The Small Arms Trade in the Americas

...Construction on the factories began at the end of 2007 and is scheduled to be completed by 2010...

...economic development...

...Venezuela also made a controversial purchase of 100,000 AK-47s worth about $4 million from Russia that year, in a deal that included co-production rights...

...But he has not championed the Oas convention either...

...Since the 1990s, the trade.Weaponsare process, as corrupt officials and drug trafRevolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia itshallmarkatevery fickers exploit the instability caused by the (FARC) and Colombian drug cartels have been continual violence...

...Weapons are a hallmark of the drug trade at every stage, from cultivation to distribution...

...A nebulous and mutually reinforcing relationship between firearms, narcotics, and gangs fuels the trade in both guns and drugs...

...Moreover, a 1999 report by the Inter-American Development Bank estimates that violence costs Latin America $16.8 billion, or 14.2% of its GDP.26 The IADB also estimates that the per capita GDP in Latin America would be 25% higher if crime rates were more on par with the rest of the world...

...Domestic production is most important in Brazil...

...In El Salvador, the United States helped destroy 30,000 small arms in 2003, in Honduras, 13,680 small arms and 5,772 unstable aviation bombs were destroyed in 2006–07, in Nicaragua, 1,011 shoulder-fired rockets were destroyed in 2004–06, and in Suriname, 3 million .50-cal rounds, 20,000 WWII-vintage rounds, and 20,000 small-arms munitions (including grenades) were destroyed in 2006–07.36 Similarly, the United States has used its own national lawstopreventdiversionandencourageimprovednational stockpilesecuritypracticesbyLatinAmericancountries.In 0 lifting them only when arms policy improvements were implemented.37 Nonetheless, the United States has frequently been on the opposite side of its hemispheric neighbors by opposing international controls on the small-arms trade...

...In El Salvador, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front received AK-47s from the Honduran military, which had raided the CIA’s Nicaraguan supplies.5 Caches of Cold War–origin weapons are still being found in Latin America...

...Today, most legal weapons in Latin America come from the United States, Europe, or the small but growing regional arms industry...

...Latin America has been instrumental in this process...

...there are states should be one of the nations so urged is strongly implied...

...As in Colombia, these guns are fuelling an arms race, in this case between Mexican drug cartels, costing the lives of 4,000 people in 18 months.14 Weapons, including assault rifles like AK-47s, AR-15s, and M-16s, fetch up to three times their U.S...

...in the first six months, the their likely diversion to Brazil...

...MARCH/APRIL 2008 report: guns small arms, including gun destructions...

...Brazilian police government destroyed 70,000 weapons and U.S.armspolicies, regularly seized U.S...

...as Zedillo noted at the signing, the convention is “the first in-a strong ally of the National Rifle association, Helms had a ternationallegalinstrumentofitssort...

...laws, regulations, and practices...

...the region was just emerging from moratorium on the small-arms trade in west africa...

...The United States requested that Parastroyed 1,000 of them, though it is believed to americawithcontin-guay enact tighter controls over its weapons have another 1,000 in its arsenal...

...CIFTA and the subsequent model regulations that have been developed on implementation, as well as on substantive issues like marking and tracing, have inspired the subregions themselves to also address small-arms violence and proliferation...

...about 80% of the illegal guns in Rio de Janeiro are made domestically, according to the Small Arms Survey, and police records indicate that between April 1999 and June 2005, 72% of illegal firearms seized by Brazilian police were domestically made.15 The majority of these firearms were legally produced and sold, and then diverted to illicit markets through sale, trade, or theft...

...In Santa Ana, becomeboththe lions of people...

...inexistinglawsand Firearms, and Explosives (BATF), with the as-The United States has worked for several years oppositiontocreat-sistance of the State Department and the then with the Nicaraguan government to destroy Office of Defense Trade Controls, worked with the country’s many shoulder-fired SAM-7 ingstronginterna-the Brazilian police to trace the weapons’ orimissiles received from the Soviet Union dur tionalagreements, gins...

...Within the region, the most significant accomplishment has been the Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Explosives, and Other Related Materials, or CIFTA by its Spanish acronym, also known as the OAS Convention (see “The U.S...

...Millions of small arms and lights weapons continue to circulate throughout Latin America, leaving a path of destruction, crime, and conflict...

...These weapons last longer than their intended purposes require, perpetuating cycles of violence and underdevelopment that affect the entire region...

...After decades of uncontrolled proliferation, at least 45 million to 80 million small arms and light weapons—that is, weapons operated by an individual or small group, including handguns, assault rifles, grenades, grenade launchers, and even man portable surface to air missiles—are circulating throughout the region.1 Gunshots kill between 73,000 and 90,000 people each year in Latin America, and guns are the leading cause of death among Latin Americans between the ages of 15 and 44, according to World Health Organization estimates.2 Small arms flooded Latin America during the Cold War, most significantly during the Central American civil wars of the 1980s...

...about small-arms issues throughout Latin America...

...In 2006, only two thirds of Latin American countries had established a national small-arms point of contact—the primary government functionary on small arms matters—which is the General Assembly resolution that es tablished a group of governmental experts (GGE) to assess the feasibility and parameters of such a treaty enjoyed the support of all Latin American and Caribbean states, passing by a vote of 153 to 1—with only the United States dissenting...

...the GGE began its work in February and is led by an Argentine ambassador, while Costa Rica, an original co-sponsor of the UN resolution, has long led the effort for a global code of conduct on arms transfers...

...Constitution—if the fedremoves contradictions between national laws necessary...

...technically, all 35 independent eign Relations Committee outlining the administration’s treaty nations in the western hemisphere are members of the Oas, priorities, the convention was the first on the list of treaties that although Cuba is barred from participating under its current should be given very high priority, right below “urgent” priori-government...

...Senate: Stalling Hemispheric Arms Control i n 1997, President Bill Clinton, standing beside Mexican presi-On June 9, 1998, the U.s...

...See “Guns: The U.S...

...The Brazilian government has also worked closely with nongovernmental organizations like Viva Rio, which works to prevent urban crime and conducts large-scale public demonstrations on The U.S...

...Levels of crime and violence are still unacceptably high in much of the region, especially among young people...

...They discovered that the seized weapons ing the 1980s...

...Gun violence Saturday Night Special...

...In Chile, for example, craft production is economically insignificant but used to provide weap ons for criminal groups...

...The U.S...

...Latin America is progressively taking steps to break this cycle, but significant work remains...

...The UN Firearms Protocol, intended to curb the illicit manufacturing and trade in small arms through more effective policing, has only eight of its 49 ratifications from Latin American countries...

...Mexico City and willingness to aggravate the “sleeping lion” of the NRa...

...senator dianne Feinstein (d-Ca) in-de-mining, development assistance, and a fund dedicated to sists that ratifying the convention “will help create a regime for “strengthening democracy...

...undertaken by the Oas,” according to the Congressional Rein 2004, she and three other senators sponsored the security search service...

...A 2003 study by the Small Arms Survey in Rio de Janeiro, for example, found that the average medical cost of a single gunshot wound was $4,500, almost three times the cost of a stab wound.24 Gun violence exacts almost $90 million in health costs in Brazil and $40 million in Colombia, while productivity losses are estimated at $10 billion and $4 billion for the two countries, respectively.25 The United Nations Development Program has estimated the cost of violence in El Salvador at 11.5% of the country’s GDP...

...Since 2001, for example, the United States helped four Latin American countries destroy thousands of surplus small arms and shoulder-fired rockets, and to improve stockpile security...

...Weapons collection programs prior to the public destructions have taken literally tons of weapons off the street...

...senator John work...

...By rachel Stohl and Doug Tuttle S mall arms and gun violence present the most dramatic threat to public safety in Latin America and the Caribbean...

...washington also contributes well over $1 milthere has been a little movement on the Convention, but not lion annually to specific projects it deems important, including from the senate leadership...

...Smuggled goods in this area, including weapons and narcotics, are valued between $2 billion and $3 billion annually.11 Hezbollah runs much of the area’s smuggling activities, using profits to support activities in the western hemisphere and the Middle East.12 But the region’s largest and most sophisticated black-market arms-trafficking network serves the ongoing armed conflict in Colombia, which has fueled an informal arms race between paramilitaries, guerrillas, and private citizens...

...Perhaps knowing it has the senate’s inaction on this and similar treaties further the senate committee’s ear, the NRa has not made defeat-indicates the deep antipathy toward internationally binding ing the Firearms Convention a central plank in its international agreements that permeates washington politics...

...The Nicara imports, but Paraguay neglected to do so...

...Anecdotal evidence suggests that large quantities of small arms, bound for Colombian guerrillas and paramilitaries alike, arrive in Central America via sea routes and are then routed through Panama, which acts as the largest single transit hub for Colombia’s weapons...

...Ironically, gun violence in many countries actually increased after formal warfare ended...

...The Soviets and their Warsaw Pact allies sent weapons to Cuba, which then passed them to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.3 In response, the United States often provided its Central American allies, like the counterrevolutionary Nicaraguan Contras, with Soviet weaponry, most notably the AK-47, in order to maintain official “deniability” of its involvement in the conflicts...

...certainly it has not reached the same apoplexy over Kyl (R-aZ) sums up the administration’s anti-treaty philosophy the Oas treaty as it did over UN work on small arms, which it as “peace through strength, not peace through paper...

...by Mexico and negotiated in just seven months,” it continued, the chairman is Joe Biden (d-del...

...A study released by the Mexican government suggests that as many as 2,000 guns are crossing the U.S.-Mexico border daily...

...In January 2003 the Andean Community (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela) adopted Decision 552, approving a plan to crack down on illicit arms trafficking.29 The MERCOSUR states have also focused on small arms through explorations of urban violence, drug trafficking, and criminality...

...From the administration’s perspective, it is possible that ratification is not a priority because the United states wields Frida Berrigan is a senior program associate with the New America considerable power throughout the Oas despite its lack of Foundation’s Arms and Security Initiative...

...Although not exported, the weapons are used regularly by groups that have difficulty acquiring weapons because of short supplies and strict legal restrictions on gun purchases.16 In parts of Central America, Although the majority of conflicts in Latin America concluded soon after the end of the Cold War, some continue and others have reignited...

...for almost 60...

...The Central American Integration System (SICA) Luis urregO/LatinPhOtO.Org universally adopted a politically binding code of conduct on small arms, ammunition, and explosives transfers in December 2005...

...Many steps have been undertaken at the United Nations, but Latin America has a mixed record of participating in them...

...For example, in El Salvador, which experienced one of Latin America’s most brutal civil wars from 1980 to 1992, the percentage of homicides caused by firearms increased from 55% in 1990–95 to 75% in 1999.19 The Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) estimates that almost a quarter of the country’s annual GDP is spent addressing the growing violence...

...producing 9 mm submachine guns that mimic stage,fromcultiva-Furthermore, these weapons threaten the U.S.-made Intratec 9, better known as the tiontodistribution...

...in a 1999 leta period of intense conflicts, many of which where perpetuated ter to the agency, Helms wrote that the “project proposes using by illicit weapons flows across national borders...

...Whether these weapons were provided to fight the Cold War or to fuel drug and gang wars, through legal or illicit channels, their presence is responsible, in part, for the crime and violence that has retarded development throughout Latin America...

...While almost every country in Latin America manufactures small arms to some extent, production capabilities vary greatly throughout the region.7 In 2005, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Chile were the largest regional producers of small arms, and also the four largest regional exporters, transferring $15.5 million, $3.6 million, $3.2 million, and $657,000 worth of weapons, respectively, to other Latin American countries.8 Still, Latin American small-arms production is relatively small in scope...

...These weapons are ideal for haveallowedU.S...

...The United States was the main supplier to the region, exporting almost $50 million worth of these weapons...

...The U.S...

...the Firearms Convention and countless other treaties were exist) that establish procedures for importing, exporting, and victims of Helms’ beef with the United Nations and President tracing small arms, light weapons, and ammunition, and as Clinton, and he was not going to allow debate on any treaty until well as mechanisms for enforcement...

...About 100,000 guns were publicly destroyed in June 2001, 10,000 in July 2002, and 5,000 in 2003.31 For Brazil, which has a firearm death rate more than twice the world average, and where more people have been killed by guns during the last 10 years than in any other country (including countries at war), the public destructions build confidence that the government is addressing the problem of gun violence, raise awareness about the problem, and places political pressure on the Brazilian congress to develop stronger national gun laws.32 In 2004, Brazil undertook a National Voluntary Firearms Handover campaign, which led to the recovery of nearly 250,000 weapons in six months, exceeding the program’s original target of 80,000...

...in more recent editions of that annual letter, the convention budget of about $77 million, the United states’ share accounts has sunk lower down that list...

...Responsibility for this, at least at first, rested known as the Firearms Convention, or by its spanish initials as on the shoulders of one man: senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), who CiFta, designed to end the illicit manufacture and trafficking from 1995 to 2001 served as the chairman of the senate Foreign of guns, ammunition, explosives, and related materials...

...Still, a Firearms Working Group has worked to coordinate subregional implementation of CIFTA, as well as a cooperative tracing of weapons and harmonization of national laws.30 Individual countries within Latin America have also adopted national and unilateral small-arms policies...

...Similar types of craft production have also begun to emerge in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil.18 R egardless of the source, small arms in latin America have led to a variety of crises through out the region...

...same statement...

...In guan government has said it intends to keep ueddevastating 1996, after several warnings, the United States 400 for its national defense force.35 consequences...

...the presidents had joined together to sign an Oas treaty to ratify the treaty...

...discrimination against women, have been languishing for Part of the reason for the lack of movement could be an un-decades despite an absence of opposition...

...the con-in motion...

...today, the United states— ing is an issue of national security for our governments, and together with Canada, the dominican Republic, Jamaica, Guya matter of neighborhood security for all of us in the ameri-ana, suriname, and saint vincent and the Grenadines—has yet cas...

...The United States is uniquely positioned to lead such efforts in Latin America, highlighting its complicated, often contradictory, arms relationship with the region...

...Homemade firearms, known as armas hechizas, are used by street gangs for local crime...

...more than two dozen treaties awaiting congressional action...

...and then . . . nothing...

...The initial success of the initiative prompted the Brazilian president to extend the program an additional six months...

...small arms flowing to South America went to Colombia...

...Craft production—crude, small-scale, handmade production of weapons—has been documented in Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Honduras, and El Salvador, and also fuels the illicit trade...

...In Haiti, a country preEl Salvador, informal workshops can produce currencyandcom-cariously perched between war and peace, imitations of .22- and .38-caliber pistols.17 armed gangs are employed to use violence More sophisticated and larger-scale craft pro modityofthedrug in an attempt to destroy the fragile peace duction also takes place...

...Threat to Mexican National Security,” page 21...

...Brazil has been extremely active in addressing small-arms proliferation at the national level and has taken incremental steps to achieve great progress...

...suspended small-arms exports to Paraguay, A lthough several treaties, international agree ments, regional and subregional initiatives, and national policies on small arms exist, Latin American countries would benefit from additional assistance for implementing treaties and agreements and undertaking programmatic initiatives to disarm (through collecting and destroying weapons and improving stockpile management), demobilize armed groups, and reintegrate former combatants into society...

...A December 2006 UN and dozens of armed gangs in Guatemala City have strong ties with international drug dealers.28 T he consequences of small arms proliferation and misuse are multidimensional, and thus con trol efforts require various, multifaceted solutions...

...that the United the international Criminal Court, the list goes on...

...the Clinton administration submitted to his will...

...Such assistance would bolster strategies and programs and allow Latin America to take meaningful steps to stop the small-arms scourge...

...In Costa Rica, peasants have been armed with AK-47s to protect marijuana plantations, MARCH/APRIL 2008 report: guns most basic step that states can take to adhere to the agreement...

...international expansion of the President and vice President’s a 2000 state department fact sheet boasted that “the United domestic gun control agenda...

...the usefully includes both supplier and recipient states, has broad proposed aid, Helms wrote, was “nothing less than a brazen definitions of firearms and explosives, and is legally binding...

...tions in the interest of peace and security...

...Because the international small-arms trade lacks full transparency, and a significant portion of the trade is illicit, it is difficult to know the demian Chavez/LatinPhOtO.Org MARCH/APRIL 2008 types and estimate the quantities of weapons that Latin American countries import...

...while all nations contribute to the group’s annual ties...

...Yet weapons continue to stream into El Salvador and the rest of Central America, mostly from the United States...

...In all, the yearlong collection program removed 450,000 firearms from the hands of civilians.33 In October 2005, Brazil voted on a resolution that would ban civilian possession of guns and ammunition...

...The region is a smuggler’s paradise: A vast coastline, densely forested mountains, porous borders, clandestine airstrips, widespread government corruption, a lack governmen report: guns tal resources and political will to confront the trade, and entrenched and powerful narco-traffickers—all have contributed to the unregulated flow of weapons, drugs, and people...

...Both the United States and the Soviet Union supplied their Latin American allies with mass quantities of weapons through proxy arms dealers...

...Although diverse motivations, channels, and suppliers have had a hand in their proliferation, the Cold War and its legacies bear most of the responsibility...

...the minority leader, Richard Lugar (R-iN), takes arms vention is “an outstanding example of the contribution that the control very seriously, and has his name attached to some of Oas is making to the security of the hemisphere,” asserts the the most effective bilateral arms control efforts in existence...

...had been legally transferred from the United terrorists, who could use them to shoot down States to Paraguay, but illegally diverted to commercial aircraft...

...In other words, the proliferation and misuse of firearms undermines growth, threatens human welfare, negatively impacts business, threatens investment, and hinders development throughout the region.27 Small arms have become both the currency and commodity of the drug trade...

...government delivered $376,000 in small arms to Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, and Panama, while in the same period more than $66 million in authorized private sales from the United States flowed to the same countries.20 Uncontrolled small arms are responsible for increased firearm homicides and increasing gang violence.21 In the favelas of Brazil, the murder rate for young men aged 15 to 24 is 113.8 per 100,000...

...Although the referendum failed, it was the first vote of its kind and served to raise awareness by Frida Berrigan Yet in the state department’s 2002 letter to the senate For-support for the convention...

...Recently, Biden may have eradicate illicit arms trafficking, while protecting the legal trade been too busy campaigning for the Oval Office to champion the in firearms...

...Under called a “global gun grab...

...Other major suppliers to Latin America that year included Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Israel, Italy, Russia, South Africa, and Spain...

...market value in Mexico, assuring a continued southward flow of weapons...

...arms to flow to Latin America with continued devastating consequences...

...Shifting crime patterns and availability of guns in Jamaica left more than 200 children between the ages of 10 and 19 hospitalized from gunshot wounds in 2000 alone.23 burdens communities with higher health care costs, reducing productivity and discouraging investment...

...it re-Relations Committee, where he earned the nickname senator quires that ratifying nations create laws (if they do not already No...

...But unlike oth-U.s...

...www.cdi.org...

...this bill was also referred to the senate Foreign Relations Com-some, like the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of mittee, and that was the end of that...

...Therefore, policies and programs must be developed that address small-arms proliferation and misuse both from the top down and the bottom up, taking place at international, regional, national, and local levels, and implemented simultaneously and cooperatively...

...Exacerbated by the ready availability of small arms on international, regional, and domestic markets, the 40year civil war in Colombia continues to Smallarmshave youth gangs assemble makeshift pistols out of cost thousands of lives and displaces milbedsprings and metal tubing...

...Traditionally, Latin American countries have not produced enough weapons to meet their domestic military needs and have relied on imports to fill their arsenals...

...And Latin American countries have also minimally complied with the voluntary UN Programme of Action (PoA), a global agreement that outlines state responsibilities established at a 2001 UN conference called “The Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects...

...these contributions “give the the control of illicit trade in small arms which serves the stra-United states significant leverage over the types of projects tegic, economic, and political interests of the United states...

...guns from crime scenes, collected 50,000 rounds of ammunition.34 includingloopholes guns that had not been legally supplied to Other Latin American countries have imBrazil...

...In general, small-arms policies should control the supply of weapons, eliminate potentially dangerous stockpiles, end misuse, and attempt to lessen demand...

...The U.S...

...the measure did not pass...

...gun ownership in the United states...

...Compared to other types of violent trauma, gunshot wounds exact a higher cost in Latin America...

...Central America has been especially active on small arms...

...Researchers have identified 37 trafficking routes from Panama into Colombia, 26 from Ecuador, 21 from Venezuela, and 14 from Brazil, according to a RAND study.13 The U.S.-Mexican border is also a central route through which illicit small arms enter Latin America...

...senate received the treaty and dent Ernesto Zedillo in the Organization of american states’ referred it to the Foreign Relations Committee “by unanimous flag-bedecked Hall of the americas, declared: “Gun traffick-consent...

...The same 2005 data reveals that the vast majority of the $29 million worth of U.S...

...For example, between 1996 and 1999 the U.S...

...military allegedly maintained warehouses of Soviet-bloc weapons that were distributed throughout the region.4 The United States also used third countries, including Israel, to supply the Contras...

...According to data provided by the Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers, in 2005 Latin America legally imported at least $175 million worth of small arms and light weapons, as well as ammunition and spare parts...

...The countryhaslongbeentheregion’schiefarmsexporter,providing millions of dollars’ worth of weapons, while at the same time providing substantial assistance on small-arms control...

...In the mid-1990s the United States applied its export con-June 2007 Argentina launched its own gun buyback and trol laws to suspend arms sales to Paraguay because of amnesty program...

...Meanwhile, with only a slim major-the Bush administration, the United states struck out on its ity in the midst of a defining political moment, the democrats own, ignoring, undermining, and in some cases toppling key might be timid about pushing a treaty that could serve to unify international agreements negotiated by earlier administratheir opposition...

...who received an F from the “this agreement strengthens the ability of the Oas nations to NRa for his pro-gun-control votes...

...In fact, the idea was first introduced as the Nobel Laureate’s Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers by former Costa Rican president Oscar Arias in 1997...

...Mexico imported $10 million worth, almost as much as all the small arms that Central America and the Caribbean imported combined.6 Venezuela, meanwhile, spent $10 million on small arms and other weapons and supplies from Belgium...

...and Fair Enforcement in arms trafficking act, which (among the Oas convention—a sensible security tool—is just one other things) sought to urge the Congress that the “secretary of the many casualties of the Bush administration’s disdain of state should encourage those countries that have not done for international and multilateral treaties: the Kyoto Protocol, so to sign and ratify” the Firearms Convention...

...thatthefirstinternational special disdain for arms control, as is evident in his dispatching arms-control agreement was signed in the americas reflects a of a modest $200,000 Usaid-sponsored measure calling for a number of crucial dynamics...

...it eral government attempted such activities here at home...

...As such, the region has built many of its frameworks for small-arms control based on experiences dealing with these interconnected issues...

...states was a leader in concluding” the treaty...

...taxpayers’ money (among other things) to lobby or promote er regions emerging from warfare, the americas include both policies in foreign countries that may very well be a violation major suppliers and major importers, making an agreement that of the second amendment to the U.s...

...and Colombian governments have complained that the Venezuelan military’s stockpiles of 7.62 mm FN FAL rifles, which the new AK-103s will replace, might be diverted to Colombian guerrillas.10 On top of these officially approved arms transfers, the illicit small arms trade in Latin America is thriving...

...First proposed But Helms no longer bangs the gavel in Foreign Relations...

...Although MERCOSUR adopted a Joint Firearms Registration Mechanism in 1998, it has not yet become operational...

...the washington’s close collaboration on the treaty is ironic, given pro-gun group’s influence is visible in repeated exhortations that the flow of guns from the United states to Mexico remains that nothing in the Oas treaty limit constitutionally protected an enormous problem and a source of growing tension...

...Guerrilla movements, street gangs, and organized criminal syndicates perpetuate the demand for guns through competition, intimidation, and violence...

...Because small arms have legitimate police, military, and civilian uses, simply banning them is both unpractical and unlikely...

...At the regional level, Latin America often uses criminal violence, urban violence, and drug trafficking as lenses through which to view small-arms proliferation...

...But the region’s governments did show widespread support for a new UN initiative aimed at establishing an international arms-trade treaty that would institute standards for importing, exporting, and otherwise transferring conventional weapons, including small arms...

...the United states helped develop the convention, Firearms Convention, but all that is needed is his green light, and according to a 2002 state department fact sheet, and it was the committee will hold hearings setting the ratification wheels “modeled on U.s...

...arms policies, including loopholes in existing laws and opposition to creating strong international agreements, clash with U.S...

...Rachel Stohl and Doug Tuttle are Senior Analyst and Research Assistant, respectively, at the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C...

...According to the Small Arms Survey, only about 4% of the small-arms-producing companies in the world are located in South America, on par with sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.9 However, in August, 2007, Russia’s Izhevsk Manufacturing Plant announced it had finalized the deal to build two factories in Venezuela to produce AK-103 assault rifles and their 7.62 mm ammunition...

...It prohibits signatories from transferring weapons to governments that commit human rights abuses or violate international humanitarian law...

...Bureau for Alcohol, Tobacco, plemented national destruction programs...

...In addition to international smuggling, the diversion of domestic production and privately owned stocks contributes to illicit ownership in Latin America...

...Senate: Stalling Hemispheric Arms Control,” page 18...

...The triborder area of Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina has become a particularly lucrative cross-border smuggling region...

...Most states in the region have some import laws and procedures on the books, yet very few have any controls over the activities of arms brokers, the shady middlemen who coordinate illicit arms deals, and even fewer conduct regular reviews of weapons stockpiles, which are attractive targets for theft and diversion...

...If Latin America is to prosper in the coming generations, continued resources, efforts, and initiatives are needed to address the effects of gun proliferation and violence that threaten Latin America’s future...

...In 2005, Nicaragua de armstoflowtolatin Brazil...

...As noted above, the United States was the lone dissenter on establishing a treaty to control the arms trade, has consistently stalled and weakened efforts to develop other international measures, and has been ineffective in stopping the cross-border trade with Mexico...

...In 2001, firearms caused 65% of deaths among young men aged 15 to 19.22 In Ecuador, more than 1,000 informal youth groups are involved with organized armed violence in the country...

...programmatic initiatives and have allowed U.S...