Leading destination for illegal arms

The Horn of Africa region has become a leading destination for illicit weapons, which have in turn fuelled insecurity, economic decline, and political instability, a small arms conference in Nairobi was told on Friday. Bettina Gruber, the head of administration at the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ), said this had caused untold human suffering among the region's civilian population. "Nowhere in Africa is the concentration and effect of illicit small arms felt more than in the Horn of Africa sub-region," she said. "It is the Horn of Africa that is flooded with small arms to an extent with which no other region of Africa can be compared," a German diplomat added. "The arms do not only dictate the forms and intensity of local armed conflicts, but also the every day life of the people." The meeting in the Kenyan capital was held to launch two publications highlighting the problem of the illicit proliferation of small arms in the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) sub-region, which covers seven countries - Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia. The publications have been issued by the German think-tank, the Bonn International Centre for Conversion (BICC). They were hailed as the first attempt by a civil society organisation to carry out research on security information, which previously has been a preserve of governments. Bethuel Kiplagat, a retired Kenyan diplomat who attended the launch, said the proliferation of illicit small arms was a cross-cutting issue, stemming largely from a lack of proper regulations and the inability of regional governments to exercise their authoritity. He said most arms in the region were imported legally, but ended up in the wrong hands as a result of poor regulations and inconsistent government policies. "Despite the fact that there are laws to control arms influx, governments are unable to enforce these laws," he noted. The meeting also heard that the proliferation of illegal arms into the region had caused insecurity, which manifested itself as violent crime in urban areas, and fuelled ethnic tensions, cattle rustling and banditry in rural areas. The problem of small arms proliferation has beset the region for decades, but earnest efforts to curb the problem began in 2000 when regional governments signed the Nairobi Declaration pledging to combat this phenomenon. Kenya's assistant minister for foreign affairs, Peter Odoyo, said there had been some progress in Kenya. He noted that presidential amnesties aimed at encouraging the voluntary surrender of illegal arms was bearing fruit, especially in cattle rustling and banditry-prone areas. He said security operations had also been mounted to seize and recover illicit arms. "Illicit arms have caused untold human suffering to our people," he pointed out. "Our economy has been hit hard by this problem due to insecurity. This in turn has increased the poverty of our people." "The only way to achieve the security and prosperity of our people is to fight the menace," he added. "Security surveillance at our national borders to curb cross-border movement of illicit arms has been intensified."