The call for tough arms controls

Voices from Afghanistan

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Summary

‘Still people are being threatened by the guns. Many people own guns; you can’t talk freely, because the commanders will say, “You just need one bullet”.’

Man, Faizabad

Afghanistan has one of the highest concentrations of guns per person in the world. There may be up to 10 million small arms circulating in a country which has a population of 23 million. The human consequences are not just measured in deaths and injuries. The culture of the gun has become deeply embedded, and the presence of firearms has a fundamental impact on democracy, development, and security.

The guns arrived in three waves since conflict began in 1979. In the following years, both the Soviet Union and the USA poured in weaponry. Factional fighting among the mujahedin (‘fighters in a holy war’) and then the rise of the Taliban movement brought arms to all sides in the 1990s. Since 2002, the new government has continued to receive arms from abroad to help build up an effective Afghan National Army.

People from all sides have been responsible for violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. These have included targeting and killing civilians and other persons not taking active part in hostilities, torture and ill-treatment, abductions, hostage-taking, extra-judicial executions, and rape. Even now, international organisations report recent and ongoing cases of abuse. Up to two million people are thought to have died since 1979, and hundreds of thousands more are disabled by their injuries.

Guns were delivered from around the world — including the USA, Russia (and the Soviet Union before it), the UK, France, India, and Pakistan. Usually, the suppliers had a specific interest in a particular outcome in Afghanistan. Black-market arms dealers, whose only interest was the potential profit, provided further supplies.

These weapons – millions of tons of guns and ammunition – fuelled each new stage of the conflict. Now, some disarmament has taken place, but many leaders of armed groups still possess weapons and use them to abuse and threaten people and to steal property. As in so many crises, ordinary people have paid the price.

In November 2005, representatives of the Control Arms campaign interviewed some of these people from across Afghanistan about what has happened to them since 1979, so that their voices can be heard alongside the technical arguments and diplomatic negotiations of the disarmament debates due to take place at the United Nations in 2006.

Alongside their stories, we present some of the established facts about the arms transfers that took place. The implication is clear: irresponsible arms transfers have resulted in human suffering. The solution is also clear, as the final section of this report shows.

We discovered that although people were prepared to talk about the events of ten years ago, most people were reluctant to discuss the impact of current violence and insecurity. This reluctance is indicative in itself.

Warlords and armed groups pressured and threatened many ordinary Afghans in order to influence their voting in presidential elections in 2004 and parliamentary elections in 2005. Many Afghans have said that the ever-present shadow of the gun is hampering the process of institution-building. They still cannot lead normal lives in safety, given the increase in armed crime that is affecting much of the country. Nearly two thirds of Afghans now believe that disarmament is the most important way to improve security.

Weapons transfers to Afghanistan continue, as the international community helps to build a new Afghan National Army (ANA) and a reformed National Police (ANP). It is vital to ensure that both can provide Afghans with security. But it is also true that some individuals in the security services have links with former militias or current criminals. Arms exporters must ensure that weapons sent to Afghanistan are not used illegally by members of the security services, or transferred onwards to other armed groups.

There is no single solution. Ex-combatants must be disarmed, demobilised, and reintegrated into their communities, as UN programmes, with mixed results, have been attempting to do. Alternative sources of livelihood must be provided, so that the gun is not the only means of survival. Foreign governments must remember their part in arming Afghanistan’s warring sides in the past – and their responsibility now to ensure that arms supplies do not fall into the wrong hands. In short, the rest of the world must take responsibility for the arms that it supplies. To do that, governments should agree a new international Arms Trade Treaty (ATT).

2006 presents a major political opportunity to begin to do this:

• The Review Conference for the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons, in June and July 2006, must agree clear principles for the international transfer of these arms, based on existing international law, to prevent them getting into the wrong hands.

• The Conference’s Preparatory Committee, taking place in New York in January 2006, must set the stage for this.

• Then, the UN General Assembly’s First Committee, meeting in October 2006, must finally start a process to negotiate an Arms Trade Treaty.

The proliferation of conventional arms is too severe to be ignored any longer. Responsible arms exporters and arms-affected states must not be held back by the few states that want to impede progress. In 2006, they must begin negotiations to agree an Arms Trade Treaty.

Date of original publication: June 2006