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desarme.org
September 24, 2002

Argentina Responds To Demand For
Explanation On Illegal Arms Transfers To Brazil

NGO cooperation leads to action at the federal level

Late last week, Argentina became the first country to respond to pressure to explain how thousands of firearms, including weapons for restricted military use, wound up in the hands of criminals in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The move was led by the NGO Espacios (Mendoza, Argentina), which formally requested an investigation in letters to the Security and Defense Commissions of the Argentine Congress and Senate, as well as to the Minister of Justice and Security.

Diputado Fernando Montoya, President of the Security Commission for Argentina's National Congress, has acknowledged that he is currently examining the information and that the action will likely result in a federal investigation.

This past July, Viva Rio (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) together with the government of Rio de Janeiro state, produced detailed lists and reports on over 240,000 guns apprehended by the police from 1950-2001, many of them used in criminal acts. Aside from domestically-produced firearms (the majority), thirteen other countries produced guns that were seized by Rio police in irregular situations. Complete reports and lists were widely distributed on www.desarme.org , where they are still available to the public, breaking with the authoritarian tradition of non-transparency in weapons transfers in the region.

Rio state governor Benedita da Silva handed the lists to diplomatic representatives from each of the countries to ask for international cooperation to trace the route of the weapons, in order to curb their flow into the notoriously crime-ridden state. Argentina has been the first to respond.

Among the more than 3,000 Argentine weapons confiscated by police were 315 for restricted military use, such as FAL rifles, and FMK3 and PAM submachine guns. Also last week, Argentine news channels broadcast images showing that firearms are illegally sold from military arsenals, thus explaining reports of missing weapons in military stockpiles.

Tracing these weapons is the key to discovering how they pass from legal to illegal markets. Without international cooperation, as in the case of Argentina and Brazil here, it would be nearly impossible to uncover this information. Countries who have yet to respond are (in order of number of weapons confiscated): the United States, Spain, Belgium. Argentina, Germany, Italy Czech Republic, Austria, France, China, Israel, Russia and Switzerland.

Viva Rio reiterates its appeal to NGOs from these countries to pressure their governments to collaborate with the Rio state government, in order to reveal the identity of the original buyers and help push for tracing of these weapons.

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