Towards a Safe and Secure Nation: The First Consultative Conference on Firearm Control, Ownership and Administration in Botswana, 13-15 May, 2003

Speech of Ambassador Mamabolo on the NEPAD Peace and Secutity programme to be delivered by the South African Ambassador to Botswana
Ms E V G Komane

I would like to thank you for inviting me to address the First National Consultative Conference on Firearm Control, Ownership and Administration in Botswana: Towards a Safer and Secure Nation and for giving me the opportunity to share my views on the manners in which small arms control and disarmament are inclusive of the African approach to conflict prevention, management and resolution of conflict as envisaged in the New African Partnership for Development's peace and security agenda.

Firstly, small arms control and disarmament are only two components of a much broader agenda: the Agenda of Peace, Security and Safety that is a prerequisite for prosperity and development in Africa. It is, therefore, imperative that when reviewing what could be accomplished in these components - those of small arms control and disarmament the broader comprehensive approach to Peace is not forgotten. The object of small arms control and of disarmament should be to support and complement other components which are equally valid and necessary to secure the well-being of our peoples and to guarantee peace and stability for our governments.

Secondly, there can be no national approaches to small arms control and disarmament that are sustainable and effective unless these fit into the agenda of common and sustainable peace for the region and for the continent as a whole.

It is my object today to share with you the manner in which Africa is engaging in this sustainable process and to demonstrate how national and regional small arms control and disarmament measures in Africa are considered as part of a larger whole in the NEPAD peace and security agenda .

A comprehensive approach to Peace and Security: The African VisionNEPAD

During 2001, at Lusaka, the Heads of State of the OAU agreed on a common vision for African Development and entitled their vision "The New Partnership for African Development" initiative or NEPAD, for short. One of the most interesting aspects of this Initiative is the recognition that a Programme of Action for Africa to secure its future, necessarily starts with securing the preconditions for sustainable development. These preconditions are two: Firstly, a peace and security initiative in Africa and, secondly, a democracy and governance initiative. As components of the former, NEPAD indicates that:

" The Peace and Security Initiative consists of three elements:
- Promoting long-term conditions for development and security.
- Building the capacity of African institutions for early warning, as well as enhancing African institutions' capacity to prevent, manage and resolve conflict.
- Institutionalising commitment to the core values of the African initiative through the leadership".

This component further details that efforts to build Africa's capacity to manage all aspects of conflict should focus on the means necessary to strengthen existing continental and regional institutions, "especially in four key areas:

Prevention, management and resolution of conflict.
Peacemaking, peacekeeping and peace enforcement.
Post conflict reconciliation, rehabilitation and reconstruction.
Combating the illicit proliferation of small arms, light weapons and landmines."

The manner in which the combating of illicit proliferation of small arms, light weapons and landmines is addressed in NEPAD clearly demonstrates that it is seen and acted upon as part of a greater comprehensive whole. By the same token, this "bigger picture" is as much tied to hard security as it is tied to the sustainable development agenda of Africa.

During 2002, the NEPAD peace and security subcommittee has been expanding these concepts. Finally, a consultative AU-NEPAD Peace and Security workshop was held at the AU Commission in Addis Ababa from 17 to 18 February 2003. The workshop brought together the NEPAD Steering Committee, the NEPAD Sub-Committee on Peace and Security, the Troika of the AU Central Organ, the NEPAD Secretariat and the AU Commission (Peace and Security Directorate). The AU-NEPAD peace and security workshop recognized that the root causes of insecurity derive from a complex amalgam of political, economic and social factors and that the attainment of democracy, good governance, human rights, development and economic growth are critical to the creation of conditions of peace and security. The workshop identified the following as the priority areas for immediate action:

Developing mechanisms, institution-building processes and support instruments for achieving peace and security in Africa.
Improving capacity for, and coordination of, early action for conflict prevention, management and resolution including the development of peace support operations capabilities.
Improving early warning capacity in Africa through strategic analysis and support.
Prioritizing strategic security issues as follows:
1. Promoting an African definition and action on Disarmament, Demobilization, rehabilitation and Reconstruction (DDRR) efforts in post-conflict situations.
2. Coordinating and ensuring effective implementation of African efforts aimed at preventing and combating terrorism.
Ensuring efficient and consolidated action for the prevention, combating and eradication of the problem of the illicit proliferation, circulation and trafficking of small arms and light weapons.
Improving the security sector and the capacity for good governance as related to peace and security.
Generating minimum standards for application in the exploitation and management of Africa's resources (including non-renewable resources) in areas affected by conflict.
Assisting in resource mobilization for the African Union Peace Fund and for regional initiatives aimed at preventing, managing and resolving conflicts on the continent.

This document of 17/1 8th February 2003 was subsequently endorsed by the Heads of State meeting of the NEPAD Steering Committee in Abuja, Nigeria on March 9th, 2003 as follows:

" The HSGIC welcomed the Addis Ababa AU/NEPAD Consultation Meeting on Peace and Security of 17-18 February 2003 and endorsed its report. It encouraged the AU Commission and NEPAD Secretariat to continue to work closely in promoting the AU Peace and Security agenda to which the NEPAD is bringing added value. The Summit further encouraged them to continue to effectively engage their G8 counterparts towards drawing up a concrete programme in support of the African Peace and Security Agenda".

Factors Impacting on Conventional Disarmament: the Case of Small Arms and Liqht Weapons.

Perhaps there is no better example of comprehensive African thinking in action than the discussion of small arms and light weapons control and disarmament. Before I refer to the specific case of small arms proliferation in Africa, it is useful to make a few comments as to the overall disarmament needs and approaches in Africa in all its aspects.

Disarmament initiatives involving conventional weapons have proven to be both contentious and complex. The main reason for this is that unlike nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, where international norms against their use have been developed, conventional weapons have a legitimate function within State structures. It is the sovereign right of each State to defend and protect its sovereign interests and the security of its people. In doing so, each State has the right to acquire these weapons systems for the purposes of self-defence, an inherent right that is recognised under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.

Having said this, the problems caused by conventional weapons that fall into the wrong hands have sparked the debate on how this can be curbed. Regional initiatives relating to disarmament in the field of conventional arms have thus, in recent years, focused mainly on the issue of small arms and light weapons, as these have proven to be the socalled weapons of choice in internal conflicts and are relatively easy to get hold of. The paradox as far as small arms and light weapons is concerned, is that they pose a potentially greater threat to civilians and the resultant stability of countries in post-conflict situations than during conflict situations. In the efforts to bring about peaceful resolutions to armed conflicts during the previous two decades, inadequate measures to disarm, demobilise and reintegrate former combatants have left parts of the world awash with these weapons, thus fuelling criminal and other unlawful activities.

While inadequate efforts to disarm former combatants is perhaps the single biggest aggravating factor governing the movement and use of these weapons, a second is the phenomenon of developed countries or those aspiring to conform to the standards of weaponry set by certain military alliances, to rid themselves of existing unwanted, unused stocks of small arms and other conventional arms. The third factor is the potential, or lack thereof, of most countries to control existing or newly acquired government-controlled weapons stocks.

This third factor becomes critical if countries are to address the issue of the illicit proliferation of small arms and light weapons and this is also why South Africa has consistently advocated that there is a link between the licit and the illicit arms trade. Countries that lack legal and administrative measures at the national levels over the manufacture, possession, use and trade in small arms and light weapons have no way of guaranteeing that these weapons will not form part of the illicit trade through direct theft from State armouries or the theft or diversion of arms exports.

Thus, South Africa is of the view that global or regional approaches to disarmament as far as the small arms issue is concerned, have as a starting point, the issue of controls at the national level. Effective regional approaches to combat the illicit arms trade must start with measures to strengthen regulation, control and restraint for legal arms possession and transfers. Cooperation on border controls, arms export licensing systems and police cooperation are key issues in combating the illicit small arms proliferation, but without the necessary national control systems, such cooperation will remain paralysed.

The impact this, of course, has on regional cooperation is that the levels of cooperation will vary from one region to the next. The reasons for this relate to the security situation within countries, the stability factor in particular regions, as well as the resultant reluctance or unwillingness by some countries to participate in information exchange and other transparency measures. The fact that the level of regional cooperation varies amongst regions, results in the fact that as far as practical steps to combat the illicit proliferation of small arms and light weapons at the global level is concerned, there can be no international blueprint for dealing with this issue. The Programme of Action adopted at the July 2001 "UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects", recognised this fact and clearly identified measures to be taken at the national and regional levels as key to addressing the problems of this illicit trade.

The Regional Approach to Disarmament: Sub-Regional and Continental

African sub-regional approaches to disarmament in the field of small arms and light weapons have ranged in scope, and while in certain regions there has been virtually no cooperation, the cooperation in others have taken the form of some very practical measures. In Southern Africa, the region has focused on Arms Regulation and National Legislation. The main vehicle for the development of a cooperative approach in the region has been the Southern African Development Community (SADC). With the signing of the "Protocol on the Control of Firearms, Ammunition and Other Related Materials in the Southern African Development (SADC) Region" by the SADC Summit of Heads of State in August 2001, a comprehensive instrument was adopted aimed at dealing with both the legal and the illicit transfers of firearms in the region. The impetus for the negotiation of this Protocol was as a result of the upsurge in violent crime in the region and in the lethality of the conflict in Angola, partly as a result of the incomplete disarmament processes in Mozambique and Angola during the early and mid-1990s. The Protocol includes the need for SADC Members to enact national legal measures to ensure proper controls over the manufacturing, possession and use of firearms and ammunition; provisions promoting legal uniformity and minimum standards as to the manufacture, control, possession, import, export and transfer of firearms and ammunition; ensuring the standardised marking of firearms at the time of manufacture, export or import; provisions relating to brokering; controls and limitation on legal civilian possession of firearms; mutual legal assistance and information exchange; and the destruction of surplus, redundant or obsolete State-owned firearms, ammunition and other related materials. The officially mandated implementing agency for the SADC Protocol is the Southern African Police Chiefs Coordinating Committee (SARPCCO). Other regions of Africa are following this line of action through, for example, the Nairobi Initiative for the Great Lakes Region and the Horn and the ECOWAS Moratorium Initiative.

The African continent, with the adoption of the Bamako Declaration on the illicit Proliferation, Circulation and Trafficking of Small Arms and Light Weapons on 1 December 2000, articulated, for the first time, a continent-wide strategy for tackling the illicit small arms problem. This strategy is comprehensive in that it addresses both the supply and demand aspects of the issue and that prevention is recognized, together with control and reduction. The provisions agreed to by the African Ministerial Conference target both the legal and the illicit trade in small arms, calling for the 'institutionalization' of programmes of action on small arms at both the national and regional levels. While not politically binding on any African country, the Bamako Declaration sends a powerful political commitment to the eradication of the problems created by the illicit small arms trade.

The almost identical approach reflected between the comprehensive character of the African Common Approach to the problem of illicit proliferation of small arms and light weapons and the comprehensive character of the African vision for the 21 st Century as expressed in the NEPAD initiative, are the best proof that Africa is no longer expressing its wishes but acting strongly to support its best interests.

The best interests of Africa are to achieve lasting peace and sustainable well-being for its peoples. The way Africa will obtain these goals is through comprehensive strategies that recognize the problems as they are, and that work to overcome them with the tools at its disposal.

The tools of Africa are those of cooperation and dialogue. It was only when these original tools were temporarily lost during our turbulent past, where external power-plays and foreign economic interests primed over our own concerns, that conflict erupted and remained.

Africa is back, using the tools that have always been ours by right and we shall use them to bring peace and development to our continent. Conventional disarmament in general, and the prevention, control and eradication of small arms and light weapons proliferation, in particular, are necessary components of the African agenda; but they are only components. Our goal is and must be to achieve lasting peace and prosperity for our countries and our peoples. Today, Botswana is realizing this goal and is benefiting not only its own national security but that of the Southern African region by serving the goals of the NEPAD peace and security agenda.

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