Views

Weapons are designed to kill

According to the evaluations, 110-170 thousand of households in Macedonia own at least one piece of illegal weapon that leads to the number of about 500.000 pieces in the homes of our fellow citizens. And weapons are designed to kill. And they will certainly do it in a given moment!

 

Weapons are designed to kill. And they will certainly do it in a certain moment! It is one of the leading postulates of the lecture on risks from weapons held by colonel Franck Odendal organised by Civil, Pax Kristi Holland and UNDP/SACIM 2 – “Safer Community Building”. Further on, he, with a dose of black humour, continues giving a lot of examples about how weapons, ammunition and explosives start talking without being invited.

Presence of weapons directly influences the state of human rights, justice, security and overall development. At that, to use Alan Lapon’s words, project manager in UNDP “owning weapons does not make you an expert of using them“. Human values, according to Mr. Lapon, are seriously endangered and blocked where there are weapons.

We, in Civil, within our regular meetings with the organisations members of NGO Contact-group for disarmament, often have discussions regarding a strategic dilemma in terms of the processes of stabilisation in the region, where the basic accent is on disarmament, that is establishing final and serious control over proliferation and possessing weapons, especially illegal ones.

As it is known, according to the evaluations, 110-170 thousand of households in Macedonia own at least one piece of illegal weapons that leads to the number of about 500.000 pieces in the homes of our fellow citizens. And weapons are designed to kill. And they will certainly do it in a given moment!

What we did last year is over, and if we take into consideration what kind of people we are, it is fine. Now it is time to think how to continue the process. How?

There are two contradictory facts. The first one is that now we should start a regional approach towards disarmament. It would imply a simultaneous and regional action for disarmament. A good idea, everyone agrees, but there is no money for that. Can we imagine that Serbia would collect weapons and transport them to Albania to be destroyed and vice versa? Political, social, cultural, economic, geographic, security and many other circumstances still do not allow reconciliation of actions of such delicate nature.

 

Contrary to such idea would be a more subtle and more fundamental approach, and that is local disarmament. More precisely, a lot of arguments suggest that disarmament could be carried out, for example, in one to three municipalities at the same time with certain periods of amnesty for possessing illegal weapons, and certainly not for making them legal, because that process finished with the last-year action. Thus, some robust and cumbersome constructions are avoided, as 123 local commissions for voluntary disarmament and legalisation. Frankly speaking, it was a good exam for the government, the Co-ordination body, UNDP and the civil sector and according to my modest opinion, we passed it with quite good marks. Now it is time to enter deeper into communities and to carry out some micro-disarming operations that will bring peace and security to our citizens for good. And that implies development and welfare.



(the author of the text is president of Civil – NGO for human rights

and civil society development)