UN confce to curb small arms trade opens today

Some 2,000 delegates from governments, international and regional bodies as well as civil society are to attend the two-week gathering to review an action program put in place by member states five years ago for tougher global small arms controls.

"The conference offers an opportunity for all countries to review theirpledges to get rid of illegal trade in small arms and to develop a strategy for further implementation of the UN program of action agreed in 2001," said Sri Lanka's UN ambassador Prasad Kariyawasam, who will chair the conference.

On the opening day, a Million Faces petition, billed as the world's largest photo petition, will be presented to UN chief Kofi Annan to urge world leaders to stem the one-billion-dollar annual global trade in small arms and light weapons.

Experts put the number of such weapons in circulation worldwide at 640 million.

A photo opportunity outside UN headquarters will feature a huge AK47, built out of prosthetic limbs to symbolize the human cost of the global arms trade, in front of the giant photos from the petition, which has been signed by people from more than 160 countries.

The faces on the petition will represent the million people who have been killed by small arms since 2003. The project is an initiative from the Control Arms Campaign, which brings together Amnesty International, Oxfam International and the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), an alliance of some 600 non-governmental organizations.

But the conference has drawn the ire of the National Rifle Association (NRA), the lobby of US gun owners, which views it as a bid to take away Americans' guns and a first step toward a global treaty to ban gun ownership by civilians.

"I have received over 100,000 letters from some US public, criticizing me personally," Kariyawasam told reporters Wednesday. "I think some members of the US public are totally misinformed and we invite them to participate in this conference.

"The program of action does not refer to legal possession of small arms by any entity. It is only about illegal possession and illegal trafficking," he added.

Wayne LaPierre, the NRA executive vice president, argued in The Economist weekly last month that the UN aims to take away Americans' guns because it is a club of governments, some of which want to "strip opposition forces of the means to challenge their authority."

LaPierre, whose new book is titled "The Global War on Your Guns: Inside the UN Plan to Destroy the Bill of Rights," said individual gun ownership is the "ultimate protection against tyranny".

Non-governmental groups argue that their goal is to keep tyrants from becoming armed.

"The real news is that one million people from 160 countries around the world are ... demanding that governments agree tough global standards for international arms transfers so that guns do not fall into the hands of human rights abusers, warlords and criminals," said Anthea Lawson, an IANSA spokeswoman.

Lawson said Britain was to propose at the conference global guidelines to prevent transfers of small arms that could be used for violations of human rights and humanitarian law or sales to countries under embargoes.

The guidelines, if adopted, "will give a major boost" to negotiations in the General Assembly in October for a comprehensive treaty on arms transfers, she said.