Our Government's profit from obscene arms sales

THIS week Amnesty International, Irish Section Oxfam Ireland and IANSA (the International Action Network on Small Arms) came together to launch an international campaign to control the arms trade.

This campaign is being launched in more than 50 countries around the world.

The arms trade is out of control and despite all the lip service from politicians and governments there is no comprehensive system to control or monitor the trade.

We can easily see the effect of war in the Congo, Afghanistan, Rwanda and Colombia but nobody asks where do the guns come from?

The bulk were sold by European and American companies with the support of governments only too happy to arm their allies to push their political agenda forward.

Organisations such as Amnesty Intern-ational and Oxfam end up picking up the pieces of societies devastated by war and internal violence when our own governments bear a large part of the blame.

We need a legally binding arms trade treaty which will force governments to control what is being shipped from their country and what it is being used for. This applies as much to Ireland as it does to the big players such as the United States and Britain.

We do have our own arms trade. Since 1997 Ireland has exported EUR240 million of military goods and EUR23.7 billion of dual-use goods to a range of countries with very serious records of human rights abuse.

Dual-use is equipment that has both a civilian and a military application.

Since the World Trade Center attack and the war in Iraq, politicians have talked about the need to control weapons of mass destruction.

Yet the real tragedy unfolding under their noses is the fact that every year 500,000 people are killed by conventional weapons.

That's one person every minute.

These are the real weapons of mass destruction and governments shouldn't have any trouble finding them as most are exportedfrom the US, Britain, France and Germany. It is like a bad joke to find that these counties are also the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, which has the responsibility for protecting world peace and security. Every day we see footage of massacres, columns of refugees fleeing from war and we read of the millions of children who die as a result of poverty or easily treatable diseases. Yet behind all these tragic scenes is the fact that every year billions are spent on arms that could easily help those people. In Iraq there are estimated to be around 24 million guns - enough to arm every man, ery man, woman and child in the country - and they can be bought for around US$10 each.

An average of $22 billion is spent every year on arms in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. This would be enough to provide universal primary school education in those countries (estimated at $10 billion a year) and to meet UN targets for reducing infant and maternal mortality rates, estimated to cost EUR12 billion a year.

South Africa agreed in 1999 to buy armaments including submarines, frigates, aircraft and helicopters, worth $6 billion ... enough to buy treatment for all five million AIDS suffers for two years.

Tanzania spent $40 million on a military spec air traffic... this in a country in which 46 per cent of the population are undernourished and where $40 million would have provided basic health care for 3.5 million people.

The free flow of weapons doesn't just create problems in Africa and Asia. Ready availability of guns is having a devastating effect in places as far apart as London and New York's upper east side and, increasingly, in our own country.

The only way to stem the tide of violence is to take strong steps to control the arms trade.

The equipment going from Ireland is part of the problem.

The trigger for tomahawk missiles is made in Ireland and we also design and manufacture battlefield communication systems that allow soldiers on the ground to communicate with their high command.

After decades of armed violence in Northern Ireland we should be all too aware of the need to control the trade in weapons.

We are totally committed to decommissioning in Northern Ireland but we seem to have less of a problem with recommissioning other parts of the globe.

This is why the Arms Trade Treaty is so important.

Part of the campaign is the Million Faces Project. You can show your support for the campaign by sending your photograph electronically to the Control Arms web site at "http:// www.controlarms.org"

You can also send your photograph to Oxfam Ireland at 9 Burgh Quay, Dublin 2.

The Million Faces project will run up to the next United Nations Conference on Small Arms in 2006 and will be the visual focus of the campaign.

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