Robert Villa for NewsMax.com
Monday, July 9, 2001

Bogotá, Colombia – The United Nations this past week has been disavowing claims by critics that the upcoming U.N. Summit on Small Arms is the first step in an effort at worldwide registration and arms control, but news from here in Colombia would seem to indicate otherwise.

The president of the upcoming U.N. summit is Camilo Reyes, Colombia's representative to world organizations in Geneva.

Camilo Reyes brought about this important meeting after more than one and a half years of intense lobbying effort, during which he repeatedly brought the case of Colombia's civil conflict to the attention of U.N. officials, demanding that the world community reduce the traffic of not only illegal but also legal arms, since between 40 percent and 60 percent of all arms in the hands of illegal groups were originally purchased legally.

Official U.N. sources state that the conference will focus on the illicit trafficking of small arms, which include pistols, assault rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, and shoulder-fired anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles. The U.N. states the conference will produce a politically binding declaration that will include a plan of action that states can take to curb small arms trade at the national, regional and international levels.

According to the National Rifle Association, the most recent U.N. resolutions concerning small arms occurred during the Ninth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders in Cairo in May 1995.

During that conference, the Japanese delegation passed a resolution calling for "a common strategy of effective control of firearms at the global level," based on the idea that "no state is immune from the lax legislative and administrative controls in other states."

The presence of Colombia at the head of the upcoming summit is particularly troubling, due to the tendency of this and recent administrations to consider tough gun control legislation and enforcement to be the solution to Colombian violence, despite all indications that gun control in all areas where it has had enforcement, namely Colombia's largest cities, has been an utter failure.

In all of Colombia's large cities, homicide rates have hovered between 45 and 60 per 100,000 residents, in comparison with the United States, where rates remain below 10 per 100,000 residents. These rates have continued despite, or perhaps in part because of, strict bans on all licit trade in arms of all sizes, including all pistols since 1991. Even military officers off duty, who are often the target of assassinations by the country's Marxist guerrillas, are banned from carrying weapons.

The only individuals permitted to carry weapons in Colombia are individuals holding an old license predating the current gun bans, on-duty officers, and specially licensed private security guards, who have proliferated exponentially since the gun ban took place.

Despite the patent failure of Colombia's gun ban in curbing the country's violence, Camilo Reyes appears intent on spreading the ban on licit arms trade to the global level.

The goal of the summit, according to sources within Colombia's delegation, is to produce a document with two basic instruments to curb small arms trade. The first is an international protocol to identify and restrict the trade of arms through a universal system of registration and marking. The second is a trade mechanism that will allow the restriction of legal production and trade of small arms.

Nevertheless, due to the level of tension that has occurred due to the upcoming summit, U.N. officials have disavowed any such claims. Jayantha Dhanpala, U.N. Subsecretary for Disarmament, stated that "there exist misinterpretations regarding this conference. The objective is not the trade, the manufacture or the legal ownership of arms, but rather the illicit trade of small arms."

"Colombia has persistently pursued international arms control for the past several years, despite a simultaeneous reluctance by the government to confront its neighbor Venezuela about its military's alleged arms dealings with Colombia's Marxist guerrilla groups.

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