rejected any controls on legal weapons, emphasizing the need for strong export controls to keep powerful guns out of the wrong hands.

"We strongly support measures calling for effective export and import controls, restraint in trade to regions of conflict, observance and enforcement of embargoes, strict regulation of arms brokers, transparency in exports, and improving security of arms stockpiles and destruction of excess," Mr. Bolton said.

"These measures, taken together, form the core of a regime that, if accepted by all countries, would greatly mitigate the problems we all have gathered here to address."

Gun control is such an emotional issue in the United States that the United Nations on Thursday had to issue a special fact sheet explaining why the nonbinding conference would not seek to take the legally obtained revolvers and hunting rifles out of American holsters and gun racks.

Despite such assurances, several anti-U.N. demonstrations were scheduled yesterday.

And in West Mead, Pa., gun smith and gun dealer Darrell Sivik burned a U.N. flag to protest what he sees as "a 15-day gun-confiscation conference."

A similar flag-burning was to have taken place in Las Vegas at sunset yesterday. "Look, it's an emotional issue in our country," Mr. Bolton told reporters yesterday afternoon.

The U.S. position puts Washington on something of a collision course with some of its closest allies, who advocate stronger international controls on gun sales and more aggressive restrictions on the legal gun trade.

American concerns over small arms and light weapons is well known to U.N. officials, foreign governments and disarmament advocates. Nonetheless, several said yesterday that they were dismayed at how harsh the American statement was.

"He must accept the need for national action, for regional action," said one European diplomat, who dismissed the tone of the speech as "the Bolton factor." He said it was strange that the United States would find itself more closely allied with arms producers such as China and India than with the European Union.

"This is very strongly worded," said Loretta Bondi, advocacy director of the Fund For Peace, a U.S. group. "These red lines were enunciated as red lights."

Amnesty International yesterday condemned the United States, Russia and China -- the world's biggest arms manufacturers -- for watering down or eliminating language in the draft that would highlight the role of small arms in human rights abuses.

In his statement yesterday on behalf of the European Union, Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel stressed the need to rein in illicit weapons while they are still legal.

"It is our duty to consider the legal aspects directly involved in this illicit trade," said Mr. Michel. "We need to take steps to reduce the number of weapons."

The European Union and several Asian nations yesterday pressed for strong follow-up measures, a tacit acknowledgment that this particular conference isn't going to yield a strong or sustainable agreement. The United States prefers ad hoc sessions devoted to specific aspects of the problem.

About 120 nations are participating in the U.N. Conference on Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects.

They are to craft a nonbinding program of action to curb the flow of illicit small arms by the conference's July 20 conclusion.

While diplomats in New York talked about reducing stockpiles, governments around the world took concrete steps in a U.N.-created "day of destruction," burning or otherwise nullifying surplus weapons in Cambodia, Mali, Brazil, the Netherlands and other nations. In Pristina, Yugoslavia, the U.N. Development Program yesterday destroyed 500 small arms.

No such events were staged at U.N. headquarters, although a 5-ton sculpture made of discarded weapons and ammunition was displayed for visitors.

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2001

Answers

In his statement yesterday on behalf of the European Union, Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel stressed the need to rein in illicit weapons while they are still legal.

Huh? Legal illicit weapons?

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2001


This is quite a change from the Democratic push with Clinton. Looks like Bush is going to keep the common guy armed. Great Texas legacy.

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2001

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/193/world/With_guns_destabilizing_Afri ca:.shtml

With guns destabilizing Africa, aid groups try to destroy them one bonfire at a time

By Chris Hawley, Associated Press, 7/12/2001 20:46

UNITED NATIONS (AP) From Ethiopia to Congo, cheap, light weapons are destablizing Africa. And even if the continent's civil wars are resolved, the leftover arms could plague countries for decades, diplomats warned Thursday

''The problem is so acute and urgent that any further waiting or delay will seriously undermine democracy,'' Marsden Madoka, Kenya's presidential minister of state, said at a U.N. conference on small arms trafficking.

Millions of weapons, many of them bought illegally, are believed to be circulating in Africa. Many are left over from civil wars, which affected one-fifth of Sub-Saharan Africa's population during the 1990s, the United Nations said.

Worldwide, there are some 500 million small arms. But while stockpiles have decreased by 50 percent in Europe and the Americas since 1994, they have failed to diminish much in Africa, according to the Bonn International Center for Conversion, a pro-disarmament organization.

''Africa has increasingly become a theater ... for illicit arms mostly introduced from elswhere,'' said Alfred K. Mubanda, Uganda's minister of state for foreign affairs.

Controlling such imports is next to impossible for countries with vast territory and poor governments. So to fight the spread of weapons, churches, aid groups and the United Nations have launched some of the largest weapons trade-in programs in the world.

In Mozambique, still recovering from a 15-year civil war that ended in 1992, the Anglican church has collected 200,000 guns, land mines, grenades and other weapons in the last five years in exchange for bicycles, plows, sewing machines and building materials.

In Somalia, a U.N. program has brought in 100,000 weapons. And in the Republic of the Congo, where a civil war ended in 1999, a U.N. program has brought in more than 10,200 weapons in exchange for dlrs 350 small-business grants. The United Nations has similar programs in the Solomon Islands, Niger and Albania.

The guns are melted down, crushed or blown apart with explosives. In Mali, some 3,000 guns were torched at a public gathering in Timbuktu.

But the collection work has not been easy many Africans do not trust police or their fragile governments and say they need the weapons to defend themselves.

''Just buying weapons and putting them out of commission is not going to solve the problem,'' said Maximo Halty, manager of the disarmament program in the Republic of the Congo.

He said former fighters often apply to the program in groups led by their former commanders which only reinforces their allegiance to the military. Instead, he said, programs need to deal with former combatants one-on-one.

Halty also said programs need to move swiftly to disarm the population in the wake of peace agreements. Otherwise, those who still have guns will use them to bargain for more aid.

''There can be no second time for this, or else it will become a reward system,'' Halty said.

During a forum on such programs, U.N. officials praised a West African moratorium on manufacture and trade of small arms, which they said has helped control violence.

But other experts urged African governments to put more pressure on arms manufacturers to better track sales of their weapons. Governments also need to crack down on arms dealers, they said, despite resistance from the sellers themselves.

Britain committed at the conference to investing at least $27.3 million to combat small arms problems.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001


Iposted the above article because it has me thinking that perhaps this is the UN's agenda, the Secretary General being African, afterall.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

...many Africans do not trust police or their fragile governments and say they need the weapons to defend themselves.

Good line there, eh?

Halty also said programs need to move swiftly to disarm the population in the wake of peace agreements. Otherwise, those who still have guns will use them to bargain for more aid.

Bargain for more aid is a red herring. The population should remain armed as an incentive for the governments to work for the people. don't you think?

[Good catch on the article.]

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001



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