Light Weapons:
Role of Armament Lobby

Columnist MOHAMMAD ARIF examines the role
of motivated lobbies in the proliferation of
light weapons throughout the world

The Menace of  Light Weapons

The instruments of choice in most of today’s conflicts are small arms and light weapons. Abundant and cheap, they are killing people by thousands. Klashnikov is a household word throughout the world. Mortars and portable anti-aircraft missiles are common. The anti-personnel landmine a durable and silent killer, is always present. Combatants meanwhile are not just regular troops but armed militias and gangs. Dramatic images of teenager soldiers brandishing their weapons are no longer shocking. This is the new landscape of war.1

The extract has been taken from former Secretary General UN, Boutros Ghali’s address to the Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters in July, 1996 at Geneva. Secretary General’s statement is a strong indication towards the intensity of the problems instigated by the presence of light weapons or small arms in societies and world’s concern over this matter.

For most of the past 50 years, analysts and policy makers have largely ignored the role of small arms and other light weapons in international security affairs, considering them too insignificant to have an impact on the global balance of power or the out-come of major conflicts. All international efforts to reduce global weapons stockpiles and to curb the trade in arms remained focused almost exclusively on major weapons systems. As a result of such ignorance, these low-tech, inexpensive, sturdy and easy-to-use weapons now spread around the world, are the tool of most of the killings in contemporary conflicts-causing as much as 90 percent of the deaths.2

Although heavy weapons some times play a role, most of the day to day fighting is performed by irregular forces armed only with rifles, grenades, machine guns, light mortars and other portable munitions. This is true for instance in situations like Afghanistan, Middle East, Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Sudan, Kosovo, Algeria and other conflicting areas of the present world (The detail is given in the case studies). These weapons now, at least in North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) terminology, embrace all crew-portable direct fire weapons of a caliber less than 50 mm and will include a secondary capability to defeat light armor and helicopter.3

Historically, the military aid programmes of the United States and the Soviet Union were an important source of light weapons for developing nations. In addition to the major weapons supplied by the superpowers to their favoured allies, both Moscow and Washington also provided vast quantities of small arms, grenades, machine guns, and other light weapons. Today direct giveaways of light weapons are relatively rare, so most developing nations are fulfilling their needs through direct purchases on the global arms market.

Unfortunately, there are no published statistics on the annual trade in light weapons. However, the ACDA has estimated that approximately 13 percent of all international arms transfers are comprised of small arms and ammunition.4 For established nation states (except those subject to UN armys embargoes), the commercial arms trade provides an ample and reliable source of small arms and light weapons. For non-state actors, however, the global arms market is usually closed off. These non-state actors, including insurgents, and ethnic militias, is relying on illegitimate sources for their arms and ammunition. These illegitimate sources could be theft from government stock piles; purchases on the international black market; and through ties with government agencies or expatriate communities in other countries.

The proliferation of small arms and light weapons has rightly contributed to rising violence in many countries of the world. Some countries are plagued by full scale war and some by near-war; others may experience less organized violence, but are exposed to lawlessness and rising crime. Whatever the specific situation, the conviction that personal or social problems can be resolved through the barrel of a gun seems to have adherents in many countries.

The number of conflicts active in any given year worldwide rose steadily from 1945 to 1992. According to Wars, Armaments, and Development Research Unit at the University of Hamburg, that number peaked at 51 in 1992. Only with the resolution of several longstanding wars in Central America and Southern Africa was the trend reversed. The number of armed conflicts declined to 37 in 1995.5

According to another analysis by researchers at the University of Uppsala in Sweden, only 6 out of 101 conflicts in the period 1989-96 were international, involving the forces or territory of more than one state. The 101 armed conflicts involved as many as 254 separatist groups.6

While the number of armed conflicts is still at a high level, few of them are high-intensity wars. Rather, most are what the Uppsala researchers call minor’ and intermediate’ armed conflicts, those that kill fever than 1,000 persons in a single year; for example the violence in Northern Ireland.

Both low and high intensity warfare continue to kill large number of people. During the first half of the 1990s, at least 3.2 million people died of warrelated causes, bringing the cumulative toll since 1945 to at least 25 million. This is probably a conservative figure. Civilians have accounted for a large share of the victims, perhaps 70 percent of war casualties since World War II, but more than 90 percent in the 1990’s.7

If we look at it more specifically in the context of landmines we will come to know that more than 110 million landmines are strewn across the world’s past and present battlefields in the territories of more than 60 countries, with the largest concentrations in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia and the former Yugoslavia. Each year some 25,000 civilians are killed, wounded, or maimed by landmines, and many more are driven from their homes and fields.8

Recently world leaders have begun to take a fresh interest in small arms and light weapons, and the major reason for this is the global upsurge in ethnic and sectarian conflicts. Small arms and light weapons are playing a major role in sparking and sustaining low level warfare. Such type of warfare does not threaten world security in the same manner as nuclear conflict or another major war in Europe, it could, if left unchecked, inflict severe instabilities into the international system.

There is a strong linkage between drug trafficking and the spread of arms. The phenomenon is particularly vicious close to international borders. Very little action has been initiated so far to address the proliferation of small arms. The issue of landmines has, however, attracted some action by the UN after it was projected into the limelight by human rights groups.

Role of Armament Lobby

The global politics today is being controlled by lobbies and corporations’. One of the strongest lobbies is that of arms manufacturers and traders. The armament lobby works with manufacturers, traders, buyers and exploiters as its main components. Manufacturers and traders are believed to be always interested in creating a demand for their products. Conflicting situations are exploited for this matter and parties are compelled to buy arms. The marketing effort of armament lobby for its products is not different from that of any other commodity, however its repercussions on societies and politics are more of a unique nature. A whole intellectual exercise may be carried out with an intelligence network active behind it.

This factor is well characterised by the establishment of institutions where research is undertaken to bring out and highlight issues which flareups new conflicts between countries and groups of people. Efforts are made to influence the decision makers and governments in undertaking such decisions which on the one hand will lead to prolonging of unresolved conflicts while on the other will create new ones.

A group of six American experts, in their research, have given a futuristic view of 21st Century Asia suggesting birth of three independent states Pakhtoonistan, Greater Punjab and Kashmir. These hypothetical states, the researchers predict would emerge after the disintegration of Pakistan, Afghanistan and India in the 21st Century. Original research work was done by William wood, chief geographer US state Department, Professor Deblij of the Foreign service Institute of Georgetown University, George Demlco, Director of Rockefeller Centre, Dartmouth College and others. The new map prepared by this team of six experts predicts new boundaries based on ethnic and linguistic kinship. The scheme besides India, Pakistan and Afghanistan also involves, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, China and some other countries.9

Another similar example is the over projection of the theory of ethnic nationalism in Central Asia by some Russian and Western research scholars. In Afghanistan the conflict related to the political power struggle has repeatedly been given the colour of sectarian and ethnic rivalries. An effort has also been made to correlate it with the interpretation of shariah in Islam. It is quite evident that such sinister attempts will only be resulting in a prolong conflict even after political power struggle has been resolved.

Similar is the theory of clash of civilizations’ which was floated by Samuel P Huntington, envisaging conflict between cultures, forming the battlelines of the future. Francis Fukuyama also deserves a mention here as his claim of Western Liberal Democracy being the end of history is implicit with erecting conflict between the West and other political and ideological systems.

It is an established reality that ex-colonial powers in general and British in particular, while granting independence to their colonies left most of them after sowing the seeds of dispute amongst the communities were sown. This is significantly applicable to India and Pakistan which was their largest colony. Another example on their part is the creation of the state of Israel and the manner in which the Arab world was divided upon dismemberment of Ottoman Empire.

The conventional arms issue including small arms and light weapons, must be examined keeping in view the facts that the world’s largest arms sellers are from the west and are the same countries who are recognized nuclear powers and permanent members of the Security Council with a right to veto. There are the countries who spend a very small percentage of their GNP on their national defence, whereas the developing countries who are buyers of their arms, spend a very high percentage of their GNP on defence. In 1996 the international arms sales went up by 5 percent to a total of $ 31.8 billion, and United States as its biggest beneficiary. US sales rose by 23 percent to $ 11.3 billion, followed by the UK with $ 4.8 billion and Russia with $ 4.6 billion. These three, with shares of 35.5, 15.1 and 14.5 percent global arms sales, are responsible for two thirds of world arms transactions. The addition of France and China, the other two permanent members of Security Council, reveals that they are contributing more than 80 percent of world arms sales.10 On the other hand, they are also the ones who preach loudest about world flash points and regional arms races.

The factors behind this contradictory behaviour are several. For instant as it is observed, that USA has done so mainly to gain political or economic influence in the third world regions or to acquire military bases abroad. The former Soviet Union had similar motives, the smaller suppliers believe that arms sales help their economies particularly in times of recession.

Second, by selling weapons abroad, the major powers reduce the costs of those same weapons for their own armed forces.

Third, pressure to export weapons has increased as military budgets in USA, the former Soviet Union, and Eastern and Western Europe decreased after the end of the cold war.11 Arms industries are looking to exports to increase sales as domestic orders decrease. Domestic orders alone are, for many arms companies, insufficient to allow them to survive. Also, companies want to recover the enormous research and development costs involved in designing and building modern weapons. For this reason, commercial firms apply considerable political pressure on governments to persuade them to grant licences for their wares.12

The dismal failure of previous attempts at controlling the global arms trade, such as President Carter’s programme of restraint, announced in May 1997, and the Soviet - American conventional Arms Transfer Talks in the late 1970 demonstrate the power and effectiveness of the vested interests. industrial and governmental in the industrialized countries intent on maintaining and increasing the lucrative arms trade.13

Fourth, there are also resource related motives for selling weapons to certain third world regions. To ensure oil supplies, for example, is an obvious reason for supplying weapons to Middle East governments.14

World military expenditures amounted to nearly 1 trillion in 1985 and at the current growth rate, by the year 2000, will rise by another $300 billion.15 It goes without saying that if these swords could truly be converted into schools, hospitals, economic development, and other social sectors, the human condition would have improved. This particularly applies to less developed countries where between 1974 to 1984 military expenditure increased at a real growth rate of 3.5 percent as compared to 2.8 percent in developed countries.16

High military spending combined with external debt creates numerous problems for the developing countries. These unproductive spending assimilate a major portion of the GNP and the amount of resources remaining for other developmental projects remain very limited. The result is a domestic crisis which erodes legitimacy and pushes the masses to greater poverty.

Armament lobbies are no doubt responsible for most of the persisting conflicts in the present world. Therefore, it is essential to link the disarmament agenda to them. This linkage has been a conspicuous omission in all debates and discussions on this subject.

Why must the countries always remain in a state of conflict.? Having fought two World Wars, the humanity entangled itself into a cold war based on containment of opposing ideologies. After forty five years of cold war, humanity is being pushed again into an ideological and cultural clash. It is more justified to blame armament lobbies rather than Western governments as a whole. These lobbies operate behind the scenes and manipulate the state policies through acquired political scientists and researchers on the one hand, they develop Grand Designs’, while on the other they establish research institutions and centres to propagate doctrines and concepts which results in prolonging the conflicts and also create new ones.

Case Studies

Light weapons are the most visible common ingredient in the armed conflicts in all states and regions where turmoil, instability and civil war prevail. To examine this a brief analysis of the following turbulent areas has been carried out.

Afghanistan

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 sharpened the superpower rivalry in south West Asia. The United States supplied vast quantity of equipment and material to the leaders of factions opposed to Soviet intervention. Such supplies were made without careful accountability of the weapons transferred.The Soviet Union built up large stoical piles of heavy and light weapons. Most of the light weapons were left behind by the withdrawing soviet troops. It was hoped that in accordance with the Geneva Accord of 1989, after the withdrawal of the soviet troops, the various leaders of the Afghan resistance would work together to install a stable and broad based government in Kabul and thus will restore peace and stability in their war torn country. This objective was not achieved and Afghanistan plunged into a violent civil war which continues till today. All efforts by its neighboring states as well as by the United Nations could not bring about the cessation to hostilities in Afghanistan. The whirlwind phenomenon of Taliban added a new dimension to the civil war in the country.

The constant inflow of small arms and light weapons has resulted in rising levels of violence and declining levels of human rights in Afghanistan. All types of small arms and light weapons have found their way in Afghanistan. These include the soviet AK-47 (Klashnikov) and its improved version AKM model which is made of lighter material; machine guns RP-46 as well as machine guns M-38/46 set up for ground targets. In addition anti-tank weapons particularly Rocket Propelled Grenade launcher, RPG-7 also exist. A large number of earlier recoilless rifles and anti-tank guns have now been replaced with anti - tank guided missiles. Most of the small weapons being used in Afghanistan are of Russian origin. The indiscriminate and widespread emplacement of AP (Anti Personnel) landmines throughout the country is another aspect of war in Afghanistan. An estimated 10 million landmines have been emplaced in Afghanistan conveying a total of over 465 square kilometres of mine fields of which 210 square kilometres are of high priority. High priority areas are those that directly affect the lives of the people of Afghanistan or prevent the immediate return of refugees.17

The country is known for its involvement in drug trafficking as well. During the years of foreign intervention and then the civil war, Afghanistan experienced an increase in poppy production. According to the recent estimates, the opium production has increased from about 200 tonnes in 1978 to its peak of 3400 tonnes in 1994. The continuing civil war is considered as the main reason for it.18

The situation in Afghanistan is directly affecting the other countries of the region as well. Pakistan has been directly exposed to the fall out from the conflict. Not only that it had to extend asylum and humanitarian assistance to millions of Afghan refugees, it has become the object of Klashnikov culture exacerbating law and order situation in Pakistan, fanning sectarian clashes, economic setbacks due to rampant smuggling across the Pakistan-Afghan border, rising corruption and above all experiencing the ever growing drug abuse among its citizens.

Sudan

Sudan has undergone the longest civil war in Africa, starting in 1955, with a ten year lull period between 1972 and 1982. Religion has played as the main source in creating the conflict. Sudanese People Liberation Army (SPLA) is struggling to end domination of the mainly Christian South by the Muslim North.

The whole confrontation has so far taken the lives of thousands and millions of Sudanese have fled their homes. According to UNHCR, Sudan has the highest number of displaced people in the world, over four million.19 The situation has also led to the increasing level of crimes in Sudanese society. The spread of small arms and light weapons is considered as the main instigator in this respect. These weapons are mainly supplied by external powers to their groups in this country. These arms then reach into the hands of those who are not believed to be fully involved in the political struggle, rather looting and other terrorist activities are their main concern.

Iran is believed to be the main supplier of arms and ammunition to governmental forces while the opposing SPLA is supported by Egypt, Uganda and Ethiopia and Eritrea.20 The US Secretary of State, Madeline Albright has recently issued a statement in which she affirmed the United States would extend all kinds of support to the rebels in Southern Sudan.21

Sudan certainly deserves attention of world community and human rights groups because peace is becoming an alien word for the people as the confrontation goes on. A just solution to their problems is the most required thing at the moment.

Bosnia

The internecine civil war came to Bosnia Herzegovina within six months of independence in 1991. The war had religious overtones with a struggle between the Greek Orthodox Serbs, the Roman Catholic Croats and the Bosnian Muslims. Throughout the confrontation years the arms flow was continued from external powers to the different warring groups of this state.

It has been reported that a wide range of imported equipments are existing in the region including large numbers of ex-Soviet and Warsaw pact weapons obtained on the black market or purchased directly from government owned or newly privatized plants in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Unions. Also reported in abundance are light and medium weapons from a variety of western and third world sources, including China, Iran and Singapore.22 This flow of imported weapons has sustained the fighting in Bosnia for three bloody years. The repeatedly frustrating efforts by NATO and the United Nations to arrange a negotiated settlement to war, have now somewhat achieved success but clouds of disappointment are still visible on the sky. Because though, officially, Bosnia and other of former Yugoslav republics are subjected to a rigorous UN embargo on arms and equipment, visitors to various war zones have seen evidence of massive violations.

Algeria

Algeria, the north African nation, is in the midst of serious struggle today. More than five years now this country is being a subject of terror, hunger, injustice, insecurity, humiliation, arbitrary arrests and summary executions. As a whole Algeria, has tragically been turned into a blood bath.

The problem was instigated by the events in 1991-92, when the Islamic Salvation Front (IFS) won 188 out of 220 seats, more than 80% in the first round of the elections on December 26, 1991, and were well placed for the second round, the army, a privileged class, seized power on January 11, 1992. It deposed President Chadli Bin Jaded and declared the parliamentary elections null and void, the self-affrandized generals justified the coup on the grounds that - IFS had wanted to seize the power by force’.23

It is a sad commentary on the existing state of affairs that in addition to the killing of around 1,00,000 innocent Algerians, the economy of this unfortunate country has suffered disastrously during the past five years (1992-1997).24

The situation has been complicated further by the rapid growth of suspected militias who have embarked upon committing atrocities, sometimes killing innocent Algerian women and children and on other occasions French priests. The biased Western media wants the world to believe that the IFS people are committing these crimes in the name of Islam.

Whatever the reality is and whoever the culprits for terrorist activities are, one fact is quite evident that the unknown armed militia is ruthlessly killing the civilian population. These killings are a classic example of a savage use of small weapons including sharp daggers and other arms of the barbarian era. It is quite clear from the situation that these weapons are being provided to these killers by external owners, and the internal secret agencies are seemed quite involved in it.25

Brazil

According to the UN survey, Brazil places a close second to south Africa in the rate of killings per total population estimated as 41,000 per year.26

In Brazil as elsewhere, as the general level of violence goes up so does the number of citizens that carry personal guns, and confidence in the police’s ability to provide public safety declines. Same problem can be observed in other countries of Latin America as well, where behind the large scale violence are serious social problems, including high unemployment, drug trafficking and a spate of vigilant justice.

United States

Although United States is quite stable, there also, high levels of gun ownership and a laissez faire’ attitude towards guns translate into broad-scale violence. More people are killed with guns in a typical week than in all of Western Europe in a whole year. A recent study by the centres for Disease Control and Prevention says that US adolescents are 12 times more likely to be killed by gunfire than youngsters in all other industrialized countries.27

Russia

The difficult economic and political transition in Russia has spawned rising crime and Mafia like organizations that stage spectacular gangland-style killings to eliminate business rivals. There were almost 1,000 contract murders in 1996 alone. The resulting sense of insecurity, in turn, has encouraged ordinary citizens to arm themselves; 14 percent of Russians daily carry weapons for self - defence. The burgeoning black market is apparently being fed by a constant stream of assault rifles, sub-machine guns, pistols, grenades, and explosives from military depots even though the private ownership of military style weapons is illegal.28