Arms Control

Balance of the balance: Exports and imports of small arms, light
weapons (SALW) its parts and ammunition to Africa, Latin America, and
the Caribbean, from 2000 to
2007.

Public Security Programme Coordinator of the UN-LiREC, the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, William Godnick gave InterCambio an exclusive interview on his new police training course and comments on the role of police training in lowering youth violence.

Preliminary findings of a Viva Rio and Brazilian Congress' Subcom Firearms and Ammunitions Control Office survey say that there is much to be improved in gun control in the country. Survey cites irregular data provision as key problem for gun control as a strategy to lower levels of violence.

An exclusive article for the montlhy newsletter “En la mira – The Latin American Small Arms Watch.” Click here for subscriptions and for previous issues.

In writing this piece I was asked to share my thoughts on what I had learned in working with Pablo over the years. Quite a difficult question as I looked to Pablo as a peer and much of the learning was probably implicit and part of a process of giving and receiving feedback on ideas, research and hypotheses about the nature of public security illicit arms trafficking in Latin America.

Presented at the Joint Conference of the International Studies Association and Associação Brasileira de Relações Internacionais PUC/RJ, 23nd  July 2009, Rio de Janeiro

I am grateful to the organizer of this panel, particularly to Kai Michael Kenkel, for the honor of inviting me to make the eulogy of  Pablo Dreyfus.

Emmy award winner Canadian documentary filmmaker Shelley Saywell talks to Comunidad Segura about her work: 20 years focusing on the effects of conflict, war and violence in a number of films that have taken her from Gaza to South Africa, from Bosnia to Afghanistan. Her film The Devil's Bargain examines gun running, starting in Somalia and connecting the dots to Europe and North America.

International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA)'s Sarah Masters introduces the worldwide Disarming Domestic Violence campaign, a part of the Global Week of Action Against Gun Violence held in 85 countries to draw attention to the human toll of small arms proliferation and misuse. "The main goal is to ensure that anyone with a history of domestic abuse is denied access to a firearm, and has their license revoked."

In 2007, according to information from Comtrade, a UN commercial transactions database, Brazil exported around 84 million dollars in small weapons ammunition. This amount represents approximately 6,4 percent of the global small weapons ammunition exportations in this year, being last data available from Comtrade. Brazil, according to Small Arms Survey, is among the 6 main exporters of light weapons and ammunition. And to talk about ammunition production and small weapons export (MAP) in Brazil is equivalent to talking about the Brazilian Company of Cartridge (CBC - Companhia Brasileira de Cartuchos ) the company maintaining a arms monopoly in this country.

Few countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have progressed more than Peru in the path of the effective implementation of United Nations Plan of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons (PoA). Peru is a model country when referring to its annual reports to UN Office for Disarmament Affairs on accomplishment with the PoA, due to the level of details as well as for the regularity in which it is presented.