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The following is an unauthorized version of the Report of the Panel of Experts to the United Nations on Sierra Leone.
This is not the official report. The official report has not yet been released. The report posted here is subject to change by the sanctions committee.

 

PART TWO: WEAPONS

I. WEAPONS AND THE RUF

A. Background

168. Small arms play an important role in sustaining conflicts, in exacerbating violence, in contributing to the displacement of innocent populations and threatening international law, and in fuelling crime and terrorism. Recognizing this, the Security Council and the international community have tried to constrain their proliferation in West Africa. The Security Council placed Sierra Leone under a variety of travel, economic and military sanctions after the May 1997 coup. Following the return of the elected government, the arms embargo was amended in June 1998 to lift sanctions against the government. Security Council sanctions placed on Liberia in 1992 remain in place.

169. On 31 October 1998, members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) adopted 'The Declaration of a Moratorium on the Importation, Exportation and Manufacture of Small Arms and Light Weapons in West Africa'. The Moratorium came into force on November 1 1998, for a period of three years and the Programme for Coordination and Assistance for Security and Development (PCASED) supports its implementation. PCASED is designed to monitor the moratorium and to establish a database and training programme for law enforcement agencies of the signatory countries. The programme is supported by the United Nations Development Programme, the UN Department of Political Affairs and the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research.

170. Despite the ECOWAS Moratorium (also called the Mali Moratorium), West Africa is still awash with small arms. Serious problems with weapons have emerged, not only in countries that are victims of warfare, but also in major cities across the entire sub-region. The rapidly increasing incidence of armed violence is a consequence. The outbreak of civil conflict in Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Niger, Liberia and Sierra Leone during the past decade has increased the demand for light weapons.

171. Guerrilla armies receive weapons through interlinked networks of traders, criminals and insurgents moving across borders. Arms also travel from one unstable zone to another, and rebel movements or criminal gangs in one country sell their arms to groups they are aligned with elsewhere. In other instances governments may see opportunities for their own regional ambitions in West Africa, supplying rebel groups with weapons in order to further these ambitions.

172. Systematic information on weapons-smuggling in the region is non-existent, and information which could be used to combat the problem on a regional scale - through ECOWAS or through bilateral exchanges - is generally not available. Few states in the region have the resources or the infrastructure to tackle smuggling, a situation that creates opportunities for the smuggling of weapons across all major borders in the region.

173. Officials acknowledge the existence of a large, and largely uncontrolled informal weapons trade and outright illicit trafficking. The extent of such practices, far beyond normal levels of informal trade, aggravate corruption and criminalisation throughout the region.

174. In Sierra Leone, the RUF depends almost exclusively on light weaponry, although it does have access to more sophisticated equipment. Lists of equipment turned in under the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Rehabilitation (DDR) Program include those of eastern European manufacture as well as American, Belgian, British and German types. In May 2000, at the time the Lomé peace process collapsed, roughly 12,500 weapons and 250,000 pieces of ammunition had been collected at the different weapons storage centres that had been initiated eight months earlier. The weapons included the following:

175. These numbers represent only a small fraction of the weapons that are actually in the hands of the rebels. The very poor quality and the age of the weapons turned in suggest that the rebels have held onto the newest and best weapons at their disposal. Despite the setback in May, former rebels, child soldiers and Civil Defence Force members keep presenting themselves at the different DDR centres for demobilisation and for the turning over of their weapons.

176. Many of the weapons are old and have been obtained from different sources, both regional and international. Provided that suitable ammunition is available, however, a ten-year old firearm can still be lethal. One of the few positive elements of the war in Sierra Leone is that there has been little or no use of anti-personnel land-mines in the conflict.

177. With no standardized marking system for small arms and the proliferation of great amounts of weapons of this nature, the arms flow to rebel groups on the African continent remain largely uncontrolled.

B. Sources of RUF Weaponry Within Sierra Leone

178. The RUF needs a steady flow of arms and ammunition. Although the arms inventoried by the DDR program originate in many countries, most of the rifles are of eastern European design. Variants of the AK-47 Kalashnikov are the most readily available. Although a Russian design, the AK-47 is today produced in so many countries, and in so many variants, that a thorough study of model numbers, serial numbers and factory markings would be required in order to determine their precise origin. After this, it might be possible to determine the supply trail of the weapons, but even this would be complicated by the fact that many may have been bought on the open market, and may be second- or even third-hand weapons.

179. The RUF have captured many weapons during confrontations with the Sierra Leone Army, ECOMOG and UNAMSIL forces. A forthcoming study made available to the Panel by the Small Arms Survey, a Geneva-based NGO, provides a well-documented summary overview of known seizures of weapons by the RUF. The Panel was able to verify most of the incidents reported in the survey.

180. Supplies obtained by the RUF from intervening forces deployed in Sierra Leone include, for example:

 

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