Former UN force commander pleads for small arms curbs

Former UN force commander in Rwanda in 1994, General Romeo Dallaire, has made an impassioned plea for weapons-producing countries to prevent light weapons falling into the hands of children, BBC reported on Thursday. “Children kill because they have the instruments to kill, Dallaire who was Canada’s representative at a UN conference on small arms trade held in New York, said. He said child soldiers were becoming the dominant factors in wars in the developing world. He told delegates that the link between children and guns was sowing the seeds for even more horrific conflicts in the future. Meanwhile, UNICEF on Wednesday declared as “intolerable” the increase in young lives lost or maimed due to small arms and lights weapons and called for immediate action to protect children from access or exposure to these arms. UNICEF told delegates at the small arms conference in New York that children and young people were the principle victims of violence fuelled by the proliferation of light weapons. “All wars are wars against children,” the agency said, urging the adoption of strong measures to curtail illicit arms trading.