IANSA Update 7 March 2008

UN: IANSA Women's Network members at CSW
Thailand: Victor Bout, world's most notorious arms broker, arrested
Trinidad and Tobago: IANSA calls for better PoA implementation from Caricom
Other news: Small arms conference in Mozambique; 88,000 guns seized in Yemen; Job in Geneva

UN: IANSA Women's Network members at CSW

A team of IANSA Women's Network members marked International Women's Day 2008 with a series of events at the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York (USA). CSW is the UN body dedicated to gender equality and the advancement of women. This year the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs held a joint event with IANSA on the impact of guns on women's lives. In a lively, well attended debate chaired by WN coordinator Sarah Masters, Marie-Claire Ruhamya from Solidarity of the Women of Burhale described how the flood of guns in the Democratic Republic of Congo facilitated mass rape and violence against women, both during and after the war. Widad Akrawi of Defend International spoke about the need to challenge the link between masculinity and guns in the Middle East and Maria Pia Devoto from the Asociación para Políticas Públicas cited the gun buyback in Argentina as an example of women's involvement in disarmament. Read more here.

Thailand: Victor Bout, world's most notorious arms broker, arrested

The Russian arms dealer Victor Bout has been arrested in Thailand for allegedly supplying arms to Colombian FARC rebels. He was arrested on 6 March by Thai police acting on a warrant issued by the US Drug Enforcement Administration. Bout has faced previous accusations of trafficking guns to conflict zones from the early 1990s. According to UN and Amnesty International reports, he supplied guns to embargoed destinations such as Angola, the DRC, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The guns were transported through a network of shipping agents and cargo planes operating from various countries. However, Bout has never been prosecuted for gun trafficking because of the inadequate laws of most states to regulate arms brokering and arms transporting activities. Brian Wood, director of the Military, Security and Police department at Amnesty International said: 'The truth behind who shipped all those arms to those humanitarian catastrophes must come out. Bout is the most notorious person accused by the UN arms embargo investigators of brokering and trafficking arms in defiance of the Security Council, but he is not the only one. All the perpetrators must be prosecuted, especially to deter other arms traffickers.' Read more here.

Trinidad and Tobago: IANSA calls for better PoA implementation from Caricom
IANSA member Women's Institute for Alternative Development (WINAD) met with parliamentarians in Trinidad and Tobago this week to discuss measures against gun violence in the Caribbean. WINAD expressed solidarity with the victims of the two recent mass shootings in Guyana and called for greater regional cooperation in preventing gun violence. The group said that 10 out of 15 Caricom countries have never reported on their implementation of the UN Programme of Action and five countries have only reported twice in six years. Read more here.

Other news

• The Prime Minister of Angola called for closer cooperation between government and civil society in his speech opening the first national conference on disarming Angola society, held 5-6 March. The government wants to reduce civilian gun ownership over the coming months, to reduce the likelihood of armed violence during the election in September. The conference was attended by government and UN officials from several countries, as well as civil society representatives including Joseph Dube, Africa coordinator for IANSA. Discussions covered the international instruments on small arms, gun recovery and registration strategies and raising awareness of the danger of guns in the home. Read more here.
• Yemeni police have confiscated more than 88,000 firearms since August 2007, when carrying weapons in cities was banned. Read more here.
• The Geneva Peacebuilding Platform is seeking a full-time coordinator based in Geneva. The Platform is a joint project of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, the Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva (QUNO) and the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. The job description is here. Read more here.

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