Light Weapons Trade on the Rise
By Nayyer Ali, MD

The end of the 20th century has seen some of the most horrific violence around the world. The never-ending clashes in Afghanistan, the many wars of Africa, and the breakup of Yugoslavia have resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. Chechnya has been bled dry several times, and there is the struggle in Sri Lanka and Kashmir on the Subcontinent. Let us not forget the thousands massacred in Algeria or the current war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. What has fueled this explosion of 3rd World wars?

Obviously, the great powers, and in the last ten years this phrase essentially means the United States, have no vital interests at stake in any of these conflicts. Although the United States might have a preferred winner on paper in many of these conflicts, it doesn’t care enough to actually get involved in a material way. Certainly its bad experience with a humanitarian intervention in Somalia at the start of this decade left a bitter taste in the mouths of the government, military, and the American people.

But there is something else going on here. Almost all of these conflicts are civil wars. Over 100 conflicts have broken out in the 1990’s resulting in over 5 million deaths, the vast majority of whom are civilians. In the past, to wage war a nation would need to acquire heavy weapons such as tanks, artillery, aircraft etc. These are expensive, require sophisticated maintenance, and need a trained and organized army to use.

In contrast, these heavy weapons have not caused most of the deaths in this last decade. Instead we have seen an explosive growth in the worldwide production and sales of light arms such as mortars, grenade launchers, and most importantly assault rifles. The AK-47, the universal symbol of rebel armies around the world, is produced in 11 countries with a total production of 40 million rifles. In Angola, one can purchase a used AK-47 for a large sack of corn. Other cheap weapons include the M16 rifle, the RPG-7 grenade launcher, and the Israeli-made Uzi submachine gun. This mass produced arsenal allows even small groups with meager financial resources to assemble a very lethal army.

In 1989, Charles Taylor led a ragtag group of 100 men armed with AK-47’s and in a few months toppled the government of Liberia in West Africa. This brought in a decade of recurrent civil war and misery. The terrible slaughter in Rwanda, where one ethnic group decided to eliminate another, resulted in almost 1 million murdered in less than two months. Most of these people were shot or hacked to death with very cheap imported weapons. In fact, the government of Rwanda had made a large purchase of cheap Chinese machetes that were stockpiled just before the slaughter began. Without those cheap weapons, the Rwandan government could not have done what it did.

The end of the cold war should have reduced the trade in international arms. It did do this for heavy weapons. But trade in light weapons, which are the source of so much tragedy, has actually flourished. About 10 billion dollars worth of these weapons are sold each year. Many of the large armies that shrank after the cold war essentially dumped their surpluses on the world market. While trade in missiles and tanks receives lots of scrutiny from the major powers, trade in these weapons, especially on the black market, is poorly regulated. Essentially anyone with the money can buy what they want.

The arms merchants in Peshawar are just one link in this chain. As they ply their trade, the gun culture deepens in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Kashmir. So far, Pakistan has kept most of the violence outside of its borders, but one day perhaps this might change. Although incompetent government and lack of democracy are bad, they are far preferable to the anarchy and ethnic slaughter that has overtaken many other parts of the world.

The techniques of modern mass production have created a world of plenty for many. But they have also allowed the easy creation of armed groups capable of terrible destruction. We have not become more evil; our weapons allow us to accomplish more evil. This legacy of industrial slaughter is one of the major themes of not just this last decade, but the entire 20th century.