In 1995, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, acknowledged the impact of small arms proliferation on the security of people and made a general call for ‘micro-disarmament’ or the reduction in the available levels of small arms and light weapons availability. As a result of this call, the UN created a Panel of Experts on Small Arms and Light Weapons, commencing a two-tiered process to analyse the extent and scope of the problem of small arms proliferation and its potential for control and reduction. The recommendations of the Panel of Experts led many regions in the world to initiate unique interventions to understand, control and stem proliferation in their own areas.

Subregions in Africa generated initiatives in this regard, including the Economic Community of West African States’ (ECOWAS) Moratorium on the Import, Export and Manufacture of Small Arms and Light Weapons; the Nairobi Declaration on the Problem of the Proliferation of Illicit Small Arms and Light Weapons in the Great Lakes Region and the Horn of Africa; and the Draft Protocol on Firearms and Ammunition of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). In turn, the African debate led to the OAU ministerial meeting of 1 December 2000 where the Common African Position on the Illicit Proliferation, Circulation and Trafficking of Small Arms and Light Weapons was agreed to.

All these inputs have become part of the international debate in preparation for the UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Arms in All its Aspects planned for July 2001 in New York.

Both the regional and international political impetus behind the problem of small arms proliferation and the reduction in the illicit trade in arms is of such topicality that the two feature articles in this African Security Review revolve around this issue. The first feature is by Eric Berman on ‘Arming the Revolutionary United Front’. It dramatically demonstrates some of the more contentious issues behind the current debate on small arms control and illicit small arms-trafficking raging in New York, including the linkages between legal and illicit markets; the need to regulate intermediaries, as well as suppliers; the need to remove and destroy surplus and recovered arms effectively; and the need to examine the effect of unregulated or poorly regulated transfers on security. Thus, Berman analyses the supply lines of both government and rebel forces in Sierra Leone over the last 10 years. He then compares the level of arms supplied and used with those retrieved during different peace missions undertaken in Sierra Leone in the past. Lastly, he looks at what happens to weapons that are retrieved and not destroyed in countries such as Sierra Leone.

The important lesson is that, even if arms are transferred for legitimate purposes, the possibility of their continued control is limited in the field under extreme conditions. By the same token, if peace missions and initiatives that are undertaken to bring stability and peace in a civil conflict are not accompanied by effective disarmament and the destruction of small arms, the chances that the latter will evade control and return to impact on war and crime are great. The international community is not doing enough to come to grips with the arms problem. Berman indicates that, "[d]espite international arms embargoes and a regional moratorium on small arms and light weapons, the government of Sierra Leone, the RUF and other non-state actors are all arming at an alarming rate." Situations such as this demonstrate the need for and timeliness of the United Nations conference of 2001.

The second feature article leaves the realm of the immediate to look at the focus on small arms and light weapons in the context of broader disarmament and arms control issues. Jane Boulden contends that, "though different in nature, the kinds of problems and obstacles posed by small arms control match those associated with nuclear arms control in complexity and political sensitivity. In fact, for those accustomed to nuclear arms control, the requirements of controlling small arms and light weapons present difficulties of almost nightmarish proportions. Light weapons are everywhere. They are readily available, used legitimately by every state and by any number of other groups and individuals. They are easily hidden, easily smuggled and no special technological knowledge is required to manufacture, maintain or use them."

If the control of small arms and light weapons is regarded as so impossible, why then even attempt to come to grips with it? Here, three inferences need to be made. First, conventional arms control has always been the focus of international attention following major armed conflict, such as World War I and II. The period following the ‘silent’ war — known as the Cold War — would then, also, have produced such a focus. Secondly, attempts to control arms are associated with efforts to codify and strengthen the laws of war and to protect innocent populations. The realisation that the presence of excessive quantities of arms contributes to and prolongs and exacerbates conflict was coupled to the ‘explosion’ of micro-conflict — both intractable and destructive — which have rocked the world since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Thirdly, the debate on controlling small arms takes one back to the starting point: the realisation that excessive accumulations of arms beyond the requirements of a state’s security threaten international peace and security. As Boulden says, "[w]here the world has come full circle … is the return to the debate on the concern about small arms and light weapons, a concern that echoes that of the immediate post-World War I and II periods, both in terms of the substance of the discussions and by virtue of the fact that the efforts to pursue small arms control are occurring within the UN."

Both features clearly show that words are not enough to achieve and sustain effective action. The UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Arms in All its Aspects will achieve much if it goes beyond rhetoric and seriously considers the creation of an implementation plan that could be sustained by all countries to end situations where arms continue to be available such as in Sierra Leone. If this does not happen, the small arms debate of 2001 will become nothing more than a footnote in the tedious history of disarmament.