For many years, I've been involved in the peace business, doing what I can to help people overcome their differences. In doing so, I've learned a lot about the business of war. In my opinion the arms trade is the modern slave trade. It is an industry out of control: Every day more than 1,000 people are killed by conventional weapons. The vast majority of those people are innocent men, women and children.
There have been international treaties to control the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons for decades. Yet, despite the mounting death toll, there is still no treaty governing sales of conventional weapons from handguns to attack helicopters.
As a result, weapons fall into the wrong hands all too easily, fuelling human rights abuses, prolonging wars and digging countries deeper into poverty. This is allowed to continue because of the complicity of governments that turn a blind eye to the appalling human suffering associated with the proliferation of weapons.
It is estimated that every year small arms kill more people than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki put together. Many more people are injured, terrorized or driven from their homes by armed violence. You only need to pick up a newspaper to see the worldwide scale of the problem. From the conflict in the Middle East, to the killings in Darfur, to gun violence in Brazil, the lack of global controls on the arms trade has led to human tragedies across the planet.
Take the Democratic Republic of Congo, where armed violence recently flared up again, and millions have died during almost a decade of conflict. Despite a UN arms embargo against armed groups in the country, weapons have continued to flood in from all over the world.
Arms found during weapons collections include those made in Germany, France, Israel, the United States and Russia. The only common denominator is that nearly all these weapons were manufactured outside Africa.
Five rich countries manufacture the vast majority of the world's weapons. In 2005, Russia, the United States, France, Germany and Britain accounted for an estimated 82 per cent of global arms production. But more than two-thirds of the value of all arms exports are sold to Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. It is no coincidence that many of the world's poorest countries have recently experienced armed conflict.
In addition to the deaths, injuries and rapes perpetrated with these weapons, conflict destroys health and education systems. For example, in northern Uganda, which has been devastated by 20 years of armed conflict, it has been estimated that 250,000 children do not attend school. The war, which may now be coming finally to an end, has been fuelled by supplies of foreign-made weapons.
Children under five are always the most vulnerable to disease, and in a war zone adequate medical care is often not available as hospitals are destroyed and people flee to makeshift camps. Last year, it was estimated that 41 per cent of all deaths in the camps for displaced people in northern Uganda were among children under five.
The world could eradicate poverty in only a few generations were only a fraction of the expenditure on the war business spent on peace. An average of $22-billion is spent on arms imports by countries in Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa every year according to estimates for the U.S. Congress. This sum would enable those countries to put every child in school and to reduce child mortality by two thirds by 2015, fulfilling two of the Millennium Development Goals.
This year, the world has the chance to finally say "no" to the continuing scandal of the unregulated weapons trade. In October, the world's governments will vote on a resolution at the UN General Assembly to start working toward an arms trade treaty. That treaty would be based on a simple principle: no weapons if there is a clear risk that they will be used to abuse human rights or fuel conflict.
The UN resolution has been put forward by the governments of Australia, Argentina, Costa Rica, Finland, Japan, Kenya, and Britain.
These governments believe that "the idea of an arms trade treaty is one whose time has come."
I agree. We must end impunity for governments who authorize the supply of weapons when they know there's a great danger that those weapons will be used for gross human rights abuses. Today, when great strides are being made toward ending impunity for war criminals, it cannot be that their arms suppliers continue to escape punishment.
A few weeks ago, Canada joined the 55 governments, including much of Africa, Latin America and Europe, who now support an arms trade treaty.
The idea also has widespread popular support: more than one million people in more than 150 countries have signed the Million Faces Petition supporting the call for such a treaty.
No longer should the peace business be undermined by the arms business.
I call on all governments to put the control of the international arms trade at the top of their agenda.
