“Arms trafficking”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

Arms trafficking, also known as gunrunning, is the trafficking of contraband weapons and ammunition. What constitutes legal trade in firearms varies widely, depending on local and national laws.

The 1999 Report of the UN Panel of Governmental Experts on Small Arms provides a more refined and precise definition, which has become internationally accepted. This distinguishes between small arms (revolvers and self-loading pistols, rifles and carbines, submachine guns, assault rifles, and light machine guns), which are weapons designed for personal use, and light weapons (heavy machine guns, hand-held under-barrel and mounted grenade launchers, portable anti-aircraft guns, portable anti-tanks guns, recoilless rifles, portable launchers of anti-aircraft missile systems, and mortars of calibres less than 100 mm), which are designed for use by several persons serving as a unit. Ammunition and explosives also form an integral part of small arms and light weapons used in conflict.^[1]

Impact

Areas

Although arms trafficking is widespread in regions of political turmoil, it is not limited to such areas, and for example, in South Asia, an estimated 63 million guns have been trafficked into India and Pakistan.^[2]

The suppression of gunrunning is one of the areas of increasing interest in the context of international law. Examples of past and current gunrunning include:

In the United States, the term "Iron Pipeline" is sometimes used to describe Interstate Highway 95 and its connector highways as a corridor for arms trafficking into New York City.^[3]

Africa

Liberia and Sierra Leone Conflict

The civil war in Sierra Leone lasted from 1991-2002, and left 75,000 people dead. Arms Trafficking played a significant role in this conflict. Both small and large arms were shipped to all sides in both Sierra Leone, and Liberia from outside actors. Small arms being any handheld gun (pistol, assault rifle, sub machine gun, shotgun,) and other items such as grenades, claymores, knives, machetes, etc. Large arms indicates large amounts of explosives, missiles, light machine guns, mortars, anti tank missiles, tanks, planes, etc. During this time a civil war was occurring in nearby Liberia. The Liberian Civil War took place from 1989 through 1997. The war was between the existing government and the National Patriotic Front. Leader of the National Patriotic front of Liberia, Charles Taylor, helped to create the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone. Taylor was the recipient of thousands of illegally trafficked arms from easter Europe (mostly the Ukraine). Taylor then sold some of these weapons to the RUF in exchange for diamonds.^[4] President of Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaore, “directly facilitated Liberia’s arms-for-diamonds trade” with Liberia and Sierra Leone.^[4] Compaore would give guns to Taylor, who would then sell them to the RUF in exchange for diamonds. These blood diamonds would then be sold back to Compaore for more guns. The cyclical exchange allowed Compaore the ability to deny directly sending arms to Sierra Leone.

The Liberian government received arms through an elaborate from company in Guinea. The arms were intended to be shipped (legally) from Uganda to Slovakia. However, the arms were diverted to Guinea as a part of “an elaborate bait and switch.”^[4] Additionally the British government “encouraged Sandline International, a private security firm and non state entity, to supply arms and ammunitions to the loyal forces of the exiled government of President Kabbah.”^[5] Sandline proceeded 35 tons of arms from Bulgaria, to Kabbah’s forces.^[4]

Why Traffickers Choose Africa

Kimberly Thachuk and Karen Saunders argue that arms trafficking is no different from any other illegal business in their work Under the Radar: Airborne Arms Trafficking Operations in Africa. Traffickers first need a headquarters, or somewhere to base their operations. A headquarters needs several aspects to make it an ideal place to traffic weapons. First, the headquarters should have appropriate infrastructure. For a weapons trafficking this would include a landing strip for both importation and exportation. Additionally, warehouses are needed to “store product awaiting delivery."^[6] Once the product has arrived and been stored it needs to be delivered to the customer, thus, the headquarters should be in somewhat of a central location near each customer. This is not the primary reason many traffickers choose Africa certainly has multitudes of unoccupied land that can be used by traffickers, as is asserted by Thachuk and Saunders.

Physical space is important but the rules and regulations of said space are also relevant. Traffickers look for places with corrupt, supply side, officials that can either be bribed, or blackmailed. This allows the trafficker to “circumvent the regulatory and oversight systems” put in place by the government.^[6] Furthermore, a “lax financial system” is key so the large amounts of money moved by the trafficker are not seen as suspicious.^[6]

Thachuk and Saunders finish their argument, a stable, and highly centralized government, is important. They then point out that 10 different African countries have leaders that have been in power for more than 20 years, which they argue meets the criteria a highly centralized and stable government.^[6]

Market value

The total value of the global arms market is estimated around $60 billion a year, with around $8 billion attributed to pistols, rifles, machine guns, and bullets.^[7] The total illegal arms trade is harder to estimate, but the illicit small arms market has been estimated at 10–20% of the total global arms trade.^[8]

Notable arms dealers

In popular culture

Film

Television

Video games

See also

References

1. ^{{cite journal|last=Greene |first=O. |title=Examining international responses to illicit arms trafficking |journal=Crime, Law & Social Change |year=2000 |volume=33 |url=http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/transcrime/articles/armstraffickingagreements.pdf |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120323050427/https://www.criminology.fsu.edu/transcrime/articles/armstraffickingagreements.pdf |archivedate=2012-03-23 }}
2. ^{{cite news|work=The Daily Star|url=http://www.thedailystar.net/2006/05/30/d6053001107.htm|date= May 30, 2006 |title=Bangladesh turned into arms smuggling route; Experts critical of govt's indifference|author=Staff Correspondent}}
3. ^{{cite book|last=Enos|first=Sandra L.|editor=Gregg Lee Carter|title=Guns in American Society: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics, Culture, and the Law|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oD46JBOhMU0C&pg=PA440|accessdate=7 May 2015|year=2012|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=9780313386701|pages=440–44|chapter=Iron Pipeline}}
4. ^¹²³{{Cite journal|last=Rothe|first=Dawn L.|last2=Ross|first2=Jeffrey Ian|date=2012|title=How States Facilitate Small Arms Trafficking in Africa: A Theoretical and Juristic Interpretation|url=http://www.ssrn.com/abstract=2427762|journal=SSRN Electronic Journal|doi=10.2139/ssrn.2427762|issn=1556-5068}}
5. ^{{Citation|last=Schabas|first=William|title=A Synergistic Relationship: The Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Special Court for Sierra Leone|date=2004|url=http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-1-4020-3237-0_1|work=Truth Commissions And Courts|pages=3–54|editor-last=Schabas|editor-first=William|publisher=Springer Netherlands|doi=10.1007/978-1-4020-3237-0_1|isbn=9781402032233|access-date=2019-02-28|editor2-last=Darcy|editor2-first=Shane}}
6. ^¹²³{{Cite journal|last=Thachuk|first=Kimberley|last2=Saunders|first2=Karen|date=September 2014|title=Under the Radar: Airborne Arms Trafficking Operations in Africa|url=http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10610-014-9247-5|journal=European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research|volume=20|issue=3|pages=361–378|doi=10.1007/s10610-014-9247-5|issn=0928-1371}}
7. ^{{cite journal |author=Whitney, Craig R. |date=December 2012 |url=http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/winter2012/ruling-arms |title=Ruling Arms |work=World Policy Journal}}
8. ^{{cite news |author1=Schroeder, Matt |author2=Lamb, Guy |lastauthoramp=yes |date=2006 |url=https://fas.org/asmp/library/articles/SchroederLamb.pdf |title=The Illicit Arms Trade in Africa |work=African Analyst |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070221133132/http://www.fas.org/asmp/library/articles/SchroederLamb.pdf |archivedate=21 February 2007 |accessdate=17 June 2016}}
9. ^{{cite web|website=IMDb|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0778772/|title=Making a Killing: Inside the International Arms Trade}}
10. ^{{cite book|title=Making a Killing: Inside the International Arms Trade|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0sC3CSp24E|publisher=YouTube}}