Small Arms and Light Weapons - Harry Frank Guggenheim ...

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social structuresHow small arms affect the lives and livelihoodsof individuals is fairly well understood, but weneed also to address the effects of small arms onsocietal structures, as illustrated in the followingvignettes.El SalvadorThe current situation in El Salvador is representativeof much of post-conflict Central America,where, due to insufficient disarmament and demobilizationprograms for ex-combatants, small armsare still abundant and misused. At the end of thecountry's twelve-year civil war in 1992, the UnitedNations was successful in recovering and destroyingapproximately 10,000 small arms from theFMLN guerrillas, while a private-sector initiativerecovered close to that many weapons from thecivilian population between 1996 and 2000,including highly dangerous hand grenades androcket launchers. 11But during the Salvadoran peace process, whennearly 10,000 guerrillas were demobilized alongwith 31,000 government soldiers, the newly formedcivilian police force was mandated to absorb only5-6,000 of these individuals, while defunct policeand paramilitary forces also disbanded. This leftthousands of former guerrillas, soldiers, and policeofficers unemployed in a society where the problemof youth gangs was growing on a scale neverseen before. Because of the scarcity of employmentopportunities and the ability of these men to useweapons, many had life options limited to organizedcrime or employment as private securityguards.Horn of AfricaThe pastoralists in the Horn of Africa have alsoseen deleterious consequences of the influx of smallarms. The Kenyan scholar Kennedy Mkutu andothers have documented this problem and workedwith the international community on potentialsolutions. 12 For generations, groups in theKaramoja region of Uganda and the West Pokotregion on the other side of the border, in Kenya,have pursued a pastoral mode of living ordered inrelation to the size and quality of livestock herdsand the environment. Cattle raiding has alwaysbeen a problem but was traditionally limited toonly the best livestock, and violence, though present,was minimal. When someone was killed inthe process, the victim's family was compensatedwith cattle by the offending group.However, because of the many African wars forindependence in the 1960s, AK-47 assault riflesbegan to appear among the different pastoralistgroups and proliferated considerably in the 1970s.This led to increased frequency and lethality of violenceamong many of the border communities aswell as a vicious circle of raid and counterraid.Bands of armed youths have now taken over largesections of the border area and warlords have capitalizedby buying and selling raided livestock andselling weapons. Traditionally, councils of maleelders governed the pastoralist communities andserved as mediators in resolving conflicts, bothbefore and during colonial rule. But the deteriorationof customary governance structures in thesesocieties has weakened the capacity of elders toexercise control over young males now armed withassault rifles. Not only has the availability ofSALW and proclivity to use them affected the relationshipsbetween neighboring groups, it has alsoaltered the hierarchy of power within communities.13YemenThe research of Derek Miller in Yemen providesan example of demand for small arms that is basedon indigenous belief systems and is a key componentof the maintenance of political and socialorder that has not resulted in high levels of crimeand violence, unlike in other parts of the globe. 14Weapons in Yemen are considered part of the16
national character and are more closely associatedwith custom and tradition than with violence,injury, and death. In contemporary Yemen, malesat the age of fifteen are often provided with anassault rifle as a rite of passage.Similar to the role that SALW played in the pastoralregions of the Horn of Africa before proliferation,weapons in Yemen have long been symbolsof power, responsibility, masculinity, and wealth.This does not preclude their use for aggression ordefense, as was the case during the country's civilwar in the 1990s. However, as mentioned, therehas not been an increase in violence or SALWrelatedfatalities despite widespread civilian acquisitionof weapons as a result of the war. Strongtribal mechanisms for conflict resolution in placein Yemen prevent major outbreaks of violence. Wedo not see the youth rebelling against tribal eldersas in Uganda and Kenya.The introduction of firearms can transform relationsbetween generations, men and women, andethnic groups. Thus far, we have only a few suchcase studies and anecdotal evidence of howfirearms availability and use alter the establishedsocial order. Currently very few social scientistswork on how small arms affect social structures.Anthropologists and sociologists could provideuseful contributions in this area.tourismJust as small arms hinder development, so theycan inhibit tourism. Tourism has become a fastgrowingindustry and an important revenue sourcefor many countries. It creates employment in severalsectors of society, accounting for nearly 200million jobs and over 40 per cent of GDP in smallisland economies and some developing countries.Moreover, tourism brings in foreign currency, providinga stable and reliable source of income.Small arms proliferation and the attendant threatof violence can undermine tourism because oftourists’ fear of political upheaval or crime. Touristsites are sometimes damaged or rendered inaccessibleby ongoing hostilities, and recently touristshave been specifically targeted in armed attacks.Armed groups may actually utilize tourist destinations,as with Kenyan rebel groups that use animalreserves as their base of operations. In the late1990s civil wars in several African countries causedtourism to drop by a third to a half.post-conflict reconstructionIn the last several years, we have seen the dangersof small arms proliferation and misuse in countriesemerging from war. In both Afghanistan and Iraq,the widespread availability of small arms puts securityat grave risk, severely undermines the rule oflaw, and presents a major obstacle to the transitionto peace. The availability of arms increases thepossibility of outbreak of conflicts in areas of crisis,endangers the safety of both international peacekeepersand the local population, and above all,hinders conflict resolution.As with humanitarian interventions, peacekeepingmissions and the soldiers and civilian officialsimplementing them are also at risk from smallarms. Unlike during the Cold War, in the 1990sUN forces found that small arms posed a threat tothemselves that had to be addressed. UN peacekeepersare regularly targeted, most notably inKosovo, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Bosnia, andAfghanistan. Indeed, in both Angola and SierraLeone rebels have held hundreds of UN peacekeepershostage. While some peacekeeping operationsinclude mandates that address small arms,such as disarmament, demobilization, or collectionand destruction of surplus weapons, others have nosuch mandate. More systematic attention to smallarms must be included in post-conflict peacebuilding.The lack of such provisions in the USplan in Iraq makes clear that the wide availabilityof small arms and light weapons can provide thefuel to transform a disorganized but angry group ofcivilians into an insurgent force that not only pro-17
Page 2 and 3: CONTENTSWEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
Page 5 and 6: Small Arms Research:Where We Are an
Page 7 and 8: arms and light weapons.The initial
Page 9 and 10: tended to become “small arms expe
Page 11 and 12: evolvers and self-loading pistols,
Page 13 and 14: dence that rates of domestic murder
Page 15 and 16: texts, small arms can also contribu
Page 17: hood and success of third-party eff
Page 21 and 22: Direct effectsFatal and non-fatal i
Page 23 and 24: Guns in CrimeNicolas FlorquinIntrod
Page 25 and 26: tem, Miller and Cohen (1996) showed
Page 27 and 28: Quantitative Criminology 19: 199-20
Page 29 and 30: egions, there are significant produ
Page 31 and 32: laws or international embargoes on
Page 33 and 34: Means and Motivations:Rethinking Sm
Page 35 and 36: ange of international workshops 3 h
Page 37 and 38: Demand in PracticeThe past ten year
Page 39 and 40: ConclusionsThe demand model summari
Page 41: CONTRIBUTORSDavid C. Atwood is the

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