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Human
Security >>Small Arms Research Files 3 of 14 DOCUMENTS SECTION: International news Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh said Tuesday that Pakistan must stop backing "terrorism" if it wanted to resume stalled talks with New Delhi. Singh told reporters that a resumption of dialogue with Pakistan "is made difficult by its aid and abetment of terrorism and continued hostility" towards India. "For reasonable and meaningful talks to take place, Pakistan has to stop encouraging cross-border terrorism" in the disputed Himalayan state of Kashmir, he said. Singh, however, said India's Hindu nationalist-led coalition government was making efforts to find "a meeting ground" with Islamabad. "We are making constant efforts for that." New Delhi and Islamabad almost went to war during the May-July border clashes in Kashmir after hundreds of Islamic guerrillas from Pakistan intruded into Indian Kashmir and occupied key hills along the frontier. Since then, relations between them have deteriorated sharply. India and Pakistan dispute the ownership of Kashmir and have waged two of their three wars during the past 50 years over the Himalayan state. Earlier this month India shot down a Pakistani naval patrol plane with 16 crew on board when it allegedly entered Indian airspace. On Tuesday Singh justified the bringing down of the plane. "It was a combat aircraft," he said. "It was on a military mission. It was violating India's airspace and territorial integrity." Singh, whose coalition is expected to win elections that start Sunday, also accused Afghanistan's ruling Taliban of promoting terrorism in the sub-continent. He said developments in Afghanistan affected "India, its law and order and harmony" and blamed Kabul's rulers for the spread of small arms and narcotics in South Asia. "What India is experiencing is the Afghanistan disorder syndrome. Developments in Afghanistan, we take with utmost seriousness." Singh also said previous Indian governments had not "paid timely and effective attention" to Afghanistan. India had enjoyed close ties with the earlier pro-Soviet communist government of Najibullah in Kabul and now recognises the ousted regime of Burhanuddin Rabbani. Pakistan is one of only three countries to recognise the Taliban. Later a foreign ministry spokesman said India and the United States would hold two days of talks on Afghanistan, beginning Thursday in Washington. The spokesman said the discussion would be part of continuing consultations India has been having with France, Russia and Central Asian countries on the Afghan question. Singh, meanwhile, refused to say if India, which conducted a series of nuclear tests in May 1998, would sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. New Delhi has previously opposed the treaty, saying it was biased in favour of the major nuclear powers. "This will have to be addressed by the new parliament after achieving as much of a national consensus as possible," he said. Earlier, in a separate statement, Singh said Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's 17-month-old government had brought about a new respect for the country in the international arena. "India's voice is now heard with much greater respect. India's views are treated with seriousness. India's voice is now treated as a voice of great power," he said. "This has been a major foreign policy achievement of the Vajpayee government." mr/gh/sm LANGUAGE: ENGLISH LOAD-DATE: August 31, 1999
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"This represents the largest weapon destruction in Africa in recent years," a U.N. spokesman said yesterday. The weapons, which will be set ablaze at a public ceremony in Liberia July 26, include close to 8,000 serviceable and about 1,800 unserviceable firearms, along with more than 1.2 million rounds of ammunition. All of the weapons were turned in by more than 20,000 fighters -- including some 4,000 child soldiers and 250 adult female fighters -- who were engaged in a bitter civil war in Liberia which ended in late 1996. Since then, the U.N. Observer Mission in Liberia (UNOMIL) and the Military Observer Group of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOMOG) have been disarming and demobilizing the fighters. The bonfire will be witnessed by several African heads of state, including President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, President Jerry Rawlings of Ghana, President Lansana Conteh of Guinea, and President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of Liberia. The United Nations, which is supervising and funding the destruction of the weapons, will be represented by K.Y. Amoako, Executive Secretary of the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa and Felix Downes-Thomas, the Representative of Secretary-General Kofi Annan in Liberia. The process of destroying surplus small arms is being carried out following a decision by the Liberian government as part of a nationwide disarmament exercise. Last year, Annan sent a team of four military small-arms experts to advise the Liberian government on the modalities for the destruction of the weapons. Based on a technical assessment, and taking into account safety and environmental considerations, it was finally decided that all arms would be burned and all ammunition detonated. The entire exercise is being financed out of a U.N. special trust fund and is estimated to cost about $ 200,000. Last year a 16-member Panel of Governmental Experts on Small Arms said the United Nations should support "all appropriate post-conflict initiatives," including the disposal and destruction of weapons. The experts cited the example of Mali where thousands of small arms handed over by ex-combatants were destroyed in a public ceremony in March 1997. Annan has expressed the hope that the process started in Mali will contribute towards the elimination of all illicit traffic in small arms throughout the region. The United Nations has also been marginally involved in some of the other weapons collection programs in countries such as Angola, Albania, Cambodia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Mozambique, Nicaragua and Somalia. Last year, the United Nations launched its first full-scale project to disarm a country's civilian population in Albania. The pilot project was set up in Gramsh, Albania where the U.N. Development Program (UNDP) was expected to spend about $ 500,000 to provide incentives for villagers to surrender their weapons. Mitsuro Donowaki of Japan, chairman of the expert group, said that U.N. member states should consider destroying their surplus weapons to prevent them from falling into the hands of criminal elements or from being transferred to other conflict zones. "Africa, Central America and South Asia are three regions with an excessive accumulation and circulation of small arms," he said. In a 44-page study, the experts said that "in one way or another, virtually every part of the U.N. system is dealing with the direct and indirect consequences of recent armed conflicts fought mostly with small arms and light weapons." The expert panel identified small arms to include assault rifles, pistols, sub-machine guns, light machine guns, mortars, portable anti-aircraft guns, grenade launchers, anti-tank missile and rocket systems, hand grenades and anti-personnel land mines. "While small arms and light weapons are designed for use by armed forces, they have unique characteristics that are also of particular advantage for irregular warfare or terrorist and criminal action," the study pointed out. A proposal for a regional register of small arms has been shelved for practical reasons because the weapons number in the millions. In Central America alone, there were two million such arms. In Afghanistan, there were 10 million, while in West Africa there were more than seven million. LANGUAGE: ENGLISH LOAD-DATE: July 22, 1999 7 of 14 DOCUMENTS Copyright 1996 SOFTLINE INFORMATION, INC.
November 8, 1996 SECTION: Vol. XXVII; No. 6; Pg. 20 LENGTH: 536 words HEADLINE: Worrying Over Illicit Small-Arms Traffic BYLINE: Mozumder, Suman Guha BODY: India has expressed concern at the illicit traffic in small arms and the excessive production, development and transfer of conventional weapons beyond a country's legitimate security needs. "We are particularly concerned at the continued transfer of small arms and light weapons, especially where illicit trade in such weapons leads to their diversion to non-state entities," Arundhati Ghose, permanent representative to the U.N. office in Geneva, said in addressing the First Committee of the General Assembly here. Such illicit traffic in arms, she warned, can have a "disproportionately large negative impact, particularly for the internal security and socio-economic development of the affected states." She called for efforts to curb production and transfers, saying that restraint and greater transparency could lead to increased confidence and should be encouraged. "The setting up of the U.N. Arms Register, to which India has contributed regularly, marks an important step in this direction," she emphasized. "This has to be further consolidated so that its full potential as a genuine confidence-building measures can be realized." During a recent discussion at the Asia Society here, South Asian academics voiced concern over what they called the proliferation of small arms in the region. Imtiaz Ahmed, an associate professor at the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh, said that the use of small arms in South Asia had "killed more people than nuclear bombs did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and as such, their proliferation should be a mater of concern." Then he added, "There is a politics of silence as far as small arms are concerned." At the First Committee meeting, Ghose emphasized that international cooperation in curbing and condemning illicit arms traffic could be an important factor in combating this threat. In that regard, she said India endorsed the paper entitled, "Guidelines for International Arms Transfer in the Context of the General Assembly Resolution of December 1991," which was adopted by the U.N. Disarmament Commission this year, but has not yet been endorsed by the General Assembly. "Endorsement of these guidelines by the General Assembly would be a valuable first step, on which further work could be built," she added. Referring to the conference in Geneva this year to review the 1980 Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons, she said the conference had conducted its work "against the backdrop of the tragic landmine crisis created by irresponsible exports and the indiscriminate use of this weapon." Although the conference adopted a revised protocol on land mines, she said, "it is clear that despite the strengthened protocol, there remain grave areas of concern." "The transfer of land mines has not been banned, the use of remotely delivered mines does not attract strict regulations and the production, use and transfer of 'smart' mines may actually have been encouraged by the process," she pointed out. India, she added, supports the move for a complete ban on anti-personnel land mines, "a ban which we feel should be universal and nondiscriminatory." ETHNIC-GROUP: Asian/Pacific Island LANGUAGE: English LOAD-DATE: January 21, 1997 10 of 14 DOCUMENTS Copyright 1995 Federal Information Systems Corporation
SEPTEMBER 14, 1995, THURSDAY SECTION: IN THE NEWS LENGTH: 1175 words HEADLINE: PREPARED REMARKS OF BODY:
LOAD-DATE: September 15, 1995 11 of 14 DOCUMENTS Copyright 1990 The Christian Science Publishing Society
April 10, 1990, Tuesday SECTION: THE WORLD; Pg. 3 LENGTH: 908 words HEADLINE: King Lifts Ban on Political Parties BYLINE: Sheila Tefft, Special to The Christian Science Monitor DATELINE: NEW DELHI HIGHLIGHT: BODY:
After a violent two-month long agitation, King Birendra, considered a god by many Nepalis, gave in late Sunday to his opponents and pledged to lift a constitutional ban on political parties in the Himalayan kingdom. Following the announcement, opposition leaders suspended protests in which scores of people died during the last week in confrontations with security forces. The king's turnabout, which was celebrated by huge crowds in the streets of Katmandu, came after day-long meetings with pro-democracy politicians, some of whom met the ruler for the first time. The opposition alliance, which includes leftists, students, and members of the previously banned Nepalese Congress Party, wants to end the king's 30 years of absolute rule by dissolving the National Panchayat or parliament, setting up an interim government, and holding elections that would establish a multiparty democracy. ''This is a euphoric victory for the pro-democracy leaders,'' a Western diplomat here says. ''Now they will have to negotiate some touchy matters, including the future role of the king and his powerful political advisers in the new order.'' The dramatic concession came as Nepal reeled from mounting domestic turmoil fed in part by the wave of political change that has shaken or brought down authoritarian governments around the world. The agitation exploded with new fury and frustration last weekend after the king dismissed his hard-line government, promised talks with his allied political opponents, and released opposition leaders. When the opposition rejected the king's offer as inadequate, police fired Saturday on thousands of demonstrators marching on the Royal Palace in Katmandu. An indefinite curfew was imposed as trouble spread to other towns. The opposition victory was marred by tragedy when six people celebrating the king's announcement were shot by police enforcing the curfew. Sunday night restrictions were lifted and the Army withdrew from Katmandu streets. The political unrest has shattered Nepal, a tranquil Hindu country of 17 million people often idealized as a Himalayan Shangri-La but actually one of the world's poorest nations. Until recently, widespread political turmoil was unheard of in Nepal, where traditionally people have been reluctant to speak against the United States-educated king who lives largely in isolation and is revered by many as a reincarnation of the Hindu god, Vishnu. The protests are aimed at ending the king's apolitical system of governing councils, or panchayats, which has been widely discredited because of election rigging and corruption, observers here say. The next elections to the National Panchayat are slated for 1991. The nonpartisan system was established by King Mahendra, father of the present king, when he took power in 1960. Nepal has been criticized for human-rights abuses by the US State Department, Western organizations such as Asia Watch, and most recently by the newly established Human Rights Organization of Nepal. The political unrest is also rooted in the economic crisis triggered by a trade dispute with India, analysts here say. The economy of landlocked Nepal has long been dependent upon India for aid, special trade concessions, its east coast seaport of Calcutta, and employment for about 3 million Nepalis, including 100,000 Gurkhas in the Indian Army. Last year, after a dispute over how to renegotiate lapsed trade and transit treaties, New Delhi closed 19 of 21 border crossings with the Himalayan kingdom. Although trade friction was the reason given for the breakdown, New Delhi also was angry at Nepal's courtship of China, its giant northern neighbor and a long-time Indian rival. Especially galling to India was Nepal's purchase of Chinese small arms and antiair-craftguns after India's intervention in another South Asia nation, Sri Lanka. Determined to wean itself from Indian cultural and economic dominance, Nepal fought back by banning the use of Indian currency and some goods and restricting the work rights of Indians in Nepal. The trade dispute, however, has taken a toll on the tiny country which for a year has struggled with high prices, fuel rationing, and inadequate supplies of medicine and other goods. The disagreement has stymied industry, put people out of work, and stalled big foreign-aid projects. Observers say the two countries were working toward a settlement when the political unrest erupted. Indian Prime Minister V.P. Singh insisted he would not interfere in Nepalese politics. In some quarters, however, Nepalis blamed India for stirring up the trouble, especially since the visit of prominent Indian politicians to an opposition congress in January. 1950 - Revolt ousts oligarchical clan of prime ministers and restores monarchy. 1959 - Democratic Constitution paves way for election and government by Nepali Congress Party. 1960 - King suspends Constitution, jails government leaders, and bans political parties. December 1980 - Constitutional changes call for direct election to nonpartisan National Assembly. Feb. 19, 1990 - Pro-democracy rallies result in clashes between police and protesters. April 6 - Nepalese Army and police open fire on pro-democracy demonstrators. April 8 - King decrees multiparty system, legalizes political parties. GRAPHIC: Map, Nepal and surrounding area, highlighting Nepal, SHIRLEY HORN - STAFF LANGUAGE: ENGLISH A PAKISTAN GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCEMENT SAID THAT THE UNDERSTANDING REACHED BETWEEN THE TWO COUNTRIES IS VALID FOR 10 YEARS. CHINA HAS HELPED PAKISTAN IN THE SETTING UP OF MANY DEFENSE INDUSTRIES, INCLUDING THE MANUFACTURE OF SMALL ARMS AND AMMUNITION, THAT PAKISTAN HAS BEEN EXPORTING TO MANY MUSLIM COUNTRIES AND COUNTRIES IN SOUTH ASIA LIKE SRI LANKA AND NEPAL. PAKISTAN'S EXPORT CAPACITY WAS CONSTRAINED, HOWEVER, BY LIMITED PRODUCTION AND A SIZEABLE DEMAND FOR ITS OWN 500,000-STRONG ARMY. LANGUAGE: ENGLISH LOAD-DATE: Load-Date=DECEMBER 20, 1989 |
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