Enforce UN arms sanctions, HRW urges

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the UN Security Council to enforce an international arms embargo on Liberia to stem arms flows into the country which, HRW says, "make a mockery of UN sanctions" against the government in Monrovia. Weapons sent to Liberia fuel brutal wars and feed regional instability with terrible consequences for human rights, the executive director of HRW's Arms Division, Joost Hiltermann, said on Monday. In March 2001, the Council tightened an arms embargo that had been imposed on Liberia in 1992 to curb weapons trafficking via that country to Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels in Sierra Leone. However, a UN report by an independent panel of experts has documented many cases of illegal arms shipments to Liberia in the past 18 months. The report states that shipments included ammunition, small arms and helicopter spare parts from Ukraine, Slovakia and Kyrgyzstan respectively. It notes that the transport of some arms consignments had been halted or interrupted, but some were sent under false end-user certificates which declared that they were intended for a different country. "Arms export controls in central and Eastern Europe are a disgrace," Hiltermann said. "That makes it easy for arms traffickers to get away with their deadly trade." HRW also called on the Council to immediately ground all aircraft owned, operated, or insured by companies identified in the UN report as having arranged illegal arms flights to Liberia.