THE SECURITY IMPLICATIONS OF 

MICRODISARMAMENT 

By 

Dr. Christopher D. Carr 

The Counterproliferation Papers 

Future Warfare Series No. 5 

USAF Counterproliferation Center 

Air War College

Air University 

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama 

The Security Implications of Microdisarmament 

Dr. Christopher D. Carr 

January 2000 

The Counterproliferation Papers Series was established by the USAF 

Counterproliferation Center (CPC) to provide information and analysis to assist 

the understanding of the U.S. national security policy-makers and USAF 

officers to help them better prepare to counter the threat from weapons of 

mass destruction. Dr. Carr and the CPC wish to acknowledge the USAF 

Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) for their contribution to this 

publication. Copies of No. 5 and previous papers in this series are available 

from the USAF Counterproliferation Center, 325 Chennault Circle, Maxwell 

AFB AL 36112-6427. The fax number is (334) 953-7530; phone (334) 

953-7538. 

Counterproliferation Paper No. 5 

USAF Counterproliferation Center 

Air War College

Air University 

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama 36112-6427

The Internet address for the USAF Counterproliferation Center is: 

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/awc-cps.htm

Contents: 

Page 

Disclaimer.....................................................................................................i 

The Author.................................................................................................. ii 

Acknowledgments ..................................................................................... iii 

I. Introduction.........................................................................................1 

II. Controlling Proliferation.....................................................................5 

III. Anatomy of a Deal............................................................................13 

IV. Methods of Constraint ......................................................................17 

V. Arms Management, Decommissioning, and Reclamation ...............21 

VI. An Agenda for Microdisarmament...................................................29 

Notes..........................................................................................................33 

i 

Disclaimer 

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do 

not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Government, 

Department of Defense, or the USAF Counterproliferation Center. 
ii 

The Author 

Dr. Christopher Can joined the Air War College in 1998. Previously 

he was Senior Researcher, Center for Public Policy and Contemporary 

Issues, University of Denver. From 1986-8, 1989-93 he was Distinguished 

Visiting Professor in the Department of Political Science, U.S. Air Force 

Academy. He has written articles on arms transfer policy and most recently 

contributed a chapter to Ants Control Toward the 21st Century. This paper 

focuses on his current research on the instability created by light weapons 

proliferation and on the prospects of microdisarmament. His expertise is in 

sub-state conflict, light weapons proliferation, arms-saturated environments, 

“Kalaxhnikov cultures,” conventional arms transfers, and international 

organized crime. Dr. Carr holds a B.A. from the University of Lancaster, 

UK and a Ph.D. in International Relations from the London School of 

Economics (LSE). 
iii 

Acknowledgments 

Microdisarmament and the issue of light weapons proliferation is a 

relatively new field of study and certainly does not sit easily within the 

conventional pantheon of counterproliferation issues. It is especially 

gratifying, therefore, that the United States Air Force Counterproliferation 

Center has supported this research. Apart from the funding that was provided 

by the Center, the support itself lends credibility and gravitas to a topic that 

is just now beginning to achieve legitimacy. In addition, the USAF Institute 

for National Security Studies is acknowledged for the support of this 

research, particularly in respect with interviews conducted within the United 

States. 

Interviews were conducted within the U.S., the UK, South Africa, and 

Mozambique. In this regard, I would like to particularly thank William 

Godnick at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, David Biggs at 

the Department of Disarmament Affairs—United Nations, Sarah Meek at 

International Alert (London) and Dr. Chris Smith, King’s College, London 

for their time and assistance. In Africa, I am especially beholden to Ettienne 

Hennop at the Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria, to Superintendent Stan 

Joubert of the South African Police Service (Illegal Firearms Investigation 

Unit), and to Christian Brun of TAE, Maputo, Mozambique. 

Security Implications . . . 1

The Security Implications Of Microdisarmament 

Christopher D. Carr 

I. Introduction 

In arms control, as in life, size tends to be a key factor in generating 

interest and absorbing resources. The greater the potential lethality of the 

device, be it battleship or Bomb, the more great minds become exercised 

towards great ideas of management and control. The relatively small 

numbers of major weapon systems in the hands of relatively few state powers 

allows for a certain elegance of thought to develop that is worthy of the 

attention of philosopher, strategist and high policymaker. But while the 

architects of arms control dwell on their great designs the majority of the world’s 

population are not concerned with the potential threat from weapons of mass 

destruction (WMD). Instead, they are galvanized by the threat posed to their 

security by the mass of weapons of a more intimate destructive capability. 

For these people “small” arms do not equate with “small” threat but rather 

with “real” threat. It is toward a mitigation of this real threat posed by small 

arms, or light weapons, that the concept of microdisarmament is dedicated.1

Microdisarmament is, of course, a hyperbole. Since the number of 

globally available light weapons is unknown (figures range from 500 million 

units to more than a billion) and they exist in the inventories of all state and 

many non-state actors, it is patently unrealistic to expect the complete 

dissolution of the small arms inventory. Instead, in the words of former UN 

Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali (who coined the term “microdisarmament” in 1995), “by this (I) mean practical disarmament in the 

context of...light weapons that are actually killing people in the hundreds 

of thousands” (emphasis added).2

 In the four years since this statement was 

made it has been further moderated so that “microdisarmament” is now an 

umbrella concept designed to include the control of light weapons through 

counter-proliferation activities, through the inception of international 

regimes and through attempts to search for and destroy extant inventories. 

The light weapons initiative began with and retains a close affinity with 

the landmines campaign. As with the landmines debate, non-governmental 

organizations (NGOs) were the prime movers in raising the initial concerns 

over the destabilizing effects of weaponized states and communities. And 

again intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), most prominently the UN, 
2 . . . Security Implications

European Union and Organization of American States, became involved 

before individual states began to take notice of the issue. As such, it is 

possible that we are witnessing a trend in innovation in international security, 

in which conscience-raising by NGOs, amplified by media and the Internet, 

predicates IGO and state-based action. 

At its worst the uncontrolled proliferation of light weapons has resulted in a 

level of weaponization in which an armed populace directly challenges, 

subverts or even abrogates the power of a centralized authority. This 

phenomenon has earned the sobriquet of “Kalashnikov culture.”3

 The 

identification is with the most prolific of light weapons, the Soviet Avtomat 

Kalashnikov (AK) series of assault rifles. Such cultures are identifiable in 

Latin America (Colombia, El Salvador/Guatemala), sub-Saharan Africa 

(Liberia, Sierra Leone, Great Lakes Region, Sudan, Uganda, Somalia), the 

Near East (the Caucasus, Yemen), South Asia (Afghanistan, northern 

Pakistan and India) and Europe (Albania, the former Yugoslavia). In these 

(and incipiently at least eight more) states, norms of popular behavior and 

expectations of governmental action are sufficiently corrupted by the 

presence of weapons in the hands of the citizenry that power has devolved 

into the hands of tribes, clans, gangs and other sub-state actors. 

At this juncture a certain philosophical dilemma must be addressed. If 

authority is absent within a society then the defense of self and family 

devolves to the individual. Microdisarmament is predicated on withdrawing 

the instrument of such defense, the gun, from the control of the individual. 

For this action to be morally sustainable the concept of microdisarmament 

must be part of a process which both protects the vulnerable populace from 

armed marauders as well as from tyrannical governments holding a 

monopoly of armed power. Indeed, most “Kalashnikov cultures” are the 

result of failures of governance, rather than from an easy embracing of 

Hobbesian anarchy. To disarm without substituting the reality of protective 

security is to play God with the lives of those that have been disarmed. 

But if the latter appears to give qualified support to weaponization as a 

necessary evil in the face of injustice or of a break down in order, then 

experiences with “Kalashnikov cultures” would rebut such a conclusion. 

The notion that some form of street-level deterrence regime prevails if a 

society is heavily armed is not borne out by evidence. In the city of Karachi, 

where the arms from the North West Frontier Province and from Afghanistan 

have washed into the society for more than two decades, violence has become 
Security Implications . . . 3

both epidemic and endemic. Gun law, in the form of vigilantism, terrorism 

and extra-judicial killing, have created an almost uninhabitable urban 

environment, with the additional element that most people in the city have 

no recourse but to live and die within its environs. Similarly, the fact that 

there may be six weapons for every human in Yemen has not made for a 

self-regulating, harmonious community but rather for an environment of 

constantly feuding clans with an international reputation for institutional and 

personal violence.4

The evolution of “Kalashnikov” cultures and of weaponized societies in 

most of the developing world are directly linked to two of the seminal 

political phenomena of the 20th century: colonialism and the Cold War. In 

the case of the former, the imperfect division of the global political map 

created tensions of governance and legitimacy which have often resulted in 

the failure of nascent democracies and of the rule of law. As the result the 

conditions which empowered armed groups have been perpetuated in the 

former territories of the European and Soviet empires. The icons of 

centralized authority, either in the form of parliaments, in Africa for 

example, or state intimidation, in the case of the Soviet empire, were either 

inappropriate or unsustainable. They were then replaced by more traditional 

forms of authority which themselves were often dependent on traditional 

forms of control, most particularly variations on “gun law” or armed 

patronage. 

Like colonialism, the Cold War provided for its own structural 

dislocations, but massive light weapons proliferation has been its 

contribution to the problem of weaponized states. East-West competition 

often took the form of military aid programs and light weapons were the loose 

change of these attempts to win friends and influence governments. Not 

considered either destabilizing nor politically “dangerous,” small arms were 

often given away freely (and for free) to allies and surrogates as a method of 

cementing relations or supporting pro-U.S. or pro-Soviet administrations. 

Unlike aircraft or tanks it was felt that such dispersals, while lacking in 

positive symbolism, were also unburdened with moral implications. Even 

when light weapons were the principal tools of a foreign policy initiative (for 

example, the arming of the Contras) it was felt that this was an acceptable 

low cost, low risk strategy. Only in rare cases, such as the provision of 

“Stinger” manportable air defense systems (MANPADS) to the Afghan 

mujahadeen, was there any concern about unforeseeable consequences. 
4 . . . Security Implications

The result of the dislocations of the post-colonial era and of the end of 

the Cold War, exacerbated by the number of weapons proliferated during the 

latter era, is that of broad bands of instability stretching across Africa, Asia 

and Latin America. Such instability serves neither the interest of the United 

States nor of the international community. In many ways light weapons are 

a more mobile, more flexible adjunct of landmines. They rarely decay and 

thus their lethality continues across both geographical divides and 

generations. Much like errant drift nets, small arms that were released from 

the arsenals of Uganda or Albania, from the “gray-market” factories of 

Bulgaria, stolen from the police stations of South Africa, continue to inhibit 

the evolution of civil society until they are rendered harmless. 

The challenge, therefore, is to identify and decommission those arms that 

already exist in an uncontrolled form and to inhibit the infusion of any more 

light weapons into the areas of concern. Such an Augean task will obviously 

involve entities at the national, supranational and sub-national level and will 

require some sense of shared responsibility emanating from a consensuallybased, coherent and clear strategy. Currently, such a strategy or even 

consensus does not yet exist. The remainder of this work, therefore, will 

concentrate on clarifying the discrete elements of the problem (proliferation 

and decommissioning) and on identifying such strands of strategy that have 

already been proposed to address the problem. 
Security Implications . . . 5

II. Controlling Proliferation 

If arms continue to flow to zones or areas of conflict then disarming or 

decommissioning becomes moot. Therefore, the first objective of a light 

weapons counterproliferation regime must be to establish definitions that 

identify, by circumstances and geography, where light weapons should be 

subject to restriction or embargo. Having established parameters of restraint, 

the next task is to target the illicit (gray-market) and illegal (black-market) 

providers who would flaunt or subvert any rules or regulations. Finally, the 

mechanisms of restraint must be supported by appropriate support structure, 

intelligence capability and enforcement tools. In all these areas a certain 

amount of activity has been undertaken over the past five years but for the 

most part it has been desultory and incoherent. 

A major inhibitant to any multilateral approach to the issues has been the 

continuing political and economic utility of arms transfers. Although the 

major arms suppliers (United States, Western Europe) have little economic 

capital vested in light weapons, such cannot be said for other states. Russia, 

the former Soviet territories, Bulgaria, North Korea and certain of the Balkan 

states have all found that sales of light weapons provide a useful flow of hard 

currency and act as an entrepot for other goods and services.5

 In addition, 

light weapons transfers have become co-mingled with the trade in narcotics 

and the countertrade in minerals and natural products (for example. 

endangered species and hardwoods).6

 In this way, corrupt officials and 

criminal elements in supplier states have found a useful way to enhance their 

own wealth by bartering guns and ammunition for other illicit goods, and 

then passing the whole profits into the international banking system. The 

economic rationale behind an unrestricted trade in light weapons, therefore, 

is as much tied to opportunities for personal enrichment by kleptocratic 

regimes and corrupt groups as it is to formal economic opportunity for 

legitimate business and needy states. 

The rules-of-the-road that have been established so far have been 

predominantly at the multilateral level. Perhaps the most purposeful of 

these attempts has been the Inter-American Convention Against Illicit 

Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and 

Other Related Materials.7

 This Organization of American States (OAS) 

initiative was prompted by the chronically destabilizing impact of errant light 

weapons in Latin America in general and in Central America in particular. 

To date its principal contribution has been to define the issues (sovereignty, 
6 . . . Security Implications

jurisdiction, cooperation) in a sufficiently generic fashion as to provide a 

blueprint for not only future regional accords but also for a proposed United 

Nations protocol on illicit firearms trafficking. Proposed in 1997 and signed 

by all but four OAS members (as of September 1999), the InterAmerican 

Convention has not been fully implemented and tested by events but it 

appears to combine political realism with an adequate framework for 

communication of concerns and ideas. 

The European Union (EU) has taken a somewhat different approach to 

the light weapons issue. It has concentrated first on formulating a “Code of 

Conduct” for those states that legally export small arms.8

 By doing this the 

Union has attempted to establish a moral high ground from which it can 

operate against rogue suppliers at both the state and sub-state level. In 

parallel with this “cleansing” process, the EU has also begun to approach 

the gray- and black-markets as a distinctive security, intelligence and law 

enforcement problem and to delegate personnel and resources accordingly. 

Again, these initiatives are too new to be considered either failures or 

successes. But judging by a burgeoning community of interested parties in 

the European media and in the academic communities, the light weapons 

proliferation problem is at least being discussed as a serious and important 

set of issues. Whether this will translate into meaningful legislation, treaty 

law, regulation and action remains to be seen. 

Other multilateral initiatives have taken place within areas affected by 

weaponization. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) 

has sponsored meetings and conferences which have resulted in some real 

successes in coordination of law enforcement and security activities within 

the region. Similarly, the Economic Community of West African States 

(ECOWAS) announced a moratorium on light weapons importation and 

manufacture within their zone. However, these efforts have been 

undermined by the infusion of new arms through illicit channels from such 

suppliers as Bulgaria and Ukraine. Indeed, light weapons have flowed 

almost uninterruptedly to UNITA forces in Angola. They have been 

transhipped through at least three East African countries and the activity has 

involved high officials of government and in the security forces. The lure of a 

countertrade in diamonds appears, in this case, to have proved stronger than 

a desire to halt light weapons proliferation. 

Much of the most passionate commitment and many of the practical 

suggestions on microdisarmament issues have emanated from NGOs. 
Security Implications . . . 7

Organizations such as the California-based PrepCom (now merged with the 

International Action Network on Small Arms), Human Rights Watch, 

International Alert and South Africa’s Institute for Security Studies have gone 

beyond secondary-source analysis and hand-wringing and have undertaken 

real field-work and proposed undramatic but useful incrementalist 

approaches to proliferation issues.9 Such databases as exist on light weapons 

issues are held by these organizations and this gives them the necessary status 

to sit at the high table of multilateral discussions. Inevitably duplication 

occurs but this is being overcome by a system of networking that appears to 

be relatively free of hubris and rivalry. 

No matter how galvanized the IGOs and NGOs might become on the 

issue of light weapons proliferation, such an effort would be undermined if 

the United States were not committed to solving the problem. While it is 

true that less than complete commitment by the U.S. to the landmines treaty 

did not completely detract from the overall effort, a less than complete 

subscription to the concept of the control of light weapons by the U.S. would 

make any major political and practical breakthrough unlikely. 

The Clinton administration has indicated an interest and level of concern 

over the light weapons issue. It was a prime mover behind the InterAmerican 

Convention and is attempting to extrapolate the Convention to form the basis 

for a UN-sponsored global framework for controlling the proliferation of 

light weapons. In addition, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has 

incorporated light weapons issues into three policy speeches. However, 

perhaps motivated by the experiences of Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo and East 

Timor, in 1999 there have been indications that the United States is now 

committed to elevating light weapons issues to a higher level of action. This 

new mood is exemplified by a statement made by Eric Newsom, Assistant 

Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, in which he stated: “The 

United States ... must try to stem the supply of (light) weapons and contain 

the devastation they cause. This will require us to begin to integrate small 

arms concerns into the fabric of our diplomatic relations, as we now do 

with democracy and human rights” (emphasis in original).

10 Whether 

such a declaration will survive the interagency process or a change in 

administration is arguable but it does appear to grant the imprimatur of 

high-level support over the light weapons proliferation issue. 

If institutional support for a light weapons counter-proliferation strategy 

is indeed sound and building, then the nature and direction of that strategy 

needs to be outlined and agreed upon. At the present there is less a strategy 

than there is a collection of programs, sub-organizations and proposals. 
8 . . . Security Implications

Despite the efforts of the NGOs, there is not a comprehensive database, nor 

is there a clearinghouse for ideas. Great faith is being placed upon a United 

Nations conference to be convened in 2001, in the hope that a coherent 

strategy might emerge from that meeting, but meanwhile it has been left to 

interested parties to formulate some interim strategy. 

The best frame of reference to date is that provided by historical and 

existing arms embargoes. At any time a state may be subject to or influenced 

by multiple binding and non-binding embargo agreements. In 1996, for 

example, the United Kingdom was constrained in its arms transfers by six 

binding United Nations embargoes and restrained by a further six European 

Union embargoes of various degrees of stringency. In addition, her Majesty’s 

government was a signatory to an Organization for Security and Cooperation 

in Europe (OSCE) embargo agreement and restricted by two national 

embargoes.11 Not all embargoes were comprehensive, with some articles being 

allowed to certain recipients but disallowed to others. In addition, not all 

of the rules of embargo were the same in respect to different targeted states. 

If embargoes are to provide the partial blueprint for future light weapons 

controls then they clearly need to avoid these pitfalls of over-complexity and 

confusion. 

In order to succeed, microdisarmament must include both actors and 

process in its counter-proliferation strategy. The actors range from rogue 

governmental suppliers to corrupt officials to professional arms dealers to 

opportunistic criminals. No single tactic or policy of dissuasion will work 

for all of these players. The opportunists might be dissuaded by existing laws 

applied more effectively, but governments and certain corrupt officials exist 

beyond the laws of their own states. Professional arms traffickers exist in a 

world of avoidance and evasion. To persuade them to eschew the illicit and 

illegal arms marketplace will require them to be confronted by powerful 

negative consequences. 

The most persistent rogue state supplier of light weapons has been 

Bulgaria. Well before the collapse of communism the state arms 

manufacturing and trading entities were exporting into zones of conflict for 

profit. During the Cold War, Kintex, the trading concern, was identified as 

a supplier to Libya, Angola, Yemen and to a number of opposing factions in 

the Lebanese civil war. After the fall of communism, Kintex and its 

production “partner” Arsenal, were implicated in arms sales to belligerents 

in the Yugoslav civil war, to both government forces and UNITA rebels in 

Angola, to Colombian drug cartels and to those responsible for the genocide 

in Rwanda. This pattern indicates that the Bulgarian arms industry hews 
Security Implications . . . 9

more to an export policy based upon economic realism (even after 

downsizing in the early 1990s the industry provides over 42,000 jobs) than 

it does to international convention.12

Rogue suppliers at the state level are difficult to control and deter. Very 

often the arms exports are part of an intricate arrangement between venal 

officials, organized crime and cash-desperate manufacturers against which 

diplomatic pressure or media vilification can have only a limited effect. In 

the case of Bulgaria, a desire to join NATO can and has been used as 

leverage to moderate uncontrolled arms exports, but that linkage has a finite 

life span. Perhaps a better approach would be to demonize the activities of 

the suppliers in the same manner as in the 1930s, when the concept of 

“merchants of death” led to investigations, legislation and a Nobel Peace 

Prize for Philip Noel Baker. The bright glare of such a spotlight might 

convince some of the traffickers that illegal arms trading is simply not worth 

the effort or the profits. 

At a level below rogue supplier states are the private entrepreneurial 

traffickers. Intermixing legal, gray- and black-market activities, these are 

often former military or intelligence officers who parlay their knowledge and 

contacts into a lucrative export-import trade. Sometimes (although relatively 

rarely) they specialize only in arms trafficking. More often, they are involved 

in smuggling and counter-trading across a spectrum of commodities. The 

specialists themselves are often divided into sub-groups of dealmakers, and 

certification and transport experts. The first of these take orders from 

would-be recipients and act as middlemen between them and those that 

actually control the arms. Very rarely do traffickers control stocks of illicit 

arms themselves. The second group either creates fake end-use certificates 

(EUCs) or solicits corrupt government officials to create false EUCs. These 

documents are designed to act as a fail-safe device by indicating that an 

unconstrained sovereign government has contracted to acquire the arms. 

There is a trade in this paper (individual false EUCs are sold for $50,000 to 

$200,000) and such practices further serve to blur the line between legal, 

illicit and illegal transfers.13

Arms traffickers use a variety of means to transport light weapons to their 

customers. Cargo ships with onboard cranes are particularly valued, since 

cargo can be loaded and unloaded using small, less-policed ports with 

relatively primitive cargo handling capabilities. At various times the Danish 

coastal fleet, Cypriot and Greek registered craft and ships with Black Sea 

origins have been favored by traffickers. In addition, when time is important, 

the myriad of small, largely unregulated airfreight companies in the former 
10 . . . Security Implications

Soviet Union and Africa will move arms and munitions into areas of existing 

conflict. As an adjunct to this movement, the transportation specialists also 

provide their own documentation, often consisting of fraudulent bills of 

lading with false destinations attached. 

Financing of these activities is most often accomplished through the 

banking systems of Switzerland, Luxembourg, Italy and Cyprus. Since most 

of the arms deals are often not recognizable as such (the cliché “machine 

parts” is still the preferred fig-leaf) banks can most times claim deniability. 

The Monaco branch of the notoriously-defunct Bank of Credit and 

Commerce International (BCCI) indulged profligately in the financing of 

arms transfers and banks in such diverse markets as Hong Kong, the 

Seychelles, Italy, the Caribbean and Lebanon have been identified as 

participants in gray- and black-market activities.14 Given the nature of the 

trade, financing can often be tenuous and is many times a point of contention 

and an aspect of strain between customer, middleman and supplier. 

In addition to rogue suppliers and professional arms traffickers, there are 

also actors who indulge in the activity as an adjunct to other commercial 

activity (most particularly mining) and some who are simply criminal 

opportunists. The former use arms as a way of cementing their relationship 

with pariah regimes whose resources they hope to exploit or to donate to 

sub-state actors to provide for security in the environs of their operations. 

The latter are often ill-prepared amateurs who frequently fall prey to 

authorities either in the country of arms origination or in the physical area of 

delivery. Together, these minor players are relatively insignificant in 

terms of numbers of deals generated, but some of their activities are in 

key areas of political instability and therefore their impact belies their 

overall numbers. 

A final category of illicit/illegal proliferators is more difficult to categorize. 

These are the unregulated “cottage industry” manufacturers of small arms. 

They are to be found in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of 

Pakistan, in Danao in the Philippines, in the townships of South Africa and 

even in anti-gun Japan. In the NWFP the activity goes beyond “cottage 

industry” since towns such as Darra are economically dependent upon 

small-scale weapons production and in Danao more than a third of the 

population makes a living from gunmaking.15 This, together with a tradition 

of autonomy in many gunmaking areas, makes the termination of what is 

mostly an illegal activity problematic in both economic and political terms. 
Security Implications . . . 11 

Also, it must be acknowledged, few of these types of arms make their way 

out of the immediate area of manufacture, therefore it is more of a problem. 

But, such activities can and do sabotage efforts to control the availability of 

arms in areas of conflict and, as was indicated in East Timor, militias armed 

predominantly with homemade weapons can still achieve profound levels of 

destruction and intimidation. 
12 . . . Security Implications
Security Implications . . . 13 

III. Anatomy Of A Deal 

On September 18, 1994, the Afrikaans-language South African 

newspaper “Rapport” published a story in which it accused the newlyformed ANC government of illicitly shipping arms to the Middle East in 

contravention of its own stated policy. The destination of the arms was 

purportedly the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The gist of the 

story proved to be true, but the South African government was not privy to 

the sale and the destination of the arms shipment was Yemen, not the PLO.16

The so-called “Wazan Affair” contained nearly all of the ingredients of 

a classic gray/black-market arms deal. Clandestine meetings, intelligence 

community associations, Swiss banks, forged documents and corrupt 

officials were all facets of the story. What makes the events between 1991 

and 1994 more distinctive, however, was that they were subject to a government inquiry that was able to outline how arms traffickers conduct their 

business in the face controls and constraints. In the “Cameron Commission 

report,” published in June 1995, are some details of how a “deal” comes 

together, how the problems associated with documentation are solved and 

also, how things can go wrong. 

During the Apartheid years, the isolation of South Africa had ensured that 

a clandestine network of suppliers for all the countries strategic needs was 

instituted as a commercial and security necessity. One important aspect of 

this network was an arms acquisition and sales effort. The latter was used to 

reduce the “pariah state” situation of South Africa and also to underwrite the 

cost of the country’s expensive military research and production program. 

By the final days of the Apartheid regime these arms-related linkages had 

expanded to include more than one hundred and thirty foreign-based front 

companies which were involved in the buying and selling of arms. 

During the 1980s the South African defense forces discerned a need for 

Kalashnikov-type assault rifles. Working with the UNITA forces in Angola 

and with RENAMO forces in Mozambique, the South Africans found that it 

was far easier to standardize using Eastern-bloc weapons than to use their 

own small arms. Such arms were not identified with South Africa and could 

therefore be used in covert operations and they could also be given to their 

guerilla allies as military aid. In this regard, South Africa purchased 35,000 

AK-type rifles (in fact, Type 56) from the People’s Republic of China 

(through the “Norinco” agency) between 1985 and 1989. In 1994 the bulk 

of these weapons remained in South Africa, nominally in South African 
14 . . . Security Implications

defense forces stockpiles, but in fact under the control of the government arms 

export agency, “Armscor.” But some of the guns were not in the inventory 

because they had already been sold to belligerents in the Yugoslav civil war. 

Eli Wazan had been a procurement officer for the Christian militias in 

Lebanon during the civil war of the 1980s. He was also closely associated 

with the Israeli intelligence community. In 1983-84 Wazan terminated his 

formal links with the militias and began to deal in weapons for commercial 

gain in East Beirut. During this time he formed another association, this time 

with Armscor. In time this relationship matured to the point that Wazan was 

appointed an “exclusive agent” by the South African body. 

Wazan had an acquaintanceship with a naturalized German of 

Lebanese-Armenian extraction, Joseph der Hovsepian. In 1991, Wazan and 

Hovsepian, using Wazan’s connections at Armscor, arranged for shipments 

of arms to be diverted from their nominal destination of Lebanon to Croatian 

and Serbian forces fighting in the former Yugoslavia. The transport of the 

second of these shipments was facilitated by Michael Steenberg, the 

American owner of “Dan-Am Shipping.” Both deals relied upon 

“assistance” from within Armscor and this was provided by the manager of 

the stock sales department, Marius Vermaak. 

In 1993 Hovsepian, acting on behalf of a Saudi prince, Anwar al-Shalaan, 

contacted Wazan with a view to the latter acting as a purchasing agent for 

AKs held by Armscor. The prince himself would be the real purchaser, but 

nominally Wazan would be acquiring the arms on behalf of a Christian militia 

(which had in fact been disbanded in 1989). Hovsepian would be the gobetween, Michael Steenberg would be in charge of the transportation 

arrangements and Vermaak would be their “man” at Armscor. 

The first tranche of this shipment (there were to be at least two) reached 

its real destination of South Yemen in late 1993. At that time the two Yemens 

were in a pre-war state, which was to metamorphose into open civil war in 

May 1994. Michael Steenberg had arranged the charter of a vessel, the 

“Vinland Saga” and although the bill of lading with the arms clearly 

identified Mokha, Yemen, as the destination this was not the document that 

had been shown to South African customs officials when the ship prepared 

to leave Port Elizabeth. Steenberg had created three draft bills of lading, only 

one of which showed that Yemen was the destination. The others were used 

to muddy the waters sufficiently that the ship had left port before any 

concerns had been raised. 

The second consignment of arms left South Africa in September 1994. 

But circumstances had changed in the time between the two tranches and 
Security Implications . . . 15 

when the arms arrived in Yemen they were rejected by the would-be recipient. 

In fact the entire episode of the second tranche had been fraught with 

difficulties. The prince, ostensibly nervous about Wazan’s Israeli connections, had decided to cut the Lebanese out of the second part of the deal. This 

necessitated a face-to-face meeting with Vermaak in Switzerland in January 

1994, at which the Saudi and Hovsepian haggled over the price of the second 

tranche with Vermaak. During this session Vermaak was offered a $100,000 

bribe, which he refused. Indeed, throughout the affair it appears that 

Vermaak was principally motivated by a desire to “make a sale” for Armscor. 

Prior to May 1994 end-use certificates were not officially required for 

most arms transfers. But when the post-Apartheid government came into 

power EUCs became mandatory. Yemen was assigned a “Category 2” status, 

indicating that arms could not be sold to that country. It was necessary, 

therefore, for Wazan, who could provide the necessary EUC, to be brought 

back into the deal. He did provide a certificate but instead of being the 

promised genuine article, signed by a corrupt Lebanese official, it was a 

crudely faked document put together by Wazan himself. For this service he 

received a payment of $50,000, disguised as a refund from Armscor. 

Steenberg again pulled a sleight of hand with the bills of lading, only 

releasing the document with the true destination (Hodeidah, Yemen) after the 

ship had sailed. The cargo was rejected by the Yemenis, the ship returned to 

South Africa and the story broke in “Rapport.” 

A government investigation, named the “Cameron Commission” after 

its chairman, convened in late 1994 and issued its findings in mid-1995. It 

came to the conclusion that the Wazan affair was quite typical of the 

clandestine arrangements that had involved Armscor and the South African 

arms industry under Apartheid. The commission’s investigators had only 

limited access to the major players in the affair, but the international scope 

of the operation was obvious. A Lebanese arms dealer with Israeli 

intelligence connections, acting on behalf of a Saudi prince and a German 

citizen, suborned a South African official to sanction an illegal transfer of 

Chinese weapons to Yemen. The commission also found evidence that at 

one time all of the major parties (Wazan, the prince, Steenberg, and even” 

Vermaak) conspired to cheat each other over commissions or compensation, 

giving a clear indication of the tenuousness of such relationships. 

Vermaak retired early from his job (he had, in the end, used a time-share 

condominium on Cyprus provided by Hovsepian and the prince and had 

accepted a donation to his daughter’s special school). The prince had to sue 

the South African government for the retrieval of the impounded cargo from 
16 . . . Security Implications

the second tranche. Michael Steenberg continues to operate Dan-Am 

shipping out of offices in Wilmington, North Carolina. Some of the 

proposals to tighten South African arms export policy and regulation, 

articulated in the second part of the Cameron Commission report, have been 

put into effect. 

The Wazan affair is the type of activity which is replicated almost 

continuously worldwide. Opportunists like the prince (his stated rationale 

for the endeavor was to open up commercial opportunities in Yemen) come 

together with middlemen and “fixers” like Hovsepian, Wazan and Steenberg 

and the whole is facilitated by a malleable official, in this case Vermaak. 

Many elements were illicit (the sale to Yemen, particularly in the context of 

the civil war) and some were illegal in respect of South African law (the false 

documentation). The principal penalties (Vermaak’s loss of position and the 

impoundment of the second cargo) were administrative rather than legal 

responses. When profits in the trade in light weapons remain so high (as far 

as can be determined everybody in the Wazan affair made a profit, with the 

exception of Vermaak) and penalties remain so low, then such activities will 

continue. 
Security Implications . . . 17

IV. Methods Of Constraint 

The scope and variety of proliferators of light weapons ensure that no 

single strategy will inhibit or defeat all of them. After consensus has been 

reached in the international community that uncontrolled arms transfers into 

areas of conflict are unacceptable then the complex problem of control and 

constraint begins. It is obvious, from the extant short history of 

microdisarmament, that a division of labor between IGOs, NGOs and state 

governments would, even on the basis of economy of effort, be a preferable 

first step. The United Nations, EU, OAS and Organization of African Unity 

(OAU) are more suited to creating an ambience of vilification than are single 

state entities. Even if the United States, as a superpower, condemns the illicit 

trade in light weapons, it has neither the omnipotent power nor the legitimacy 

to create a binding consensus between disparate states and cultures. Only 

multilateral institutions can make arms trafficking unacceptable and, through 

the creation of a body of international law, close the loopholes created by 

differentials between such states and cultures. This is, of course, easier said 

than done. The UN conference in 2001 may create enough impetus to place 

arms trafficking and microdisarmament in the forefront of issues, along with 

human rights, the global commons and the like. Or, it may simply provide a 

catharsis that quickly dissipates with little being accomplished. 

The need for an accurate, accessible, comprehensive and shared database on 

light weapons issues is paramount. In order to be vilified and controlled, 

transgressors must first be identified and their actions cataloged. The United 

Nations (and the League of Nations before it) does not have a good track 

record in the matter of maintaining comprehensive arms trade databases. The 

current effort, the UN Register of Conventional Arms, is voluntary and aids 

little in the pursuit of transparency in arms transfers. An arms trafficking 

database, therefore, would either have to break this mold or be placed within 

another organizational context. It is arguable that regional IGOs, most 

particularly the EU, could better coordinate collection and collation of data 

but whether they would be completely willing to share such information 

outside of their geopolitical realm is itself debatable. 

Traditionally, NGOs have not had the resources nor the inclination to 

engage in the gathering, collating and analysis of security-related data. 

However, on matters such as environmental degradation, refugee flows, 
18 . . . Security Implications

health issues etc., NGOs have proven that they have the capacity to be considerably effective contributors to discussions on complex and fundamental 

topics. What they lack in money and formal structure they make up for with 

energy and innovation. And already certain groups (Human Rights Watch, 

the Monterey Institute and South Africa’s ISS) have demonstrated an aptitude 

for gathering primary data on light weapons issues. But before NGOs are 

encouraged to engage in what amounts to “soft” intelligence gathering, the 

implications behind such encouragement should be weighed carefully. 

As non-state actors NGOs rely upon their non-threatening, non-explicit 

power for protection. Any compromise of this “apartness” could have 

serious ramifications for the ability of NGOs to operate in all but the most 

of benign environments. However, non-governmental organizations, 

unfettered by diplomatic politesse or any obligation to achieve consensus, 

can use data that they collect in a more direct manner than national 

governments or even IGOs. It is likely, therefore, that certain NGOs will act 

as primary data collectors in order to use the credibility that this gives them 

with governments and IGOs. 

The traffic in light weapons has always been an “uncomfortable” 

intelligence target. Many states, particularly during the Cold War, used the 

supply of light weapons as an instrument of statecraft and most often their 

intelligence communities were involved in the activity. This helped to create 

two important residual effects. The “tools” of arms trafficking (the dealers, 

transporters, banks, etc.) were as often seen as an adjunct of operations as 

they were targets for investigation and control. Secondly, many intelligence 

officers built up a base of knowledge and acquaintanceship that they could 

parlay into post-government employment opportunity (and some did not wait 

until they had left government service). If not quite symbiotic, the 

relationship between arms traffickers and intelligence communities became 

entangled enough so that key traders could claim the patronage of 

intelligence agencies when it became necessary to defend themselves. 

The relationship between traffickers in arms and intelligence 

communities, particularly in the United States and Western Europe, must be 

redefined if there is to be a serious attempt to control the proliferation of light 

weapons. If small arms traffic is to be controlled, the intelligence community 

cannot persist in playing the antagonistic roles of both gamekeeper and 

poacher. Also, if they remain players in the small arms trade, it is 

questionable whether their reporting of information will be complete and 
Security Implications . . . 19 

totally honest. If moral outrage and demonization is also to be part of the 

anti-proliferation strategy, then, this too is undermined by intelligence 

communities if they use arms traffickers and protect them from discovery. 

Much of the intelligence work dedicated to countering the spread of light 

weapons will be dominated by traditional human intelligence gathering. The 

volatile, preternaturally clandestine world of arms dealing requires a 

combination of traditional law enforcement techniques, combined with 

traditional intelligence gathering exercises. However, there is a role for 

technical intelligence, particularly in the area of signals intelligence and 

imagery. 

Arms have to move in order to be sold. This movement can be monitored. 

Deals have to be brokered and this means that information must flow between 

the interested parties. Such information flows can also be monitored. Much 

of this observation can be accomplished by using the satellite and other 

technical capabilities available to advanced intelligence communities. But 

there is also an activity that has been particularly tailored to small arms 

trafficking and this could itself be broadened and deepened in order to gain 

a better picture of the movement of light weapons. This activity is sometimes 

called “jarking” but is more often termed “tagging.” It is the embedding of 

electronic devices in light weapons in order to be able to trace and monitor 

the movement and use of such weapons. With its origins in the work of the 

British Army’s Special Weapons Unit in Northern Ireland, “jarking” has 

received an important boost through the possibility of linking microminiaturization with satellite-related technologies. It could prove to be an 

important tool in the gaining of evidence concerning light weapons 

trafficking.17

The traffic in light weapons is in many ways two trades. The weapons 

themselves are the most obvious aspect of the trade but without ammunition, 

the weapons are rendered inert. Controlling the flow of ammunition may 

even be a more efficient way to use resources since the number of 

manufacturers of military-style ammunition are relatively few and readily 

identifiable. The large stocks of ammunition previously available from 

eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have now been depleted by the 

conflicts in the Balkans, Caucasus and Africa and therefore most ammunition 

must now originate from original manufacturers. Aware of this, certain 

NGOs are concentrating upon pressuring ammunition manufacturers to 

increase casehead identification of rounds of ammunition so that illegal 

transfers can be readily traced back to the plant of origin. 
20 . . . Security Implications

The issue of end-use certificates (EUCs) should provide opportunities 

for action by anti-proliferators. Currently, each government creates its own 

documents for approval of arms shipments. These may range from legalistic, 

multi-page forms to a single page of idiosyncratically-spelled confirmation 

over an illegible signature, as in the Wazan affair. There is no repository for 

the validation of such documents and if they are emanating from a corrupt 

official then all inquiries could be stymied by that official. A general 

agreement on the form and substance of such documents, with the ability to 

check authenticity through access to a secure database, should not be beyond 

the capabilities of the international community. Sovereignty issues aside, the 

current EUC situation, exacerbated as it is by the volume of business (in 1990 

the United Kingdom had 57 officials available to process 46,000 EUC 

applications), only benefits those that would abuse it. It should be tightened 

and rationalized even in the face of opposition from those that currently make 

money from the traffic in documentation.18

Arms are being stolen or are “lost” from the inventories of national 

militaries and law enforcement agencies in very high numbers. It is estimated 

that more than 8,000 weapons a year are displaced from the police and 

military arsenals in South Africa and enter the illegal market.19 In Cambodia 

and the Caucasus troops have actually sold arms to those with whom they 

were in armed confrontation. Fundamentally, this is a matter of discipline in 

and political control over national militaries. Allowed to continue without 

repercussions, such behavior can have a corrosive effect upon the cohesion 

of a military and impair it in the performance of its security function. 

The traffic in light weapons is principally about profit. As long as a round 

of 40mm ammunition sells at the Thai-Burma border for up to five times the 

cost it was bought for at the Thai-Cambodian border then the trade will be 

profitable and it will continue.20 Similarly, as long as there is a prevailing 

sense that arms traffickers are simply “pirates of commerce” then the political 

will to constrain their activities will be absent. An analogy with the trade in 

drugs or humans is not inappropriate but the very bulk of arms shipments 

mitigates against them being moved completely clandestinely. There are 

many “choke points” in the journey from manufacturer/stockpile to use in 

the “Kalashnikov cultures” of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Such areas 

of vulnerability can be targeted and, through action, the profit margin can be 

narrowed. To accomplish even this limited level of expectation will require 

a high level of coordination and creativity from all counter-proliferation 

actors. 
Security Implications . . . 21 

V. Arms Management, Decommissioning And Reclamation 

Even if light weapons counter-proliferation efforts were to be as 

successful as the landmines campaign there would still be a small arms 

problem. The hundreds of millions of weapons that are already in the hands 

of individuals will continue to act as agents of destabilization as long as they 

remain functional. The challenge in respect to these fielded weapons is how 

to retrieve and destroy them in an as effective and economical manner as 

possible. 

Weaponized areas of the world leak arms into contiguous zones and 

sometimes across great distances. Cambodian arms have found their way to 

Sri Lanka, Mozambican arms have contributed to the destabilization of South 

Africa and Malawi, Aghani arms figure significantly in the gang warfare in 

Karachi.21 Ironically, when wars end is the time of maximum danger from 

such seepage. Soldiers find themselves unemployed and their weapon (or 

knowledge of weapons caches) may be their only economic asset. Arms are 

sold or bartered (Russian soldiers exchanged their arms for food in Chechnya 

and in Mozambique assault rifles have been bartered for used clothing.) 

Arms are then moved across borders where they are sold to dissidents or 

criminals. In this way weaponized states can infect entire regions with “gun 

law” and have a profound effect on both short- and long-term stability. 

Weaning entire societies away from dependence on the gun is predicated 

as much upon adequate tactics as it is upon the institution of a successful 

strategy. A perfectly feasible overall plan can easily be sabotaged by 

imperfect execution, by frustration or simply through insensitive handling. 

This failure is most evident in operations involving peacekeeping forces. 

In Somalia in 1992 the UNOSOM I peacekeeping force attempted to 

engage in a “food for arms” exchange policy which alienated both NGOs 

and local factional leaders through its insensitivity to local conditions. The 

NGOs were upset about using food aid as an incentive and the Aideed faction 

felt that due deference had not been paid to their status as a legitimate force.22

Similarly, the U.S.-dominated UNITAF force and the later UNOSOM II 

effort gravitated between demanding the surrender of small arms to tacit 

acceptance of Somalia as a weaponized state. As one commentator noted 

‘...UNOSOM demonstrated that UN peacekeepers are not suited for 

operations in a non-permissive environment requiring coercive 

disarmament.” By implication, therefore, UN peacekeepers are only able to 

engage in disarmament in a permissive environment. But the UN experience 
22 . . . Security Implications

in Mozambique in the early 1990s indicated that, even after peace had broken 

out, the decommissioning of the former combatants was no simple task. 

In 1992 we two major factions in the Mozambican civil war, the 

government FRELIMO forces and the opposition RENAMO army, signed a 

peace accord after sixteen years of fighting. The United Nations established 

a presence through ONUMOZ, part of whose mandate was the 

“...collection, storage and destruction of weapons.” The actual number 

of weapons in the hands of the populace was unknown (President Machel 

would hand out assault rifles at political rallies as largesse) but estimates 

ranged from six to eight million units. In many cases soldiers and rebels had 

more than one weapon which, when it came time for them to hand in a gun, 

allowed them to conform to the letter of the agreement while still remaining 

armed. But it was the failure to destroy surrendered weapons that ultimately 

undermined the efforts of ONUMOZ.23

The UN force claimed that it had retrieved 182,827 weapons during the 

disarmament operations. It placed these weapons into three regional depots, 

which were then guarded by ONUMOZ personnel. However, it then turned 

over these weapons to the new FRELIMO/RENAMO-manned Mozambican 

national army, which did not need even the amount of small arms that it 

currently controlled. Inevitably, these weapons leached back out into the 

marketplace. This experience, together with similar ones in Cambodia and 

Central America, underlined the advisability of destroying arms as soon as 

possible after their retrieval, otherwise the lure of profit from the sale of 

surplus arms will prevail. 

The United Nations is dependent upon voluntary participation in 

weapons retrieval programs. It’s representatives have neither the 

temperament nor often the mandate to confront those that would resist 

disarmament efforts. When illegal caches are suspected, the UN must rely 

upon the good graces of the local population to provide it with the necessary 

intelligence. To achieve a level of compliance it must, therefore, improvise 

with incentives rather than threaten with force. 

Many civilian owners of light weapons consider them as a unit of commerce. 

At worst, they are tools for intimidation and banditry. At best, they are items 

that can be sold or bartered. This latter function can be utilized by IGOs, 

NGOs and national governments as a way of disarming a population. But it 

comes at a price. 
Security Implications . . . 23 

Buy-in or buy-back programs have been an aspect of light weapons 

retrieval for much of the 1990s. Prior to this decade voluntary amnesties, 

with no legal penalty attached but also no financial incentive offered, had 

been prevalent, particularly in advanced industrial states. Buy-back 

programs had been tried, with varying success, in a number of U.S. cities in 

the 1980s but had not been an aspect of a light weapons control regime until 

they were popularized in Haiti, Panama and Australia. 

In Haiti the United States military was confronted with the problem of a 

population that was both divided and armed. A declared objective of the 

United States, as head of the Multinational Force, was to “reduce the number 

of weapons, promote stability and provide monetary incentives to citizens 

who supported the (buy-back) program.” Using a sliding scale of prices for 

weapons (handguns: $100; automatic weapons: $400; crew-served 

weapons: $600) the U.S. military was able to retrieve more than 33,000 

weapons between September 1994 and March 1995, at a total cost of nearly 

$2 million. Within the light weapons control community it is generally 

acknowledged as having been a success.24

However successful, Haiti cannot be used as a template for future 

buy-back programs. The nature of the Haiti operation allowed the U.S. 

military a degree of latitude that is not present in more traditional UN 

operations and the somewhat limited nature of arms availability (compared 

to the millions of arms in private hands in Mozambique) made a buy-back 

fiscally feasible. The level of discipline and control exerted by the U.S. 

military, combined with attractive prices for the guns, could not he replicated 

in areas more constrained by organizational and economic realities. 

More limited incentive-based programs have been successful in El 

Salvador, Panama and Albania. A financial component has played a part in 

all three retrieval plans but it was not the major element in either of the 

countries. Instead, in El Salvador a grassroots organization, the Movimento 

Patriotico Contra la Delinquencia (MPCD), emerged in 1996 out of a reaction 

to the impact of armed crime on commerce and business. Using Catholic 

Church facilities as collection points and $1 million for financing, the MPCD 

exchanged “guns for good” by using a voucher system. These vouchers 

could be used in supermarkets, pharmacies and shoe stores and had values 

ranging from $60 (handguns, vintage rifles) to $350 for a functioning assault 

rifle. By the 17th round of this program (July 1998) nearly 8,000 weapons 

had been brought in and destroyed. In Panama, a more modest program 

offered foodstuffs, construction materials, domestic appliances and even the 
24 . . . Security Implications

possibility of employment for guns and had, by 1998, retrieved more than 

100 firearms in the city of San Miguelito.25

In Haiti, El Salvador and Panama the incentive programs were aimed at 

the individual. If anything approaching market value is promised to the 

owner of the weapon then this can become prohibitive. After the Port Arthur 

massacre in Tasmania, the collective Australian state authorities decided to 

buy-in all self-loading and pump-action longarms, pledging close to market 

prices. The result was the collection of more than 500,000 firearms at a cost 

of more than USD$220million, with the prices ranging from Aus$60 to 

Aus$10,000. In parts of the world with the greatest need for arms retrieval 

this level of personal compensation is highly unlikely. But another type of 

incentive program, based upon community benefit rather than payment to 

individuals, may be the answer for less-well financially endowed actors.26

In 1997 the government of Albania was confronted by a general uprising 

engendered by the collapse of a series of Ponzi-type fraud schemes. During 

the uprising, the arsenals of the national military and security forces were 

ransacked and the weapons were placed in the hands of the population. 

Estimations vary as to the number of arms looted but a figure of something 

more than 500,000 individual weapons is agreed upon. Less than 20% of 

those arms had, by early 1999, been retrieved by the Albanian authorities. 

The remainder had either been “exported,” most prominently to Kosovo, or 

remained in Albania in private hands. The result of such a proliferation has 

been a quantum increase in rural banditry, urban assaults, and the 

establishment of criminal fiefdoms in many parts of the country. Unable to 

create a retrieval program of its own, the central authority in Tirana petitioned 

the United Nations to help establish and promote a pilot project in the area 

of Gramsh in northern Albania.27

The UN Department of Disarmament Affairs (UNDDA) constructed a 

program around five key elements: symbolism, advocacy, community 

involvement and reward, voluntary surrender and possible public destruction 

of the weapons. It was the third element, of community involvement and 

reward, that was in many ways the most innovative element of the project. 

Instead of linking voluntary arms surrender to personal financial gain, the 

Gramsh project proposed that such surrender be seen as a community activity 

and be rewarded with assistance for community development needs. 

Through collaboration with the citizens of Gramsh, the UN identified 

collective needs and then offered assistance to help fulfill the requirements. 

Weapons collection in Gramsh began in January 1999, was suspended 

for two months during the Kosovo crisis and then resumed in the summer of 
Security Implications . . . 25 

1999. By July 1999 more than 2,600 weapons and 60 tons of munitions had 

been surrendered. In exchange, the UN had helped begin the construction a 

radio telephone system for Gramsh, rebuild the town post office, install street 

lighting and enact much needed road repairs. In parallel with the scheme a 

major publicity campaign aimed at educating the population about the 

program was promoted by the Albanian authorities and the UN. The second 

phase of the project had already been inaugurated by the summer of 1999, 

with a view to replicating the Gramsh experiment throughout Albania. 

Safety concerns (hand and rifle grenades have been brought to the Technical 

Support Team in an armed state) have been addressed, but the security of 

operators may become more difficult to assure in parts of the country that 

are considerably more lawless than Gramsh. 

The Gramsh program may prove to be replicable beyond Albania. This 

type of incentive activity would appear to have validity in places such as 

Mozambique, Liberia, Cambodia and Guatemala. By combining arms 

collection with the renewal of civil society the UN in Gramsh appears 

(admittedly, the experiment is in its formative stages) to have achieved two 

objectives within a single project at relatively low cost (under $1million to 

date). The only caveat is that prior to and during the Kosovo conflict the UN 

at Gramsh had to compete with arms traffickers for weapons and in many 

cases the arms traffickers were able to outbid the UN. The marketplace will 

tend to rule where demand is high. But this does not negate the important 

impact that the Gramsh pilot project might have on the direction of arms 

retrieval. 

Gramsh may have been insecure but it was still a permissive environment. 

Seven years after the signing of the Mozambique peace treaty the hinterland 

of that country remains hostile even to the fiat of the government in Maputo. 

It also remains heavily armed, drawing on caches of arms that were hidden 

by both RENAMO and FRELIMO forces at the end of the conflict. Although 

many of the caches were buried, the arms remain serviceable and the 

ammunition useable. For the government in Maputo, the principal concern 

is over internal security (Mozambique is a potential tourist destination but 

the rate of rural armed crime is high and inhibiting). For neighbors such as 

Swaziland, South Africa and Malawi, the seepage of arms from Mozambique 

has helped to turn southern Africa into one of the worst areas for armed crime 

in the world. 

In South Africa the post-apartheid era is challenged by the issue of 

dynamic social and economic change. The years of “the Struggle” elevated 

a lifestyle of violence up to the level of political resistance and the gun 
26 . . . Security Implications

became a symbol of commitment and resolve. In the post-Struggle era the 

symbolism has disappeared, but the culture and existence of the gun has 

remained. The result, exacerbated by under-education and high levels of 

unemployment (in many townships only there is only 20% full-time 

employment), has been a level of violence which threatens the very viability 

of South Africa as a functioning state. It has now, per capita, more murders 

than any country with the exception of Colombia and it has more rapes than 

any other state. Police stations are openly attacked in order to seize guns and 

the “taxi wars” in the major cities have claimed more than 1,000 lives. The 

crime has spawned an arms race, with more than four million licensed 

firearms in civilian hands and a concomitant increase in accidental shootings 

and suicide by firearm. 

Many of the illegal firearms in South Africa are stolen from licensed 

owners or front the security forces. But a significant proportion of the 

military-style weapons which are favored by township gangs and 

“cash-in-transit” (armored car) robbers are traceable to Mozambique (one 

South African gang was found with five surface-to-air missiles in a vehicle 

by the South African police). It was this realization in 1995, together with 

Mozambique’s concern over its own inability to control armed crime within 

its borders, that gave rise to the South African-Mozambique agreement “In 

Respect of Co-Operation and Mutual Assistance in the Field of Crime 

Combating.” The most tangible aspect of this agreement has been the serious 

of activities known as “Operation Rachel.”28

The border between South Africa and Mozambique (including the Kruger 

National Park) is extremely porous. Gunrunners would buy arms from 

Mozambicans that had control over caches and then ferry them across the 

border by truck and four-wheel drive vehicle. The border area itself is lightly 

patrolled and road conditions make “hot pursuit” difficult. It was decided, 

therefore, to use the various capabilities of the Mozambican and South 

African security forces (South Africa was represented by a paramilitary 

element of the South African Police Service or SAPS and Mozambique by a 

combination of military and police) to identify and then conduct 

search-and-destroy missions against the Mozambican arms caches. The 

SAPS element was given permission to operate inside Mozambique, in 

coordination with Mozambican forces, and to eliminate all weapons caches 

that it could identify. 

Identification itself was problematic. Standard maps were inadequate 

and the terrain mitigated against normal use of landmarks to identify the 

situation of caches. In order to overcome this problem, Mozambican 
Security Implications . . . 27

informants were given global positioning system (GPS) receivers, taught 

how to input way-points and these were then in turn plotted on GPS maps 

by the SAPS contingent. The informers themselves were key to the 

operations. After a “Rachel” operation was instituted (there had been four 

“Rachels” between 1995 and 1998) the informers provided guidance for the 

SAPS/Mozambican teams and acted as go-betweens with the local 

populations. No arrests were made during “Rachel” operations, partly for 

political reasons (most of the caches belonged to RENAMO or FRELIMO 

factions) and partly to encourage informers to come forward (informers were 

paid for their assistance). Arms were destroyed in situ and often in front of 

the local inhabitants as a propaganda exercise. 

The SAPS contingents have had to adapt their tactics over the five years 

of “Rachel” operations. In 1999 the concept of a single annual event was 

being abandoned in favor of many smaller incursions. The controllers of the 

caches had become aware of the predictability of the “Rachel” calendar and 

had made arrangements to move their caches accordingly. Also 

military-style vehicles had been abandoned, partly to lower the profile of the 

operations, partly to help with the element of surprise and partly because they 

were cheaper to use and maintain. Helicopters have been used in support of 

“Rachel” but their ability to move quickly across difficult, often mined 

(when the SAPS units check where mines have been flagged they often find 

no mines underneath) terrain has been offset by their smaller carrying 

capacity and by the loss of surprise. 

The four major “Rachel” operations have resulted in the destruction of 

nearly 12,000 individual firearms, 6,000 mines, 3 million rounds of 

ammunition and 7,000 mortars. The cost is not insignificant (R1.5 million 

was reportedly allocated for “Rachel” operations in 1999) and it will be 

harder to justify as these operations inevitably move farther north and away 

from the immediate vicinity of the South African border. Also, the law of 

unintended consequences has resulted in Mozambican arms being diverted 

to Zimbabwe and Malawi, where they are contributing to an upsurge in armed 

crime in both countries. Nevertheless, the “Rachel” activities have 

demonstrated that well planned and executed operations, maintained 

consistently and with adequate cooperation are possible between states that 

have a sufficient incentive to suspend sovereignty issues in pursuit of a 

common goal. 
28 . . . Security Implications
Security Implications . . . 29 

VI. An Agenda For Microdisarmament 

Prior to any attempts to solve proliferation and collection issues, light 

weapons must be elevated to the same level of concern and action as the 

proliferation of WMD. For the United States there is a potential problem in 

this regard. Its domestic debate over firearm ownership could serve to detract 

from or undermine any leadership position that the U.S. government might 

want to take on light weapons matters. Certain actors in the U.S. gun control 

debate have already begun to participate in discussions on light weapons (the 

National Rifle Association has a small group looking at gun laws and gun 

ownership outside of the United States). But to confuse private gun 

ownership in the U.S. with the problem of “Kalashnikov cultures” and the 

chronically destabilizing impact of guns in other parts of the world is to 

unnecessarily blur the central issue. It is the proliferation of light weapons 

in tandem with the breakdown in order and authority which create 

“Kalashnikov cultures.” This negative symbiosis is what needs to be 

addressed, rather than engaging in an Amero-centric debate on the meaning 

of the Second Amendment or the definition of the rights of the individual in 

relation to the obligations of the state. 

Early success protects an activity and can be built upon. In regard to light 

weapons proliferation efforts, success will mostly come in the form of multilateral agreement implemented over time. But certain decommissioning or 

collection programs could be instituted and successes achieved in a relatively 

short period of time. A replication of the Gramsh pro-rain in sub-Saharan 

Africa or in Asia might pay dividends within a year or eighteen months of 

inception. 

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of microdisarmament is the very 

acceptance of the concept. With the landmines campaign the devices 

themselves, insidious and non-discriminating, allowed for the debate over a 

global ban to be conducted almost entirely (with the exception of the U.S. 

position) at a level of moral indignation. But light weapons, while carrying 

a certain degree of stigma, are not as open to universal condemnation. Even 

the knowledge that light weapons have been the principal destructive device 

in 46 out of 49 armed conflicts since the end on the cold war has not been 

enough to galvanize the international community to global and universal 

action. However, the current campaign to link light weapons with the issue 

of child soldiers may provide sufficient impetus to overcome parochial 

security concerns. It remains to be seen whether the domestic political and 
30 . . . Security Implications

military agendas that drove U.S. decisionmaking on the landmines and Test 

Ban Treaty issues will dominate the light weapons debate. 

After the initial awareness phase has been established then a coherent 

political strategy will need to be applied. This will need to pursue workable 

global, regional and state-based control regimes. The global, emanating 

from within the United Nations, would define and enshrine illicit arms 

activities within the context of international law. Definition, even of such a 

prosaic matter as to what constitutes a “light weapon,” is crucial to a 

successful campaign to solidify the concept of microdisarmament. 

Suppliers, dealers and recipients will all try to exploit any terminological 

inexactitude in order to evade the legal constraints of a control regime. 

Similarly, regulations and laws which now apply to explicit embargo 

situations need to be broadened to encompass illicit arms transfers to zones 

of conflict as a whole. 

At the regional level, certain regulations specific to the conditions within 

regions could be applied. For example, if the European Union wishes to 

stress export policies based upon an admittedly Euro-centric view of ethical 

behavior then it could institute controls based upon that concept. It is also 

arguable that regulations formed at the regional (and state) level might be 

more enforceable than those that are achieved through the United Nations. 

Also the sharing of data and the pooling of enforcement resources can better 

take place at this level. 

In an international system which still stresses the primacy of the state 

then much activity will still take place at that level. The control over dealers, 

shippers and middlemen can most times be best facilitated by states against 

transgressors. Certain national laws may need to be clarified (UK-based 

arms dealers were able to ship arms to Rwanda by exploiting the fact that the 

Channel Islands were not covered by a law embargoing arms to that country). 

Other controls, particularly in relation to the trade in false/fake documentation, may need to be placed into law. However, where states are 

themselves either the culprits or in league with them, then it cannot be 

expected that the necessary laws and enforcement will be forthcoming. 

After awareness is raised and laws and regulations are put into place, the 

primary requirement is for a steady, coherent and universal application of 

the principals of microdisarmament. Political realists will argue for 

“exceptions,” particularly where groups plead for the uncontrolled 

distribution of arms for protection against tyrants or to help achieve 

self-determination. It will be difficult to withstand such blandishments, but 

the history of events in Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America has indicated 
Security Implications . . . 31 

that the road to chronic instability is paved with weapons that were provided 

for the best of short-term reasons. 

The prospect of controlling and de-commissioning light weapons is 

admittedly daunting. Just achieving the necessary level of multilateral 

complicity is a formidable task. To coordinate intelligence and law 

enforcement assets to control the flow of illicit arms will also be difficult. 

Sopping up those hundreds of millions of arms that are already available 

throughout the world will, in itself, test the resolve of the international community. But the alternative is pools of unstable, weaponized “Kalashnikov 

cultures” that will themselves proliferate and spread the contagion of 

warlordism, massacre and genocide. It, therefore, seems an auspicious 

moment to expand the definition of counterproliferation to include light 

weapons and to make microdisarmament a priority at the onset of the new 

millennium. 
32 . . . Security Implications
Security Implications . . . 33 

Notes 

1. Light weapons are defined as individual and crew-served weapons, including 

handguns, rifles, submachine guns, grenades, machine guns, grenade launchers, handheld 

rocket launchers, mortars and man-portable air defense systems. 

2. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Agenda for Peace (New York: United Nations, 1995), 

supplement. 

3. The term “Kalashnikov culture” is said to have originated during the Lebanese 

civil war. Former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, used it on a number of 

occasions to describe conditions prevailing in her country in the 1990s. 

4. Reuters, June 28, 1998. 

5. In 1998 Bulgaria employed 42,000 people in over 100 arms factories. “Bulgaria: 

Money Talks,” Human Rights Watch, Vol 11, No 4, April 1999. 

6. Perhaps the largest and most notorious countertrade is between the rebel UNITA 

forces in Angola and arms suppliers in Western and Eastern Europe. It is estimated that UNITA 

exchanges more than $200 million a year in diamonds for weapons that include tanks, 

missiles and large quantities of light weapons. Francois Misser, “UN Drive to Track Secret 

Gem Trafficking Gathers Momentum,” Business Day (South Africa), April 21, 1999.

7. Organization of American States, INTER-AMERICAN CONVENTION AGAINST 

THE ILLICIT MANUFACTURING OF AND TRAFFICKING IN FIREARMS, 

AMMUNITION, EXPLOSIVES AND OTHER RELATED MATERIALS, 24th Special Session, 

General Assembly, November 13, 1997, Washington DC. 

8. Council of the European Union, European Union Code of Conduct on Arms 

Exports, Document 8675/2/98 REV 2,5, 5 June 1998. 

9. Interview with Sarah Meek, International Alert, July 1999 and with William 

Godnick, Monterey Institute/Prepcom, March 1999. 

10. Eric David Newsom. Small Arms Use and Proliferation: Strategies for a Global 

Dilemma, (Washington DC: United States Information Agency, September 1, 1998). 

11. Inter-Departmental Committee, Trafficking in Arms: Controls and Procedures, 

HMSO, United Kingdom, 1996. 

12. Peter Fuhrman, “The Bulgarian Connection,” Forbes, April 17, 1989; Raymond 

Bonner, “Bulgaria Becomes A Weapons Bazaar,” New York Times, August 3, 1998. 

13. The Independent, London, June 22 1992; Commission of Inquiry into Alleged 

Arms Transaction between Armscor and One Eli Wazan and Other Related Matters (hereafter 

Wazan), Government of South Africa, June 1995, 340. 
34 . . . Security Implications

14. Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, The BCCI Affair, A Report, S.Prt 

102-140,USGPO, December 1992; “Italy; Illegal Arms Trading–How The Banks Broke 

The Rules,” Euromoney, October 8, 1990. 

15. Financial Times, London, April 19, 1997; Agence France Presse, November 24, 

1995; Gemini News Service, January 30, 1998; Los Angeles Times. April 9, 1995. 

16. Op. cit., Wazan Affair. 

17. Mark Urban, Big Boys’ Rules (London: Faber and Faber, 1992, 112-122). 

18. Sir Richard Scott, Report of the Inquiry into the Export of Defence Equipment and 

Dual-Use Goods to Iraq and Related Prosecutions, Section C2.19, HMSO, London, 1996. 

19. Agence France Presse, March 18, 1999. 

20. Bangkok Post, July 1, 1990. 

21. Jane’s Defence Weekly, June 16 1999; Jacklyn Cock, “A Sociological Account of 

Light Weapons Proliferation in Southern Africa,” “Light Weapons and International 

Security,” (Pretoria, South Africa: Institute for Security Studies, 1998), 87-126; Chris 

Smith, “Light Weapons and Ethnic Conflict in South Asia,” “Lethal Commerce: The Global 

Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons,” Committee on International Security Studies, 

American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1995. 

22. Managing Arms in Peace Processes: Somalia, Disarmament and Conflict 

Resolution Project, United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, Geneva, 1995. 

23. Alex Vines, “Disarmament in Mozambique,” Journal of Southern African 

Studies, Volume 24, Number 1, March 1998, 191-205. 

24. Sarah Meek, The History and Prospects of Voluntary Weapons Collection Programmes,

Monograph 22 (Pretoria, South Africa: Institute for Security Studies, March 1998). 

25. Edward J. Laurance and William H. Godnick, Voluntary Weapons Collection 

Programs in Central America: El Salvador and Guatemala (Monterey, CA: Program for Arms 

Control, Disarmament and Conversion, Monterey Institute of International Studies, 1998). 

26. Op. cit., Sarah Meek, The History and Prospects...

27. Nora Kushti, Weapons in Exchange for Development: Albania, UNDP, United 

Nations, New York, http:www.prepcom.org/documents/_un/gramsh/update_undp.htm,

September 1999. 

28. Interview with Superintendent Stan Joubert, South African Police Service, August 

1999; interview with Etienne Henop, Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria, South Africa, 

August 1999; Martinho Chachiua, Arms Management Programme:: Operation Rachel 1996-99,

ISS Monograph 38 (Pretoria, South Africa: Institute for Security Studies, June 1999). 

U.S. Government Printing Office 2001 635-055/20133 
Security Implications . . . 35 

USAF Counterproliferation Center 

The USAF Counterproliferation Center was established in 1998 to 

provide education and research to the present and future leaders of the USAF, 

to assist them in their activities to counter the threats posed by adversaries 

equipped with weapons of mass destruction. 

Barry R. Schneider, Director 

USAF Counterproliferation Center 

325 Chennault Circle 

Maxwell AFB AL 36112-6427 

Email: Barry.Schneider@maxwell.af.mil 

Jo Ann Eddy, Associate Editor 

The Counterproliferation Papers 

Email: JoAnn.Eddy@maxwell.af.mil 

 (334) 953-7538 (DSN 493-7538) 
36 . . . Security Implications