From the IANSA mailbag

Messages from IANSA members in Pakistan after the 8 October earthquake (11 October 2005)

All SPADO staff members are safe. SPADO is also providing relief services and its hundreds of youth volunteers are fundraising, collecting blood, tents, medicines, clothes and blankets for the survivors. There are about 2.5 million people who are homeless and spending their lives under open sky without basic needs of life.

Those who wish to contribute in any shape can contact SPADO at the address below.

Sincerely,
Raza Shah Khan
Executive Director
Sustainable Peace & Development Organization (SPADO)
House 103, Street 4, Sector K-2, Phase 3
Hayatabad
Peshawar
NWFP
Pakistan Phone: +92 91 581 7252 Fax: +92 91 583 6163

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Dear Colleagues in IANSA

With grace of God we are safe and are working for the affected families. We are gathering all kind of help and assistance for their relief and rehabilitation at local level. Once again thanks for remembering us in this respect.

Yours sincerely
Shahab Mughal
Wikh Foundation

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Dear All,

Many thanks for your email. We all are safe & sound by the grace of God.

Zubair Malik STEP
Pakistan

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Dear friends Just a quick note to say we are all safe here. The earthquake was severe at Richter 7.6.

Best.
Zahid Hussein
President
Sustainable Resource Foundation (SuRF)

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Many thanks for asking. With the grace of God we are safe.

Best Regards
Zaheer Khattak
Chief Executive
URDO(United Rural Development Organization)

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We … highly appreciate your thoughtful message. It is a source of solace in this hour of our national tragedy. We are also grateful to all nations who have promptly come to Pakistan's help in this hour of need. Thanks once again,

Best regards, Sincerely
Fasahat H Syed
Rah-e-Amal Welfare Trust

Click here to see all IANSA members in Pakistan

Feedback from the global campaign conference "Action for Arms Control in a World Awash with weapons", 15-17 April, Nairobi (Kenya)

21 April 2005

Thank you so much for the opportunity and support you gave me to attend the Nairobi conference. It was a wonderful experience for me and I would very much like to share in the good spirit of all gathered at the conference.

I very much appreciate all the effort and look forward to continue working on the relationship with IANSA going from strength to strength.

Thanks for all your support and I look forward to helping IANSA achieve its all-important goal.

Peter Alfred
CALMIN-SL, Sierra Leone

I am fortunate to be able to participate in the Nairobi meeting. Words fail to express my gratitude towards all the organisers, but please do accept my sincere thanks for a wonderful workshop. The program was rich in terms of deriving knowledge, exchanging views and developing joint future strategies. It gave us a platform to establish linkages. The best practices that were shared were really wonderful. I congratulate the organisers for the successful completion of the workshop.

Once again thanking you, I assure you that I will use what I learned effectively and efficiently for the Control Arms campaign in the country and in the region.

Shobha Shrestha
Member Secretary, SASA-Net Nepal

Dear friends of arms control,

It was a pleasure meeting all of you and tapping from your experiences on the campaign.
Now I am looking forward to doing impossible things for the campaign.

Eugine Ngalim Nyuydine
Executive Director - CAMYOSFOP, Cameroon

3 December 2004

Greetings and Congratulations from India, on the formation of RECAAL, the Congolese Action Network on Small Arms. We wish you and your members well as you undertake a very difficult and necessary task of creating an awareness of and from the possession of small arms among the civilians. From the media reports that we read in our newspapers, there are too many weapons of all kinds floating around with too many people, all of whom are prepared to use them. Kindly take care of yourselves and good luck.

Hemachandra Basappa
South Asian Small Arms Network (India)

11 August 2004

Thank you very much for the great work you people have done [during the Global Week of Action Against Small Arms]. I am really very gratified that the way IANSA has presented our activities on its website is fabulous.

You may know that work on our website is still underway and due to a lack of resources we can not update it on a regular basis. But thanks to IANSA that have made our job easier. Now we can send links to our partners about our latest activities etc.

Naveed Ahmad Shinwari
Chief Executive, CAMP (Pakistan)

19 July 2004

This is just to say that we here in Phnom Penh are all very impressed at what you have done to present the Kampong Thom weapons destruction on the website. Fantastic! I have mailed the link http://www.iansa.org/action/cambodia_2004.htm to one or two governments where we are looking for funding for a weapons safe storage project for Phnom Penh 2005. Because the Kampong Thom weapons were declared surplus (and therefore were able to be destroyed) after implementing such a project it is an encouragement to the governments to support us next year.

David de Beer
EU ASAC Programme Manager

5 July 2004

Dr Austin Nosike, an IANSA member in Nigeria, has been appointed to the team of consultants that will help recruit senior management staff for the Commission of the African Union, based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Dr Nosike is the national coordinator of the Nigerian Civil Society Network on Human Rights.

The IANSA Secretariat
London

6 May 2004

Some facts about Hyderabad-Sindh, according to Hyderabad police & newspapers:

* Murder & Small Arms - In March 2004, 9 murder cases were reported, of which 7 persons were killed by small arms.
* Karo - Kari (honor killings) & SMALL ARMS - From January to February 2004 in the Sindh, 35 died people in KARO - KARI; among these were 25 killed by small arms.
* Suicide & Small Arms - From January to February 2004, 21 suicides were reported, among these 6 persons used small arms.

Shabnam Rashid
Coordinator SASA-Net, Pakistan

23 April 2004

It is unfortunate that we have to spend the month of April remembering such horrible incidents such as the Rwandan genocide that claimed an estimated one million people. Our sympathy is with the people of Rwanda at large and our Rwandan participants in particular.

The Columbine High School shooting in the USA five years ago also sadly comes to mind. We pray that such brutal incidents do not occur again and we are happy that all of us in the IANSA family remain steadfast in our combined efforts to prevent all sorts of inhumanity around the globe.

Abdul Azeez Abiodun Oke
Affection for Human Rights, Nigeria

Merci pour le travail bien fait pour les relations entre les membres de
IANSA.

Yaossim Kpela
Cercle des Jeunes pour une Société de Paix (CJSP), Togo

21 April 2004

Recordamos com amargura o genocídio do Rwanda que deixou marcas inapagaveis nas mentes de todos que pugnam pela justiça , paz e respeito pelos diritos humanos. Juntamo-nos a todos quantos se inclinam perante as vitimas desre genocidio, que completa 10 anos e reafirmamos que a nossa entrega na luta por um mundo livre de armas de toda a especie é total. Aproveito informar que recebemos toda a vossa correspondencia e gostariamos de ter o programa completo da IANSA pasra o corrente ano e se há alguma previsão da realização de algum seminário ou capacitação de pesquisadores.

Felizberto Njele
NJELE-CEEA, Angola

16 April 2004

Deseo compartir con ustedes que este 11 de septiembre próximo, llevaremos a cabo el entierro de armas de juguete más grande en los últimos tres entierros que he coordinado. Pensamos involucrar 5,000 niños, niñas y jóvenes quienes renuncian voluntariamente y a conciencia de todos los iconos de la violencia, creo que la labor del desarme se inicia creando conciencia desde pequeños a renunciar a las armas como medio de disuasión, antes de que puedan poseerlas.

También logramos que el Congreso Nacional legislara a favor de una Ley que prohíbe la importación, venta y distribución de juguetes réplicas de armas reales.

Miguel Aguilar Rodríguez
Director de CULTURA DE VIDA, Honduras

La Argentina vive en estos momentos la sensación de inseguridad más grave de las últimas décadas. Nos interesaría ver de qué modo una organización con la importancia de IANSA puede expresarse y manifestarse a nivel masivo con su capacidad movilizadora global. Personalmente, no logro encontrar un modo más activo de la institución en esta durísima realidad argentina. Seguimos admirando el compromiso y la calidad humana que expresan en todas sus actividades.

Juan Carr
Red Solidaria, Argentina

Thank you very much for the creation of the Network News page on the IANSA website, this is a very good window to the world for all in the network.

Cirilo Mbonge
Angola2000

5 April 2004

I would like to meet IANSA friends and share field experiences to each other and get new ideas and programmes to implement here in Pakistan especially in my province Sindh. You may know that in my province many terrorist activities are happening day by day, whether these are religious, ethnic, tribal clashes or honour killing (karo kari) in which innocent females are being victimised by their husbands, brothers, fathers and relatives on various aspects. Our organisation is striving to mobilise people to stop such incidents and do something to protect our innocent people from this violence. I do agree that this kind of activity is so difficult and sometime dangerous for our social activists but we are marching ahead in council with teachers, students, elders, social workers and other actors for bringing peace and prosperity in our province and our country as well.

Shahab Mughal
WIKH Development Foundation, Pakistan

I was in Jammu & Kashmir and then went to Kabul, Afghanistan for Peace Meetings and returned to Nagpur (India) recently. While in Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab and Rajasthan (border states) for SALW seminars, I was shown many small weapons which do not have marks at all or whose marking were easily tampered. I have some photos of such weapons which will be sent to you along with our seminars on SALW recently held in the border states of Rajasthan, Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir.

North East India is one of the most affected parts in India having tremendous SALW problems. More than 100 small and big non-state actors (militant groups) are active in this region. Illegal arms as well as drugs are pouring in this regional from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and Bangladesh as well as from East European Countries.

To sensitise the public as well as bureaucracy and informing the militants long range effects of SALW on society, our Institute is arranging a seminar in Dimapur (Nagaland) on May 21, 2004.

Dr. Balkrishna Kurvey
Indian Institute for Peace, Disarmament & Environmental Protection, India

31 March 2004

About our upcoming event, we are putting in place a programme in the third week of April 2004. The programme is to commence dialogue with all cultist students in our higher institutions to surrender the small arms and light weapons in their possession. The programme will be expectedly tasking but we will not relent in our determination to blow the wind of change in our environments.

We add our voice to all IANSA participants to congratulate our colleagues in South Africa, Gun Free South Africa and Institute for Security Studies for the feats they have respectively performed. We appreciate them and we wish them many successful and rewarding activities in South Africa in particular and the world at large.

Abdul Azeez Oke
Affection for Human Rights, Nigeria

9 March 2004

Gracias por las buenas noticias y por tu inmenso trabajo a favor de una causa tan importante y tan enfrentada a intereses poderosos, vanos, egoístas y destructivos. Un fuerte abrazo desde tierras tropicales.

Jaime Martínez Ventura
Director del Centro de Estudios Penales, El Salvador

Many thanks for the regular update. Am currently conducting a preliminary research on the problems of SALW In northern Nigeria, where gun related crime is stalling development in one of the poorest parts of the country. I intend to develop a full research proposal from some of the findings of this preliminary engagement with the issue. I will keep in touch.

Bola Mijah
Africa Strategy and Peace Research Group (AFSTRAG), Nigeria

Bonjour et merci pour cette message glorieuse pour le reseau.

Janvier Kabwe Fikirini
AVREO, Burundi

It is great to hear of all that is happening - there is hope!

Dr Olive Kobusingye
WHO/AFRO
Republic of Congo