Shelley Barry (in wheelchair) and partner outside the United Nations, July 2006. Shelley is a South African film maker who was shot in 1996.
Click here to read Shelley's statement to the conference.
Despite the efforts of the majority of governments to secure real change, the long awaited UN Small Arms conference has ended in failure. Hijacked by a small number of states, notably the US, the conference failed to agree on any measures at all to address the global gun crisis.
Delegations from many countries in Africa and Latin America, the regions worst affected by gun proliferation, complained that their interests were overlooked.
Rebecca Peters, Director of IANSA, said: ‘It is to their lasting shame that governments let this happen: they allowed a small number of states to hold them all hostage and to derail any plans which might have brought improvement in this global crisis.’
The UN small arms review conference, only the second of its kind to be called by the UN, should have provided a clear framework for governments to protect people from gun violence. But it ended in acrimony and frustration as agreement on almost all the major issues was blocked by a handful of states, and no outcome document could be agreed.
Click here to read the press release. |
