U.S. Delegate Warns UN Over Plan to Curb Gun Trade
Republican Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, a member of the U.S. delegation to the conference, also flatly rejected an effort by the conference president to bridge the gap between countries, like the United States, seeking a scaled-back assault on the small arms trade and those backing a tougher battle plan.
But Mary Leigh Blek, leader of last year's anti-gun million mom march, was greeted with cheers when she told the conference the Bush administration position on small arms "does not represent the thinking of the American public."
"The American public is learning that guns purchased in legal markets here can and do flow into the illicit market, and that this trafficking extends through our borders and into other countries around the world," Reuters quoted Blek, whose son Matthew was shot dead in 1994, as saying.
The United Nations says the illegal trade in small arms is a billion-dollar-a-year business that is directly or indirectly responsible for half a million deaths a year, more than were killed by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Their low cost, light weight and small size make them easy to use and to hide in civil wars as well as on city streets.
Barr reaffirmed Washington's view that the conference, due to end on Friday, should focus exclusively on "the illicit transfer and stockpiling of small arms and light weapons in areas of conflict, where peoples' lives truly are at stake."
---- Ill-Advised Course ----
UN officials have pleaded with U.S. gun rights activists to recognize that the conference is not being decided by the world body itself but by its 189 member-nations.
Barr nonetheless said it would be "an ill-advised course and a counterproductive one for the United Nations" should the conference "chase after" governments such as the United States where gun ownership is constitutionally protected.
Pursuing the broader approach "would not lend itself to a smoother process of garnering support in the United States Congress for the continued work of the United Nations in a number of areas," including dues payments, Barr said.
Barr spoke minutes after Ambassador Camillo Reyes of Colombia, the conference president, unveiled a new draft of the global action plan that is to be put to a vote on Friday.
Reyes said he thought the latest draft would provide a sound basis for a consensus among the 189 UN member-nations and said there were "good reasons to be optimistic" for a successful outcome though much work remained.
Barr dismissed the new draft as "unacceptable," saying it "does not provide the basis for a consensus position as far as my country is concerned."
He spoke a week after U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton, the head of the U.S. delegation, warned the conference in a blunt opening-day speech that it should do nothing to restrict private ownership or "constrain legal trade and legal manufacturing."
Analysts said Barr's stance would further irritate U.S. ties with the European Union, which had hoped for a more ambitious action plan, and would please major small arms makers who were quietly backing Washington.
"Entering negotiations with a firm intention of not moving one inch from one's position is not decent," French Cooperation Minister Charles Josselin said last week, insisting the conference had no intention of restricting U.S. gun owners.
Reyes' new draft, like an earlier draft the United States objected to, urges governments to consider restrictions on small arms deals and ownership and calls for global treaties on arms brokering and a gun marking and tracing regime.
It also calls for a follow-up conference within five years to review progress on the action plan's implementation, though Bolton said such mandatory follow-up "serves only to institutionalize and bureaucratize this process."
The draft also would limit government arms deals with rebel groups, which Washington argues could hurt freedom fighters battling a genocidal regime.