Minister: Domestic laws not enough to curb arms trade

Despite the regulatory provisions of the Firearms and Customs Acts, there is evidence that domestic legislation has proven insufficient to combat the illegal arms trade. Foreign Affairs Minister Dr Surujrattan Rambachan yesterday said while domestic legislation was necessary there was greater need to collaborate with international partners to combat the proliferation of illegal firearms. Rambachan was speaking at the opening ceremony of the second regional workshop on the negotiations for the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Port-of-Spain. The objective of the workshop, Rambachan explained, was to provide a forum at which Caricom-member states could discuss the principal issues of concern in the elaboration of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) and to evaluate Caricom’s position on the development of the treaty.

He added: “We are signalling to the international community our firm belief that the need for an internationally agreed regime for trade in arms is urgent and pressing. “The need is dire because the deleterious effects of the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons are chronic and increasingly pervasive,” Rambachan noted. He said the Government was aware it was “no easy task to formulate objectives and non-discriminatory criteria to govern the transfer of arms.” Saying illegal weapons continued to enter T&T through a number of channels, Rambachan said those included:

• Containers and cargo vessels;

• undeclared items on board pleasure craft and fishing vessels; and,

• shipments of household and personal effects and imported used vehicles.

Rambachan said the Government and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), such as the Caribbean Coalition for Development and Reduction in Armed Violence (CDRAV), were employing various methods in their efforts to prevent and discourage gun violence. “The battle against this scourge must of necessity be multi-pronged. “It will be naive of us not to seek also to address the international dimension of the problem in order to complement our efforts in the domestic sphere,” Rambachan added.

He said guns obtained by “straw purchasers”— acquaintances, relatives or people hired to purchase firearms in the United States from gun dealers or directly from manufacturers — became available on the black market in the region. “Of significant note is many of these arms enter T&T through drug trafficking in pirogues from the South American main, which unequivocally establishes the pernincios link between the illicit arms trade and the illicit narcotics trade,” Rambachan added. He said the flourishing business of “gun for hire” was a well-recogonised outgrowth of drug trafficking, out of which emanated the “contract killer for hire” job specialisation.