MISSING PIECES - Inter-Parliamentary Union

THEME 5
ment departments such as political affairs, development, disarmament,
health, justice, trade, civil society, and, where relevant, international institutions
and UN agencies.
5. Comprehensive weapons security and control
If the aim is to prevent or reduce an excessive spread of guns in a community,
efforts to remove existing weapons from circulation and control
supply must go hand in hand. This is partly a question of preventing new
arms transfers into an area. However, guns leaked, stolen, or sold from
government stocks are another key source of supply in many contexts.
Enhancing national capacity in the area of stockpile management can
prevent theft and losses from government arsenals. Regular assessments
to identify and destroy confiscated and surplus stocks will also reduce the
risk that excess stocks will be diverted and enter the illicit market. The
same concerns apply to the storage and disposal of weapons collected as
part of a weapons control programme.
Cambodia provides an unprecedented example of how to approach the
challenge of arms control after war in a comprehensive manner. The government,
with the support of the EU, is attempting to reduce weapons
availability and misuse through a wide-ranging strategy, which includes
the introduction of strict legislation on gun ownership, a registration and
safe storage scheme for military and police firearms stocks, weapons collection
and destruction, ‘weapons for development’ schemes, and public
awareness programmes.
BOX 15 WEAPONS WILL NOT BE TOLERATED IN PEREIRA
By Juan Manuel Arango Velez, Mayor of Pereira, Colombia
A combination of social factors has led authorities in Pereira (a city in westcentral
Colombia) to address the problem of small arms and light weapons
in the area. These included the high number of homicides committed with
guns, as well as the realisation that verbal aggression almost always leads
to a fatal ending when guns are available. Keeping the peace was further
impeded by the imbalance amongst those carrying guns, with the organised
delinquency far better armed than public law enforcement agencies.
This diagnosis led us to rethink citizen culture to tackle new social
behaviours. A culture of good citizenship is the best way to ensure cooperation
with public law enforcement, and therefore must be the goal of a
policy of public security, based on a bi-polar model of both repression and
education. One of the tools for achieving this is the promotion of a culture
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