DISARMAMENT: South Africa Leads Effort to Curb Small Arms By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, Jan 21 (IPS) - South Africa, the only significant arms producer in a war-ravaged continent, wants to curb the flow of small arms to civil wars and ethnic conflicts worldwide. In a letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the South African government says it has adopted a policy of destroying all its obsolete and redundant surplus small arms so that they do not find their way into battle zones.
''South Africa is further committed to stopping the flow of illegal small arms across its borders,'' the letter adds.
Last year the South African Police Service destroyed or melted down 70 tonnes of small arms and ammunition, including 4,504 pistols, revolvers, rifles, shotguns and home-made firearms.
Additionally, South Africa and Mozambique have jointly destroyed more than 100 tonnes of small arms and ammunition on site in Mozambique.
South Africa says it already has entered into agreements with several other Southern African states, with a view to curbing the trafficking of illegal small arms and ammunition.
In an address to the UN Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday that ''the scourge of small arms continues to devastate civilian populations, creating humanitarian crises the world over.''
''These weapons of personal destruction impair economic and social progress, and impede our best development efforts,'' he said.
Annan said the United Nations, for its part, will help governments and civil society make disarmament and arms control central aspects of future peace initiatives.
In West Africa, he said, the United Nations is helping to implement a moratorium on the import, export, and manufacture of light weapons. ''If successful, this ban could lead to a renaissance of peace in the region, and serve as an example to a continent whose economic and social development has been all-too- often hindered by internal strife and conflict.''
In its letter to Annan, South Africa points out that it ''is committed to a policy of responsibility and accountability in the trade and transfer of all arms.''
The government has established an arms control system which makes provision for a ministerial body to set criteria, principles and guidelines ''to ensure the responsible transfer and trade in, among others, small arms and light weapons.''
South Africa has also introduced legislation which requires the licensing of all civilian small arms, including a requirement for the safe storage of such weapons.
Under the apartheid regime, replaced by a multiracial government in 1994, South Africa was the world's 10th largest arms manufacturer.
The new government of President Nelson Mandela, which took office in May 1994, inherited a sprawling armaments industry which at one time produced jet trainers, combat helicopters, warships, remotely piloted vehicles, missiles, armoured personnel carriers and small arms.
The industry, which is now under rigid government control, exported about 265 million dollars' worth of military equipment to 63 countries in 1997. This was a 34-percent increase over the previous year.
According to South Africa's Directorate of Conventional Arms Control, the list of arms buyers included India, Switzerland, Chile, Pakistan, Oman, Ecuador, Thailand, Uganda, Singapore and Rwanda.
But the government also turned down requests for arms from several countries - including Afghanistan, Burma, Burundi, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Turkey - either because of human rights abuses or because they were in conflict zones.
South Africa was one of the co-sponsors of a U.N. General Assembly resolution, adopted in early December, which calls for an international conference on the illicit arms trade. Switzerland has offered to host the proposed conference which is expected to take place no later than 2001.
In its letter to Annan, South Africa says that conference should formulate an action plan to combat the proliferation of small arms on the basis of the experiences of individual countries.
The resolution also calls upon the Secretary-General to initiate a study, as soon as possible, on the feasibility of restricting the manufacture of, and the trade in, small arms. Additionally, the resolution proposes a study in establishing, within the U.N. system, a single database of authorised manufacturers and dealers in small arms. (END/IPS/td/kb/98)
