Former conflict zone chooses between arms and development*

Five years after the end of rebel wars in Niger, the presence of small arms in that country and over the border in Nigeria and Chad, continues to threaten the well-being of millions of people. Freeing a former conflict zone of such weapons is the aim of a pilot project under way in southeastern Niger. However, to ensure long-term success, similar initiatives with a more regional focus may be needed. The destruction of 103 small arms handed in by people in N’Guigmi region of southeastern Niger on 18 March marked a new phase in an Arms for Development Project run by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) with support from the Program for Coordination and Assistance for Security and Development in Africa (PCASED), based in Bamako, Mali. Until then, the project, begun in 2001, had been in the awareness-building phase. By its completion in October 2003, about 5,000 weapons are to have been collected and destroyed, project officials hope. The project is being carried out at N’Guigmi, 1500 km east of the Niger capital, Niamey, on the border with Niger’s turbulent eastern neighbour, Chad. Both countries have had rebel wars, but while armed conflict between government forces and fighters from Saharan communities – Toubou, Tuareg and Arab – in Niger started in 1991 and ended in 1998, Chad has been plagued by war since 1965. “During the various wars in Chad, many Chadian rebels entered Niger with their weapons,” said Alou Tankary, head of UNDP’s Good Governance Project in Niger. “N’Guigmi is also on the border with Nigeria, so you see its very geographical position made us set up this pilot project there.” Nguigmi Region, whose population is about 52,000, was also one of the theatres of the armed conflict in Niger in the 1990s. Part of regional, global fight against illicit small arms The project is being implemented with a US $300,000 grant from UNDP’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery, based in Geneva, Swizerland, the sum of US $ 7,000 and technical support from the UNDP country office in Niger, and US $10,000 from PCASED for arms destruction equipment. It is linked to a moratorium which the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) imposed on the import, manufacture and export of small arms in 1998, Tankary said. Article 13 of the moratorium’s code of conduct calls for the collection of all illicit small arms in West Africa and their destruction so as to prevent them from being stolen and re-used in wars, violence or crime. It is also linked to a United Programme for Action adopted in July 2001 in New York at the UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in all its aspects, according to Napoleon Abdulai of PCASED. The programme of action urges states “to ensure that all confiscated, seized or collected small arms and light weapons are destroyed”. It also calls on them to develop and implement public awareness and confidence-building programmes on problems and consequences of the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons, including the voluntary surrender of such weapons, Abdulai pointed out. Communities which hand over weapons receive development assistance in return, covering areas such as water supply, support services for animals, education and health. The 17 March arms destruction was the fifth in Niger since the end of the rebellions of the 1990s. The first was in 2000 in the northern town of Agadez, where 1,243 weapons were destroyed, according to Abdulai, who was the technical adviser for the arms destruction. Three other such ceremonies were held in 2001-2002, one in Diffa in the southeast and two in Agadez. In each case 100 weapons were destroyed. According to Tankary, “should the project be a success it could be replicated elsewhere in Niger”. There have already been calls in that direction. At a conflict-resolution workshop organised by the government in Agadez, one of the recommendations was that there should be three or more projects like the one in N’Guigmi, located in areas that saw much fighting and where the security forces and government believe there are a lot of weapons in society,” Abdulai said. Weapons came from Europe and North Africa There are about eight million small arms in West Africa, according to PCASED. In the case of N’Guigmi, weapons have been coming in from various sources. “Some of the weapons were brought in by caravans coming from Algeria,” said Abdulai. “But the main source has been the ‘Cold War Pipeline’, weapons that the various rebellions in Chad used [during the days of the Cold War]. Most came from either France or Libya”, which backed opposing sides in the Chadian conflicts. “A lot of weapons were buried around Lake Chad,” Abdulai added. “There has been some recycling of weapons, too. Some go back into northern Nigeria.” Whereas the guns were wielded until recently by rebel forces, these have been replaced by bandits who operate in the area around Lake Chad. “There is a lot of banditry in the area because it’s a very bushy area. It’s practically a forest and after the bandits from Nigeria do their mischief they withdraw to that area,” Tankary said. Some former rebels have reportedly been hired by communities in northeastern Nigeria to help them fight their rivals. The Small Arms Survey 2001, produced by the Graduate Institute of International Studies, noted that one of the effects of the availability of small arms was the capacity to “transform a localised dispute into a bloodbath”. This has been borne out on a number of occasions, including in late February of this year when a dispute between nomadic herders and sedentary farmers in northeastern Nigeria gave rise to an attack blamed on hired guns from Chad in which about 40 people were reported to have died. The proliferation of weapons and armed attacks in the area prompted Nigeria to hold talks with its northern neighbours on measures to safeguard their frontiers. As a result, the governments of Niger and Nigeria recently began deploying mixed patrols along their borders. Subregional approach needed Both Abdulai and Tankary feel that a subregional approach is needed to ensure that the benefits of an initiative such as Niger’s Arms for Development Project are not negated by the arrival of fresh weapons or by the activities of the bandits or other armed men. “There should be a subregional arms-for-development project which would target parts of Chad, Niger and Northern Nigeria in order to collect the weapons and control the banditry that is going on in these areas,” Abdulai said. He said such programmes, along with massive development projects, were also needed in other parts of West Africa which have seen violent conflicts in recent years such as southern Nigeria’s Niger Delta, the Dagbon area in northern Ghana, Guinea-Bissau and Casamance, southern Senegal, when peace finally returns to that area. *[This article is one of a series of reports and interviews that comprise a new Web Special on Civilian Protection in Armed Conflict. In it, IRIN explores International Humanitarian Law and principled humanitarian action, the provisions for civilian protection, the problems encountered in achieving this, and the prospects for the future. See web special at www.irinnews.org]