DANGERO US AND DEADLY ARMS TRADE

Hundreds of thousands of people are killed,injured, raped, repressed and forced to fleetheir homes every year as a result of theinternational arms trade. Families are tornapart. Livelihoods and lives are destroyed.

Armed conflicts destroy social and economicinfrastructure, breed corruption and divertpublic finances, denying the poor access to health care, water, food, shelter andeducation, increasing poverty and causingyet more deaths.

For decades there has been a global treatyon the import, export and transfer ofdinosaur bones yet there is no global treatyto strictly control the deadly trade inconventional arms.

Revolvers, rifles, machine guns, bullets, handgrenades, missiles, rockets, armoured vehiclesand other weapons and arms can be tradedbetween governments, arms dealers and armedgroups with few restrictions. Unscrupulousgovernments allow almost unlimited amountsof arms to be supplied to those flagrantlyviolating human rights and destroying lives.

Regulation at the country level has failed toadapt to an increasingly globalized trade –components are sourced from across theworld, and production and assembly takeplace in different countries.

It’s time for all governments to commit tosecuring an international Arms Trade Treaty.

amnesty.org/control-arms

Under international law, states can only sell,acquire and possess arms for legitimatesecurity, law-enforcement and self-defenceneeds.

An Arms Trade Treaty must require thatgovernments refuse arms transfers whenthose arms are likely to facilitate humanrights violations or be diverted in breach of a UN arms embargo. Those violating suchembargoes should be held accountable.

An Arms Trade Treaty must also prohibitgovernments from transferring weapons,munitions or related equipment when theyare likely to be used to commit or facilitatewar crimes or crimes against humanity,including acts of genocide.

EXISTING PROHIBITIONS ANDOBLIGATIONS

NO MORE ARMS FOR ATROCITIES

Bosniak refugees push their elderly in wheelbarrows as they fleeSrebrenica, where nearly 8,000Muslims – mainly men and boys –were killed by members of the Serbianarmy in an act of genocide. Potocari,Bosnia and Herzegovina, July 1995.

Human rights abuses committedduring the conflict in Bosnia andHerzegovina were the most seriouswitnessed in Europe since the SecondWorld War. All sides in the conflictdeliberately targeted civilians;abductions, enforced disappearance,detention without charge or trial,killings, torture – including rape – andmass forced displacement were allcommonplace.

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A girl stands on a wall of a housedestroyed during fighting betweengovernment forces and Shi’a rebels in the north-western Yemeni city ofSa’dah, February 2012.

Weeks of heavy bombardment inSa’dah during late 2009 and early2010 by Saudi Arabian and Yemeniforces reportedly killed hundreds ofpeople. There was widespreaddamage to homes, mosques, schools,local industries and infrastructure andmore than a quarter of a millionpeople were internally displaced.Between 2005 and 2009 the biggestsupplier of military weapons to Yemenwas the USA.

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The Arms Trade Treaty must stop the deliveryof bombs and artillery shells to armed forcesand armed groups who persistently andindiscriminately bomb civilian areas.

INDISCRIMINATE BOMBING

Relatives of Serb Mirko Milošević approach the spot outsidehis home where he was killed by the Kosovo Liberation Army(KLA) in Bukos, Kosovo, February 1999. The snow hasturned red with his blood.

Both sides in the Kosovo conflict committed grave humanrights abuses in 1999. The vast majority of victims wereethnic Albanians, but Serbs also suffered abuses at thehands of armed groups, such as the KLA.

At least 60 per cent of human rights violations documentedby Amnesty International have involved the use of smallarms and light weapons.

Ethnic Albanian armed opposition groups, particularly in the ethnic Albanian diaspora communities of Germany,Austria and Switzerland, trafficked substantial numbers of weapons in the Balkans in the late 1990s.

Under the Arms Trade Treaty, governmentsmust also ensure that arms are notdelivered or diverted to armed oppositiongroups that commit grave abuses of humanrights or war crimes.

GRAVE ABUSES OF HUMANRIGHTS

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A Palestinian child stands in a bombcrater in Gaza, Occupied PalestinianTerritories, January 2009.

During Israel’s devastating bombingcampaign on the Gaza Strip in 2008-2009, Israeli F-16 combat aircrafttargeted and destroyed civilian homeswithout warning, killing and injuringscores of people, often while theyslept. Munitions transferred from theUSA to the Israeli Defense Force wereused in the attacks.

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EXCESSIVE USE OF FORCE

The Arms Trade Treaty must requiregovernments to refuse internationaltransfers of riot control weapons andmunitions where they are likely to be used by security forces with excessive force,resulting in deaths or injuries.

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Protesters react after police use a “flashbang” stun grenade during an anti-government rally in Manama, Bahrain, April 2012.

Despite the Bahrain government’s insistence that it will learn from its heavy-handed response to mass protests in February and March 2011, reports oftorture and unnecessary and excessive use of force against protesters continue.At least 60 people have been killed in connection with the protests sinceFebruary 2011.

US-made tear gas canisters and baton rounds were found in the aftermath ofthe 17 February 2011 raid by Bahraini riot police on peaceful protests. TheUSA has since resumed arms sales to Bahrain, despite the ongoing humanrights violations committed by the Bahraini authorities.

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Police officers charge towards a garment worker during a protest in Dhaka,Bangladesh, July 2010. Bangladesh’s police and security forces have usedexcessive force against demonstrators systematically.

In spite of this, China, the Russian Federation and the USA, among others,continue to supply them with arms.

POORLY TRAINED POLICE ANDSECURITY FORCES

Police and security forces are more likely to commit serious human rights violations when they are poorly trained orunaccountable. Consequently, weapons,munitions or associated equipment must not be authorized until the institutions have been fully reformed and perpetratorsbrought to justice.

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Displaced people wait for their daily food ration during a sand storm at theChota Lahore refugee camp at Swabi, north-west Pakistan, June 2009. At leasta million people remain displaced by the brutal conflict between the Talibanand Pakistani forces, in which all sides have failed to adequately distinguishbetween civilians and combatants.

Pakistani forces have received billions of dollars in military aid over the last 10years, primarily from the USA, while the Taliban have benefited from a thrivingblack market in arms.

At the end of 2010, 43.3 million people were displaced due to armed conflict andpersecution, according to UNHCR, the UNrefugee agency.

The Arms Trade Treaty must preventinternational transfers of conventional armsthat provoke or prolong armed conflict andcontribute to displacement.

DISPLACEMENT

A woman cradles her baby in an overcrowded camp for displaced people inSomalia, while an armed man looks on in the background. Mogadishu,Somalia, September 2011.

According to UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, 1.5 million Somalis wereinternally displaced at the end of 2011 as a result of the longstanding civil war.Women and girls are especially vulnerable in the camps and have been rapedand attacked, sometimes by men in Transitional Federal Government uniforms.

The actions of armed groups can definepublic spaces for women. If armed groupsare on the street and are known to attackand rape women, then even simple, dailyactivities like getting to work becomedangerous.

The Arms Trade Treaty must prevent thetransfer or export of arms when there is asubstantial risk that they will be used tofurther gender-based armed violence andsexual violence against women.

ARMED VIOLENCE AGAINSTWOMEN AND GIRLS

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In 2011, child soldiers enlisted bygovernment forces or armed groups wereinvolved in conflicts in at least 14 countries;in many other countries, children wereforced to join armed criminal gangs.

Apart from the tragedy of themselvesbecoming perpetrators of human rightsviolations, many child soldiers are killed,maimed or are victims of rape and othersexual violence.

A child soldier of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda in Ntoto,Walikale territory, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), January 2012.

In 2010, an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 children were serving in the conflict ineastern DRC. They continue to be recruited by armed groups and state armedforces, despite the government having formally ended child recruitment in 2004.

Those who recruit children are rarely brought to account, and those who areconvicted often escape, in some cases returning to the armed forces.

CHILD SOLDIERS

Diseth Aguiar weeps over the body of her husband, 34-year-old CorporalAlberto Jimenez Arocha, who was killed with a shot to the head while someonetried to steal his weapon in the San José neighbourhood of Petare, Venezuela,October 2009. In the 12 months from June 2008, 79 per cent of homicides inVenezuela involved firearms.

In 2010 alone, nearly half of all homicides around the world involved firearms.Systemic armed violence is often fuelled by firearms and ammunition suppliedeither directly to criminals, or to legal but poorly regulated markets.

An Arms Trade Treaty would preventtransfers where there is credible and reliableevidence that the arms will be used tocommit acts of “armed violence”, and wherethere are serious violations or abuses ofinternational law. This would enable statesto improve human security and the work oflaw enforcement bodies.

International arms transfers should beassessed under an Arms Trade Treatyagainst the risk of being diverted to fuelpersistent or pervasive armed violence ororganized crime.

PERVASIVE ARMED VIOLENCE

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A child holds up bullets collected from the ground in the village of Rounyn,north of Shangil Tobaya, North Darfur, March 2011. Most of Rounyn’s residentshave fled to displacement camps following clashes between the governmentand armed groups in the area.

Existing arms export controls and a UN arms embargo on Darfur have failed tostop international arms transfers to Sudan. Despite the ongoing humanitariancrisis, arms from Belarus, China and the Russian Federation have repeatedlybeen deployed.

It is critical that all munitions, includingammunition, rockets, bombs and otherexplosives fall within the scope of the ArmsTrade Treaty, in spite of a bid by somegovernments to exclude ammunition.

CONTROL ALL AMMUNITION

A member of the Amigos dos Amigos (ADA) holds an Uzi submachine gun,Rocinha favela, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, February 2009. The ADA is one of threemain criminal armed groups in the city, where gangs and militias made up ofcorrupt former police use violence and intimidation to control favelas.

The spread of conventional arms among criminal gang networks underminesdevelopment and prevents people from rising out of poverty.

International transfers of conventional armscan seriously impair poverty reduction andundermine socio-economic development. Asconflict or lawlessness takes hold, countriesslide into chaos, causing development togrind to a halt. This can be seen in non-conflict situations, but also when easilyavailable arms are used unlawfully in post-conflict peace-building, or when they involve excessive, unaccountable spendingor corruption.

UNDERMINING POVERTYREDUCTION

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A policeman sprays tear gas at protesters during a student rally in Athens,Greece, December 2008. Protesters hurled firebombs at police outsideparliament on the 13th day of protests after police killed a teenager.

Amnesty International has documented several cases of police using excessiveforce and the excessive use of chemicals and tear gas during demonstrations inGreece in 2012.

Weapons such as tear gas and stun grenades are widely used by police inEurope and elsewhere but the way they are deployed often falls short ofinternational standards. In Greece, these weapons have been supplied byBrazilian, German, UK and US companies.

Weapons and munitions used by police andinternal security forces must be covered bythe Arms Trade Treaty.

Members of Sudan’s military delegation inspect a rocket system at the MILEX-2011 arms and military equipment exhibition in Minsk, Belarus, May 2011.

Many countries continue to supply arms to governments, security and policeforces known to commit human rights violations or abuse.

The global market place for arms is acomplex environment. Transactions ofteninvolve many different suppliers, agents,brokers and transporters – sometimesoperating from several differentjurisdictions. An Arms Trade Treaty mustrequire governments to register all partiesinvolved and strictly regulate allinternational transfers.

ROBUST CONTROL MECHANISMS

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An Antonov 12 cargo aircraft takes off from a remote airstrip in Goma,Democratic Republic of the Congo, September 2003. This kind of aircraft hasoften been used to deliver weapons to embargoed conflict zones in many partsof the world.

In Africa’s Great Lakes region, Goma has been a hub for this activity. In manyparts of the continent, the illicit arms trade has contributed to violence,corruption and poverty.

The Arms Trade Treaty must include robustprovisions to control the physical movementof arms across international borders. Itshould require all states to impose effectivecontrols on the transport and transporters ofarms, including through Free Trade Zones.

Without this, the Treaty will fail to address a significant loophole in international armstransfer controls, and will deprive theinternational community of a key tool toprevent arms transfers from being used tocommit and facilitate serious violations ofhuman rights.

An anti-Gaddafi fighter looks at weapons left by Colonel Mu’ammar al-Gaddafi’sforces in Misrata, Libya, October 2011. Under Colonel al-Gaddafi, violations of human rights were routine and included arbitrary detention, enforceddisappearance, torture and other ill-treatment, unlawful killings and deaths in custody.

The risk of arms being used for serious human rights violations in Libya underColonel al-Gaddafi was substantial. Yet many states, including Belgium, theCzech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Russian Federation and the UK, supplied the country with weapons.

Globally, a wide range of conventional armshave been used by government forces andarmed groups in attacks designed to kill and intimidate civilians. Some of these arms have been diverted illegally; othershave been supplied with the knowledge orcomplicity of states and their agents. The Arms Trade Treaty must forbid suchtransfers.

WEAPONS PROLIFERATION

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A riot policeman fires a shotgun at protesters during clashes in a side streetnear Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, November 2011. More than 6,000 peoplewere injured in connection with the “25 January Revolution” in 2011, some ofthem permanently. At least 840 people were killed.

The USA is the biggest arms supplier to Egypt, and has continued to transferarms there in spite of the numerous human rights abuses committed since thebeginning of the revolution. More than 100 people have been killed as a resultof excessive and lethal force by security forces since October 2011.

Outside armed conflict, even if it is unclearwhether crimes against humanity will be committed, governments still have aninternational obligation to stop armstransfers to military, security or police forces who are known to commit seriousinternational human rights violations. These rules are essential for an effectiveArms Trade Treaty.

SERIOUS VIOLATIONS OFHUMAN RIGHTS

Amnesty International, alongside NGOpartners and activists around the world, hasbeen campaigning for an Arms Trade Treatysince the early 1990s. It was 2009 beforethe UN General Assembly adopted aresolution to develop a Treaty to regulate the international arms trade.

In July 2012, states will at last meet toagree the Treaty at a four-week-long UNConference. Every government has aninterest in the outcome.

However, the world’s largest arms traders – including the USA, the European Union(especially France, Germany and the UK), the Russian Federation and China – wield themost influence and there is a real danger thatChina, the Russian Federation and the USAwill push for the Treaty text to be watered

down until it is ineffective. Some states in the Middle East and Asia may even vetothe Treaty.

We must keep up the pressure on states toadopt a Treaty that will save lives and helpprotect human rights.

After July, we will campaign even harder to make sure states ratify and comply withthe Arms Trade Treaty.

Governments must stamp out irresponsiblearms transfers and keep weapons out of the wrong hands. Amnesty International iscalling on governments to adopt, ratify andimplement a treaty that will:

n Stop arms getting into the hands ofpeople likely to commit war crimes,genocide, mass rape, torture, displacementand other grave human rights abuses.

n Control all arms, ammunition andcomponents parts.

n End secrecy, corruption and wastedresources.

n Be enforced and policed, and holdgovernments to account.

IT’S TIME FOR A BULLET-PROOF ARMS TRADE TREATY KEEP WEAPONS OUT OF THEWRONG HANDS

Amnesty International Publications

First published in 2012 byAmnesty International PublicationsInternational SecretariatPeter Benenson House1 Easton StreetLondon WC1X 0DWUnited Kingdomwww.amnesty.org

© Amnesty International Publications 2012

Index: ACT 30/032/2012 EnglishOriginal language: EnglishPrinted by Amnesty International,International Secretariat, United Kingdom

All rights reserved. This publication is copyright, butmay be reproduced by any method without fee foradvocacy, campaigning and teaching purposes, but notfor resale. The copyright holders request that all suchuse be registered with them for impact assessmentpurposes. For copying in any other circumstances, or for reuse in other publications, or for translation oradaptation, prior written permission must be obtainedfrom the publishers, and a fee may be payable. Torequest permission, or for any other inquiries, pleasecontact copyright@amnesty.org

Amnesty International is a global movement of more than 3 million supporters, membersand activists in more than 150 countries andterritories who campaign to end grave abusesof human rights.

Our vision is for every person to enjoy all therights enshrined in the Universal Declaration ofHuman Rights and other international humanrights standards.

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Find our more and take urgentaction: amnesty.org/control-arms

NO MORE ARMS FOR ATROCITIESOR ABUSE

TAKE ACTION Visit amnesty.org or contact your local AmnestyInternational office to find out how you can help

Cover image: Somali children stare ata Transitional Federal Governmentsoldier carrying a machine gunammunition belt while on patrol inBurgabo, south of Kismayu inSomalia, December 2011.

Civilians have been targeted many timesduring Somalia’s armed conflict bygovernment forces and armed Islamistgroups. A UN arms embargo in placesince 1992 has been repeatedly violatedthanks to its built-in governmentexemptions and ineffective armscontrols in other countries.

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