This Report highlights results of research into the loss of arms and ammunition in a range of peace operations. Losses include assault rifles and pistols, armoured vehicles and numerous types of light weapons that in aggregate represent thousands of weapons and millions of rounds of ammunition.
Working Paper No. 24
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Six years after independence and two years after the ‘Krize’, the role of small arms in Timor-Leste society has not yet received a thorough accounting. Such weapons have played a decisive role in shaping repressive tactics of the former colonial powers and countermeasures by resistance movements, through to contemporary criminal violence. Today, against a backdrop of weak institutions, lingering tension, and poorly enforced legislation and arms control norms, military and civilian-style arms continue to trigger interpersonal and collective violence.
Since the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations released its seminal report in 2000, UN peacekeeping missions have grown considerably in size and complexity. More than 100,000 uniformed personnel were serving in these missions as of November 2015, an increase of 300 per cent since 2000. These soldiers and police officers are operating in challenging environments, often in underdeveloped countries amidst violent armed groups with little interest for political compromise and no compunctions about attacking their perceived enemies, including UN forces.
The General Peace Accord for Mozambique (GPA) in 1992 provided for the disarmament of Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (RENAMO—the Mozambican National Resistance) and the governing party, Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO—the Mozambique Liberation Front), and for the integration of reduced forces from both groups into a single national army.
More than 100,000 police and military personnel are currently deployed as United Nations peacekeepers (known as Blue Helmets) in 16 UN peacekeeping operations, with one in four of these peacekeepers deployed in South Sudan or Sudan. Between 2004 and 2014 there were at least 22 notable incidents of diversion or loss of weapons and ammunition during peacekeeping operations in these countries. These incidents, each of which involved the loss more than 10 weapons or more than 500 rounds of ammunition, have occurred during patrols, during attacks on convoys, and on fixed sites.
The looting of Libya’s massive stocks of weapons and ammunition was one of the most significant arms proliferation events of the 21st century. Anti-government forces seized tens of thousands of small arms, light weapons and other munitions, and thousands more were left unguarded in abandoned storage facilities. These weapons have fuelled crime and conflict in Libya and throughout North Africa.
This Research Note summarizes the findings of a chapter on floating armouries in the Small Arms Survey 2015: Weapons and the World. It presents basic information on the number of floating armouries operating in the HRA, their use, the number of arms they store, and an overview of some of the nascent—and potential—approaches to regulating floating armouries to ensure safe and secure practices.