Goods for Guns: business involvement in a voluntary weapons collection programme in El Salvador

Edward J. Laurance and William Godnick

As armed violence reached a critical stage in El Salvador in 1995, it became clear
that the excessive availability of the tools of violence had to be addressed, as well as
the root causes. Immediately after the Peace Accords the government developed a
weapons collection effort, asking citizens to turn in arms to designated army posts,
with little response. Since the formal Disarmament, Demobilisation and
Reintegration (DDR) process had been completed, it was not possible to have the
UN reinstitute weapons collection.

In November 1995 a citizens group that included leaders of the business community
alarmed by the impact of armed violence on the economy formed the Patriotic
Movement Against Crime (Movimiento Patriótico Contra la Delincuencia, or MPCD).
By April 1996 the MPCD had decided to conduct a weapons collection programme 1.
The organisation was formed for three key reasons. First, members of the
Association of Distributors of El Salvador (ADES) were continually having their
delivery trucks assaulted by men armed with military weapons. Second, ADES
members were increasingly concerned about the security of their employees in
transit between work and home. Third, ADES was looking to collaborate with
government and civil society to reverse the growing violence affecting all
Salvadorans 2. It should be noted that this was not a grassroots programme. No
attempt was made to be inclusive of all levels of society. Had the opposition parties,
especially the FMLN, been involved in the planning and implementation, the
outcome would have been different, certainly spreading beyond the urban areas 3.

The ‘Goods for Guns’ programme

MPCD agreed on the following course and sequence of actions for the weapons collection programme:

- Develop a strategic plan
- Seek the support of the Rotary Club of El Salvador, the Catholic Church,legislative assembly, public security and defence authorities
- Design paperwork, forms, publicity, campaign materials and logistical details
- Seek the participation of the National Media Advertisers Association (AMSP) and of other modes of national mass communications
- Contract the services of a respected auditing firm
- Design a system for the storage, transport and elimination of armaments
- Estimate the quantity, and designate the final destination, of the weapons to be collected and destroyed
- Erect a peace monument (location, design and construction).

It was decided that the programme would not be a ‘buy-back’ in the sense that the MPCD would be purchasing weapons. Rather, citizens would be compensated for contributing to the development of a peaceful and secure future for El Salvador.

The act of turning in weapons was the most important objective, and as long as citizens continued to turn in weapons, the programme would be deemed a success.

1 At the time, a new concept to address the tools of violence had emerged in other parts of the
region. UN peace operations in Nicaragua (1992) and Haiti (1994) had begun to use a ‘gun buyback’
approach, in which citizens were asked to turn in weapons in their possession in exchange
for rewards of some kind. In the Dominican Republic (1995) this approach was used in a country
suffering from gun violence that was not part of a civil war but rather apolitical crime.
2 Interview with MPCD staff, July 1998.
3 The UN weapons collection proposal of 1995 was inclusive, with the FMLN due to play a major
role.

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