MISSING PIECES - Inter-Parliamentary Union

THEME 5
Many governments also provide significant financial and technical
support to countries that need assistance with stockpile security and destruction
of surplus weapons, either bilaterally or channelled through other
organisations or mechanisms including the OSCE, the South Eastern
Europe Clearinghouse for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons,
and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) Partnership for Peace
(PfP) Trust Fund. For example, NATO PfP small arms destruction projects
have been completed or are in progress in a number of countries in Eastern
Europe and the Caucasus, including Albania, Georgia, Ukraine, and
Serbia and Montenegro.
7. Confidence-building measures
Weapons collection and DDR are often implemented in highly charged
political environments. It is therefore important to be as transparent as
possible about the objectives of these exercises and the procedures involved.
Common questions include: Will guns and ammunition really be destroyed?
If not, will they be kept safely? Will they fall into the wrong hands? Providing
information and communicating with the public through media and
other means, including the organisation of public destruction ceremonies,
have proven successful in increasing confidence and accountability. Civil
society organisations, including NGOs, churches, and the private sector,
have all participated actively in weapons collection programmes around
the world and constitute a key channel of communication. If handled well,
a disarmament programme may in fact contribute to confidence building.
Parliamentarians can be particularly active in establishing weapons collection
schemes and explaining the process to the public.
8. Take stock − Learn lessons
Even very basic lessons learned are continually, if not consistently, ignored.
As an illustration, in May 2004, US forces in Iraq launched a gun buy-back
programme in Baghdad, offering people large cash sums in exchange for
guns. It was these cash payments that attracted participants rather than a
genuine wish to disarm, and the money has been used in some cases to
buy new guns. 12 The programme did not have any noticeable impact in
terms of reducing the vast number of military weapons in various hands in
Iraq—let alone increasing human security.
‘We sell [the Americans] the old ones and buy new ones on the black
market’, said Ali Mohsin [an Iraqi citizen]. ‘I sold one AK-47 that I
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