Governments move against arms trade

Ministers from the Horn of Africa and Great Lakes on Wednesday began meeting in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, in an effort to tackle the region's growing trade in illegal weapons. "The task is indeed daunting, but it behoves us to commit ourselves and make the necessary sacrifices to effectively deal with the problem," Kenyan Foreign Minister Marsden Madoka said at the start of the four-day meeting attended by representatives of 10 African states. The 10 countries comprise Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan. The four-day meeting is the first ministerial review of the progress of the Nairobi Declaration, a regional initiative launched on 15 March 2000 to begin addressing the security problems posed by the proliferation of small arms in the region, according to Virginia Gamba, the head of the South African based Safer Africa project and one of the organisers of the meeting. "A ministerial review meeting should take place each year. This was the first review meeting. The key item is to generate operational guidelines for the Nairobi secretariat to enlarge its coordination," Gamba told IRIN on Wednesday. The Nairobi Declaration has been hailed as the first major indicator of commitment by governments in the Horn of Africa and Great Lakes regions towards addressing the problem of the illicit circulation of small arms, which has been contributing to increased insecurity and conflicts in the region. Madoka, who chaired the review meeting, told delegates that states party to the Declaration had so far achieved a "reasonable measure" of success towards implementing its recommendations, despite numerous teething problems. He urged governments in the region to make the elimination of illegal small arms a top priority issue of development and security, and to make "sacrifices" on the way towards implementing the recommendations of the Nairobi Declaration. The organisers of the conference hope that it can be emulated by other regions in setting uniform standards on curbing trafficking and misuse of small arms. "We in the Great Lakes and Horn of Africa have always set the standards for concerted international action against illicit arms. It is my hope that in this conference we will not only create renewed impetus to push the regional small arms agenda forward but also create a sustainable partnership between governments in the region, donors and the civil society in tackling the problem of small arms," Madoka added. However, representatives of the civil society at the conference have expressed dissatisfaction with the way it was organised. Richard Mugisha, who heads the Uganda Action Network on Small Arms, told IRIN that NGOs which had been spearheading the process were now sidelined, and their status reduced to that of observers instead of full participants. "Civil society has been locked out of this ministerial meeting. They have not been allowed to give their input to the process. Civil society is attending the meeting as observers, even though the Nairobi Declaration states clearly that they should be full participants in the process," he said.