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| East Africa Unites Against Small Arms |
Eleven East African countries have signed the Nairobi Protocol on small arms and light weapons, the first binding agreement on small arms in this gun-affected region.
Signed by Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania, the Protocol is a giant step toward the achievement of uniform tough gun laws. It requires these countries to incorporate provisions into their national laws
including the following:
- ban on civilian ownership of automatic and semi-automatic rifles
- registration of all guns
- regulation of gun storage and competency testing for prospective
owners
- restrictions on the number of guns a person can own
- ban on pawning of guns
- uniform minimum standards regulating the manufacture, control, possession, import, export, transit, transport and transfer of small arms
- standardised marking and identification of small arms
- regulation of security companies regulation of small arms brokering
- uniform tough sentencing for unlicensed gun possession
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| States must also create and maintain complete inventories of state-owned
small arms, sufficient to effectively trace the movement of these weapons. Requirements for secure disposal or destruction of surplus and confiscated weapons are also included.
Governments have undertaken to ratify the Nairobi Protocol by the end of
2004 and will create a Regional Centre on Small Arms to ensure its
coordinated implementation. A Civil Society Dialogue Forum will also be
created to coordinate small arms activities between NGOs, National Focal
Points and the Nairobi Secretariat.
To find out more visit the SaferAfrica website.
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