Page 1 of
2 Curbing the global arms
bazaar By Alan Boyd
SYDNEY - An ambitious arms-control
initiative is under the gun from a new generation
of manufacturers as negotiators race the clock to
secure a global agreement that will keep
conventional weapons out of the hands of
extremists.
A deadline for the adoption of
the United Nations' Arms Trade Treaty expires on
Monday, with China expected to lead a Third World
revolt against tougher controls. And it may have
found an
unlikely ally in the United
States.
When support for the pact was
first tested in the UN General Assembly in
December, the US was the only one of 178
participating countries opposed. China and 24
other countries abstained.
Under a
compromise deal, negotiators were given until
April 30 to present their cases for a treaty that
would impose a more responsible marketing code on
arms manufacturers and distributors, especially in
volatile developing countries.
Britain,
France, Germany and Spain, four of the biggest
weapons dealers, have said they will vote in
favor. But the coalition of non-government
organizations (NGOs) and human-rights activists
behind the treaty is more worried about the
emerging proliferation of smaller producers.
There are an estimated 1,300 arms
companies in almost 100 countries vying for a US$1
trillion market that sells eight million new
weapons each year. A decade ago there were far
fewer manufacturers, and they had a totally
different motivation.
"Arms sales have
traditionally been packaged as part of
foreign-policy or national-security objectives ...
this was certainly the case during the Cold War
years, but now there is more of an economic
motivation," said a diplomat involved in
arms-control negotiations.
"Naturally, it
becomes harder to find common ground for a treaty
when you have so many countries with an economic
stake. This is a situation that is harder to
control, as there is the risk they may have fewer
scruples in selling to what I would consider to be
unstable regimes."
The US, Britain,
France, Germany and Russia collectively account
for about 85% of global arms sales, with China
next in the rankings. US firms alone cornered $14
billion of the market in 2005, three times more
than any other country.
But since 1990 the
number of new firms in the top 100 manufacturers
has more than doubled. India and South Korea now
have three companies each on the list, Israel four
and Singapore one. Data on Chinese producers are
not released, but three are believed to be of this
scale.
Arms Without Borders, a
study released by non-government organizations
last year, reported that participation of Asian
countries at a regional defense exhibition between
1999 and 2006, one gauge of increased production
activity, rose threefold.
There were 17
Indian manufacturers at the Kuala Lumpur show in
2006, up from zero in 1999. Malaysia had 55
representatives (increasing from 36 in 1996) and
South Korea 15 (eight in 1996).
"While
these figures do not necessarily equate to
increased defense sales from emerging producers,
they do clearly show a trend of increasing numbers
of companies from non-traditional arms exporting
countries seeking a foothold in the global arms
market," the report noted.
What worries
arms-control advocates is that many of the Third
World countries lack explicit criteria or
guidelines for authorizing arms transfers that
comply with the source nation's obligations under
international law.
A raft of UN
legislation negotiated since the 1990s with
support from the European Union, Organization of
American States and other bodies already bans the
sale of weapons to countries with records of
human-rights abuses. Regional codes of conduct
specifically blacklist unstable regimes such as
Myanmar and North Korea.
But the standards
are not binding and are applied inconsistently.
Often they are not incorporated into national
laws, while some emerging arms-exporting countries
have not signed up to any of the measures.
Sophisticated weapons are still reaching
pariah countries. A report by the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute on arms
sales between 1995 and 2005 reveals that North
Korea was supplied by Russia, China and Kazakhstan
in defiance of US and European embargoes. The
North Koreans then adapted and modified these
technologies for their own defense industries,
making shipments in the same period to Yemen,
Pakistan, Iran, Libya and Myanmar.
Pakistan was able to secure tons of
weapons in the same period from no fewer than 14
countries, including China, Indonesia, the US,
France, Germany, Russia and Sweden, despite
concerns that many would be positioned on the
tense Kashmiri frontier with India. Included in
the shipments were surface-to-air and anti-ship
missiles, frigates, helicopters, fighter jets,
heavy artillery and torpedoes.
India was
the world's biggest recipient of arms in
1975-2005, ahead of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey,
Japan, Iran, Taiwan, Egypt, Libya and Greece. And
it had some of the same suppliers as
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