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British aid agency demands Canadian government push for tough standards
Globe and Mail
15 June 2006
By Estanislao Oziewicz
Iraq's horrific death toll is fuelled by easy access to small arms and lethal ammunition that is either smuggled into the country or "leaked" from the storehouses of U.S.-led coalition forces, British aid agency Oxfam says.
In a major report on the eve of a United Nations meeting on the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons, Oxfam says that as many as 14 billion bullets are made globally every year.
The real figure could be even higher because not all ammunition factories have been included in the estimate and several manufacturers have boosted production to meet increased demand in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The biggest single ammunition maker is Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Independence, Mo., which last year achieved a record output of 1.3 billion rounds.
According to Oxfam, Canada is the world's fourth-largest known exporter of small-arms ammunition, although the ranking is questionable because many countries do not provide export figures.
Nevertheless, Oxfam is demanding that the federal government lead the way in promoting tough standards to make sure bullets do not fall into the wrong hands.
"The central problem is that there are no global norms that require states to adequately mark ammunition or keep accurate records of transfers," said Robert Fox, executive director of Oxfam Canada. "Canada must move this issue forward at the UN conference later this month."
The UN Review Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons begins in New York on June 26.
Oxfam said loopholes in international controls, lack of tracking mechanisms and inadequate enforcement and accountability have meant that millions of bullets end up in war zones and in the hands of human-rights abusers.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Baghdad, where gruesome drive-by shootings and assassinations occur with a sickening, daily frequency. Even before the 2003 U.S. invasion, Iraq under dictator Saddam Hussein was awash in small arms and ammunition.
Oxfam figures it costs only $2.40 (U.S.) to take a human life in the Iraqi capital. It came up with that amount by multiplying the black-market cost of a bullet for an AK-47 rifle with the eight shots it says is the average to kill someone.
"New ammunition is widely available on Baghdad's black market," Oxfam director Barbara Stocking said. "Either it was smuggled in from neighbouring countries or it was leaked from coalition or Iraqi forces' supplies.
"In either case, weak controls mean lives lost on the streets of Baghdad," she said.
Oxfam's report, Ammunition: The Fuel of Conflict, released today, said major ammunition manufacturers China, Egypt, Iran, Brazil, Bulgaria, Romania and Israel provide no data at all on their ammunition exports, apart from shotgun cartridges.
It also said that at least 76 countries worldwide are now making ammunition -- including Kenya and Turkey, both of which have joined the global gun club in the past decade.
The report said bullets made between 1999 and 2004 in the Czech Republic, Serbia, Romania and Russia have been found on sale in Baghdad.
© Copyright 2006 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc.
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