*EPF309 02/02/00
Controlling Small Arms Proliferation a Top Priority, U.S. Official Says
(Interview with State Department policy expert Feinstein) (1120)
By Charles W. Corey
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington - Helping to control the proliferation of light weapons and firearms which threatens regional stability and fuels regional conflicts worldwide is a "top priority" of the Clinton administration, says Lee A. Feinstein, associate director of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's Policy Planning Staff.

In a recent interview, Feinstein said the administration's "activist policy" of dealing with small arms proliferation worldwide -- and especially in Africa -- began five years ago with an announcement by President Clinton before the U.N. General Assembly.

"Since then, we have made significant progress on this very, very difficult issue," Feinstein noted.

Feinstein pointed to a precedent setting treaty recently adopted by the Organization of American States (OAS), which he said will impact arms sales in Africa and elsewhere in the world. The agreement, he explained, "criminalizes the activity of trading (small arms such as guns or automatic weapons) on the black market" and requires proper authorization for the import and export of such weapons.

The treaty, he added, also requires the "indelible marking" of firearms at the time of import - an essential step to trace "where these weapons come from" should they again be moved across borders. Such action, he stressed, is "critical" for dealing with "leaky borders" and for "helping to solve international crimes."

The OAS treaty -- which has been adopted on a hemisphere-wide basis - now stands as a model for the rest of the world, Feinstein said. The United States and other nations already are using the agreement "as the basis for a global agreement against illicit firearms trafficking which is now being negotiated in Vienna under U.N. auspices."

To that end, Secretary Albright, he recalled, has called for the conclusion of a firearms protocol to the Transnational Organized Crime Convention by the end of this year.

Albright, he said, has "spoken out" against small arms proliferation on several occasions, including last September during a United Nations Security Council foreign ministers meeting which focussed on the topic.

[Two special reports "Arms and Conflict in Africa" and "Arms Flows to Central Africa/Great Lakes," which trace arms flows to the continent, are now available on the U.S. State Department's website: www.state.gov.]

The Africa reports, Feinstein said, seek to "spotlight" problem areas and to "put on notice those engaged in illegal activities and those turning a blind eye to those illegal actives" that this is a "serious problem and that the international community is getting geared up to do something to about it."

Feinstein said the United States is working closely with the United Nations Africa Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders (UNAFRI). UNAFRI recently held a three-day (U.S. funded) conference in Kampala to "take stock of what the capacities are to cope with the problem of porous borders and firearms trafficking." The event drew representatives from 15 African nations and such non-African participants as Japan, Canada, Norway, United States, the World Customs Organization and the Institute for Security Studies.

UNAFRI has had considerable experience dealing with law enforcement issues, Feinstein said. The institute currently is conducting a continent-wide survey of firearms laws and regulations and the capacity of African nations to control international borders. Feinstein said that the UNAFRI conference kicked off the survey.

UNAFRI's one year project will be followed by a second conference at which participating countries will review the survey results. "We expect this to be the basis for future work, including the establishment of a regional center" to monitor the flow of small arms across Africa. "Exactly what that center will do will be up to UNAFRI and the countries that participate and cooperate with it," he said.

"Certainly we think that one of the functions would be to serve as a clearinghouse of information: potentially to model laws and regulations where countries could go to help to harmonize their own laws; as a place to talk about particular problems that countries in the region are facing and how to deal with them; and as a contact point for the intentional community to reach out to countries in Africa."

According to Feinstein, there is no question that the international community is keen about addressing the small arms issue. "Because whatever peacekeeping resources we and the United Nations and regional organization like ECOMOG (Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group) can apply to Africa are undercut by illegal arms trafficking," he said. "So we see this as part and parcel of any successful strategy - regional, national, international -- to deal with conflict resolution."

Feinstein hailed ECOWAS for adopting one year ago, a "very bold" initiative which imposes a three year moratorium on the import, export and manufacture of small arms in West Africa.

"We see the UNAFRI survey as complementing the goals of the ECOWAS moratorium," he said, adding that the participants in the ECOWAS moratorium "were represented at the UNAFRI Conference."

Regarding weapons shipments to Africa, Feinstein said they consisted mostly of large armaments during the Cold War. But the problem today, he said, is the "inflow of small arms, by which we mean guns and automatic weapons" - mainly from Central and South Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

The problem of these illegal arms flows varies throughout the continent, he noted.

"In South Africa, for instance, the easy availability of weapons, the legacy of apartheid, and difficulties in economic development, have created a tremendous crime problem which is compounded by the large number of weapons available. In Central Africa - Angola, DROC (Democratic Republic of Congo), Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia -- we have a very very serious problem as well."

Feinstein said that "a belt of conflict" now exists from the northeast coast of Africa through Angola "and in some sense you might call this a free trade zone for weapons."

The United States meanwhile is "prepared to support countries and regional organizations in destroying weapons that are seized or that various countries identify as surplus - if they want assistance in doing that," Feinstein said. At the request of the Liberian government last summer, he noted, the U.S. provided a "modest sum" of $300,000 to help destroy 18,000 small weapons and 3 million rounds of ammunition.

Feinstein cautioned that such programs -- which tend to be complicated -- must be set-up on a country by country basis. And, he stressed, a destruction program alone "cannot work unless there is a political will in the region to deal with the sources of conflict to drive the desire to acquire the arms."
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