Disarmament: Arms dealers make mockery of UN embargoes
Thalif DEEN
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations Security Council remains
powerless and ineffective as mandatory military sanctions imposed on
conflict-ridden countries and rebel groups are being openly violated, a
coalition of international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) said
Thursday.
"Over the past 10 years, systematic violations of UN arms embargoes
have met with almost no successful prosecutions," says Irene
Khan,Secretary-General of the London-based Amnesty International.
She said that "unscrupulous arms dealers continue to get away with
grave human rights abuses and make a mockery of the UN Security
Council's efforts" (to punish governments and rebel groups caught up in
conflict and post-conflict situations).
In a report released Thursday, the NGO coalition points out that
"every one of the 13 U.N. embargoes imposed in the last decade has been
repeatedly violated".
"And despite hundreds of embargo breakers being named in U.N.
reports, only a handful have been successfully prosecuted," says the
coalition, which includes Oxfam International, the International Action
Network on Small Arms (IANSA) and Amnesty International.
Last year a panel of U.N. experts identified companies and
individuals from more than 25 countries - ranging from Albania and
Belgium to United Kingdom and Zimbabwe - who have facilitated the supply
of arms to embargoed destinations.
Additionally, weapons and munitions recovered by U.N. personnel have
been traced back to their country or place of manufacture, including
Bulgaria, China, Germany, Egypt, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine.
The current U.N. mandatory territorial arms embargoes are in force
against the Ivory Coast, Liberia and Somalia. And the U.N.'s 191 member
States are also barred from transferring arms to rebel groups and
non-State actors in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Liberia,
Rwanda, Sierra Leone and in Sudan, as well as to al Qaeda and associated
persons.
In the last decade, military sanctions have also been imposed on
Angolan armed rebels (1992 to 2002), Ethiopia and Eritrea (2000 to
2001), Iraq (1990 to 2003), Libya (1992 to 2003), and the former
Yugoslavia (1991 to 1996, and again from 1998 to 2001).
Asked if arms embargoes are futile in the absence of strong U.N.
monitoring mechanisms, Clare Rudebeck of Oxfam International told IPS
that even though such mechanisms do exist, U.N. investigative teams
tasked with monitoring the embargoes are given woefully inadequate
resources and time.
As a result, she said, U.N. sanctions committees have to rely largely
on member States to monitor and implement embargoes.
"However, member States, especially powerful States, do not support
the United Nations with proper enforcement," Rudebeck said. Moreover,
State officials often cover up arms transfers when they report to the
United Nations.
"Therefore, arms embargoes cannot be deployed effectively as an
instrument by the United Nations to prevent illicit arms trafficking,
without better national controls on international arms transfers.
Currently these controls are woefully inadequate," she added.
To tackle this problem, Rudebeck said member States must establish a
more effective framework of controls based on a common set of criteria
for international arms transfers fully consistent with international law
- in other words, an international arms trade treaty.
According to the study released Thursday, an arms trade treaty would
enable governments to act in unison to strictly control conventional
arms transfers, thereby creating the conditions for U.N. arms embargoes
to be properly respected. Since the IANSA launched a global campaign in
October 2003, over 45 countries have stated their support for such a
treaty.
Last year, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the Security
Council to "name and shame" the habitual violators of arms embargoes.
The Security Council "may wish to produce a list of individuals,
corporations, groups and countries violating arms embargoes", Annan said
in a report to the Council.
Considering the close links between the illegal trade in small arms
and trafficking in women and children, "The Council may wish to assist
in bringing those responsible for such crimes before the International
Criminal Court (ICC) for prosecution," he declared.
In a report to the Security Council last week, Cesar Mayoral,
Chairman of the sanctions committee monitoring al Qaeda said: "The lack
of central authority in Somalia allows al Qaeda associates there to
evade the arms embargo at will."
The report also said "the situation appears to be getting worse, and
continued arms embargo violations present a growing threat to
international security, both in the region and beyond".
(March 16, IPS) |