The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) welcomes the visit of President George Bush of the United States of America to Africa. This is the first visit by Mr. Bush and we commend the US Administration for organising it during the Biennial Meeting of States on the Implementation of the 2001 United Nations Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects (UNPoA), and the Summit of the African Union taking place in Maputo, Mozambique.

While welcoming the visit, we, the members of the largest coalition of civil society groupings on small arms call upon the US President and Government to demonstrate concrete support for the UNPoA by providing resources to support African Governments and Civil Society in the fight against the systematic proliferation of small arms across the continent.

IANSA Members call for:

1. Public condemnation of those who supply small arms to non-state actors and oppressive state governments. The ready availability of small arms to non state actors and oppressive state governments increases the number of human rights violations be it in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Liberia, Somalia, Algeria, Central African Republic, Sierra Leone, Senegal and many other conflict and non conflict zones in Africa.

2. Public condemnation of human and economic rights violations by government forces in conflict and non conflict zones, where small arms, described by the United Nations Secretary General as ‘weapons of mass destruction’ are killing 60 persons every hour, with 200,000 people in peaceful societies and 300,000 in armed conflicts being killed every year.

3. Support to NGOs in their fight against the abduction of children by armed groups in Uganda, Liberia, Democratic Republic of the Congo and elsewhere. We also call upon President Bush to condemn in the strongest terms all the human rights violations in Africa.

4. Mr. Bush to halt the supply of weapons to African Governments and rather to increase trade to allow governments to have more resources to deal with the demand side of the problem of small arms.

Issued and Endorsed by African Members of IANSA at the Biennial Meeting of States on the Implementation of the 2001 United Nations Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects (UNPoA). Held in New York on 7-11 July 2003.