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TechnoratiActivists Call For Arms Trade Treaty at UN
UNITED NATIONS - Former U.N. military commanders, pressure groups and diplomats urged the United Nations on Tuesday to pass more stringent controls on the global arms trade.
At a news conference organized by aid group Oxfam International, they called for a framework to prevent arms transfers in cases where they are likely to be used in violation of international law, to fuel conflict or undermine development.
There is no international regulatory framework currently in place that regulates the sale of arms, and national and regional controls that do exist vary widely, said Anna MacDonald, a campaign manager for Oxfam.
"At best (this) means that there is a patchwork of arms controls around the world and at worst it means that it's very easy for arms dealers ... to find their way around these regulations," she said.
The campaign is aimed at passing an arms trade treaty as part of a process that began in the U.N. General Assembly last year when 153 countries voted in favor, 24 abstained and only the United States voted against starting work on one.
At the time, the powerful U.S. gun rights lobby, the National Rifle Association, or NRA, rallied its supporters to oppose the treaty.
John Duncan, Britain's ambassador for multilateral arms control and disarmament, said he had met industry representatives and lobbying groups, including the NRA, in the United States, Eastern Europe and Asia.
"The (treaty) is not about civilian possession as some would have you believe," he said. "It is not about preventing countries' rights to equip themselves for self defense. It is about ensuring that the arms trade is responsible."
"This is about the trade in weapons, the trade between states," he said.
Maj. Gen. Patrick Cammaert, former commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo, described his frustration at disarming militants who had easy access to new weapons.
"Sometimes you had the feeling that you were mopping the floor when the tap was open. One moment you have disarmed a group and then, a week later, you know that it is the same group, with fresh arms and ammunition," he said.
© 2007 Reuters
13 Comments so far
Show Allhttp://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade.asp
The arms traders are the merchants of mass murder and such trade is a boomerang which comes back to haunt them.
Africa has been impoverished by the arms trade Africa received about 350 billion in aid and spent the equivalent in arms.
The present administration believes that violence is as a means of solving problems so it is not surprising that there are citizens who emulate the President, who in some sense, is the international equivalent of the typical high school shooter.
The more hated and isolated the shooter the more he shoots. Even claiming God told him to do it.
Violence begets violence and governments must not only ban illegal trade but legal trade as well, to the victims of war the distinction is irrelevant. Hay man kill me with a legal weapon it feels so much better!
If we are to continue to evolve and not destroy ourselves WMD must be completely eliminated and the whole arms trade halted. Governments are the worst offenders.
Our spaceship is hurtling towards disaster because of weapons we must join hands and cooperate to survive instead we are fighting in the isles.
The first class passengers may feel safer but they will crash with the rest of the passengers even if their cabin is sealed off.
http://peacesource.net/
Enn, the Security Council doesn't need disbanding it's the members' veto powers that need removing.
It's the veto, introduced at the UN's conception, that has ultimately crippled the UN's peacemaking work.
Gun-running, as amerikan as bootlegging and the CIA running drugs and weapons and just as impossible to stop in the rampant blood and guts for profit that viper capitalism has spawned. Al Capone was a gentleman in comparison to these self-righteous thugs!
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2007/octubre/vier5/40jet-i.html
"Jet linked to CIA crashes in Yucatan with drug shipment aboard
• Incident takes place at a time when that Mexican peninsula is a theater of war among Cuban-American drug traffickers handling the lucrative business of illegal emigration
BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD—Granma International staff writer—
"A private jet which crashed in the vicinity of Cancun on September 24 with a cargo of six tons of cocaine and heroin aboard had been utilized by the CIA in recent months for transferring prisoners to and from the U.S. interrogation camp on Guantánamo. The aircraft, a Grumman Gulf Stream II model, with U.S. registration number N987SA, officially belongs to a company in the south of Florida, which bought it just eight days before the presumed accident, the circumstances of which are murky."
Nice effort, but there always seems to be enough weapons around when some jackass wants a war. Might be the profits.
I'm not quite certain of the point you're attempting to make, andersl - - are you more concerned about our stcks and bonds, or about life and peace and a chance for more people to live lives without the terror of war and uncontrolled use of firearms, IED's, bombs and explosives with DU? This current Administration is the supreme terrorist organization extant!
cheencheen, "…they called for a framework to prevent arms transfers in cases where they are likely… to fuel conflict…"
"When DON'T arms transfers fuel conflict? Isn't that the point of arms? What, are they supposed to promote peace?"
Good point, cheencheen
Here's a dream we should hold in Common: Disband the UN Security Council as they are nations that have an interest in warmongering and are the largest arms traders in the world. If we are to have a security council in the UN let it be the nations who do not wage war constantly and consistently, making a mockery of the UN and security. The first to go should be the Duperpower; the Tyrant of the Free World and Peace, the Undemocratic State of America.
From peacesource.net The merchants of death
huffingtonpost.com/2007/09/30/us-remains-largest-arms_n_66534.html
The United States maintained its role as the leading supplier of weapons to the developing world in 2006, followed by Russia and Britain, ...Congressional Study ... Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia were the top buyers.
(sales) nearly $28.8 billion in 2006.
All arms trade should be banned and arms dealers treated like pedophiles.
The governments are supplying the terrorism they supposedly abhor. It might seem to help the economy but its a boomerang.
The same money could be spent on improving the developing countries and undermining the root causes of war.
from peacesource.net The merchants of death
huffingtonpost.com/2007/09/30/us-remains-largest-arms_n_66534.html
The United States maintained its role as the leading supplier of weapons to the developing world in 2006, followed by Russia and Britain, ...Congressional Study ... Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia were the top buyers.
(sales) nearly $28.8 billion in 2006.
All arms trade should be banned and arms dealers treated like pedophiles.
In a sense the governments are supplying the terrorism they supposedly abhor.
The same money could be spent on improving the deloping countries and undermining the root causes of war.
This is yet another point of shame I feel deeply for the disjointedness in our foreign policy from our professed collective belief in democracy. The US is the major arms dealer and it turns a blind eye toward atrocities. Yet Americans have proven again and again that they are willing to fight for other peoples' freedoms. Even in Iraq, the bulk of the Bush Supporters believed that we were in there to liberate the common people from tyranny, to establish freedoms.
During WW1 our grandparents believed it would be the War to End Wars in part because it became clear that the new industrial war and its full industrial-military complex was vulnerable to the will of the people. Closed the plants, monitor the raw materials, restrict R&D and there is no longer a system to arm nations against each other. Just provide a living wage in other areas.
It is even more vulnerable now. There is no way to outfit a modern army without a trace.
Our foreign policy can be a congruent extension of our principles. The hard facts of a dangerous world works into the equation. That must always be true and so guide how we progress. The further fact that by redirecting the massive resources invested into the military-industrial complexes we can solve every vexing problem facing us. This must also enter the equation. The fact that money is made, power accrued within the current system is no justification for its continuance.
Put to a world plebiscite the world vote would be overwhelming for world disarmament. Even with the efforts by the neocon(men)'s controlled media to obscure the truths of this war and the deleterious effect of that deceit on our fellow citizens, America would vote for in favor for World Armistice.
Get your money out of US stocks if this happens. With the housing bubble burst, the US economy and stock market are heavily dependent on the arms industry.
UMMM a new approach?
If we are the largest supplier of arms but we are the only country against this treaty, this could be a step for the better. Sombody is on to somethin here i get a feelin...
Maybe we are the most lawless when it comes to the corruption of the arms business and War Business and maybe the rest of the world is sayn "Hey! time to stop this Shit!"
"...they called for a framework to prevent arms transfers in cases where they are likely... to fuel conflict..."
When DON'T arms transfers fuel conflict? Isn't that the point of arms? What, are they supposed to promote peace?