Government, UN destroy 3,000 small arms

An effort to rid Uganda of some 50,000 small arms began on Monday with the burning of about 3,000 weapons at a ceremony in the capital, Kampala. Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda lit the pyre and said it was time the country did so since it was "largely no longer at war". "Weapons destruction is intended to ensure that weapons seized, collected or deemed excess to national security requirements do not find their way back into illegal circulation or recycled into neighbouring conflict areas," Rugunda told the audience of mainly government officials and diplomats. The UN Development Programme funded the arms destruction. An official with the Uganda National Focal Point on Small Arms and Light Weapons, which coordinates activities to check the threat posed by illicit arms, said on the sidelines of the ceremony that 50,000 weapons would be destroyed by the end of the process. "We estimate that Karamoja [region in the northeast] alone has about 50,000 guns while a similar number is expected to be in the rest of the country," the official, who requested anonymity, said. Rugunda said: "Armed conflicts, cattle rustling and armed crime carried out primarily with small arms, and the insecurity they cause, engage a great deal of our national effort and resources. "The impact of small arms to our economy and our development efforts are disastrous. "One gun in illegal hands is a danger to the whole community." He appealed to the public to provide the government with information about arms held illegally. During the weapons destruction, Rugunda also launched Uganda's action plan on illegal firearms - a three-year project that provides a mechanism for the coordination of activities aimed at ridding the country of illicit arms. The plan lays out activities and methods to be used to control small arms and light weapons trafficking and proliferation along its porous borders. Uganda has two regions with a high prevalence of illicit arms: the northern region, where the army is fighting a 19-year rebellion by the Lord's Resistance Army, and the northeastern region of Karamoja, prone to inter-ethnic violence over cattle, water and other natural resources. A representative of the military at the ceremony, Brig Benon Biraaro, said the Ugandan army was ready to disarm all groups in possession of illicit weapons. According to the national action plan, Africa's Great Lakes Region has been at the core of small arms- and light weapons-proliferation, with Uganda being used as a transit route by illicit networks.