SÍNTESIS DE LA REUNIÓN DEL 15 DE
DICIEMBRE DE 1998
CONSEJO PERMANENTE DE LA
ORGANIZACIÓN DE LOS ESTADOS AMERICANOS
COMISIÓN DE SEGURIDAD HEMISFÉRICA |
OEA/Ser. G
CP/CSH/SA.60/98
2 noviembre1999
Original: inglés |
La Comisión de Seguridad
Hemisférica se reunió el 15 de diciembre de 1998 para considerar los
siguientes temas: desarme y seguridad; armas pequeñas; el Registro de
Armas Convencionales de las Naciones Unidas y el Informe Internacional
Estandarizado sobre Gastos Militares de las Naciones Unidas. Dentro de
este contexto, se escucharon las siguientes presentaciones: Secretario
General Adjunto para el Desarme, Jayantha Dhanapala; el Director del
Centro de las Naciones Unidas para la Paz, el Desarme y el Desarrollo,
Pericles Gasparini Alves; y los Estados Miembros que participaron en
el Grupo de Expertos en el Registro de Armas Convencionales.
La presentación del Subsecretario
General de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarme, Jayantha Dhanapala se
concentró en las actividades de la ONU en materia de desarme y
seguridad, la Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas sobre Desarme, armas
pequeñas y las actividades de cooperación ONU/OEA. /
El señor Gasparini Alves se dirigió
a la Comisión y trató el tema del Registro de Armas Convencionales de
las Naciones Unidas; el Informe Internacional Estandarizado sobre
Gastos Militares; los objetivos y procedimientos operativos del Centro
y propuso que el Centro de la ONU junto con la Junta Interamericana de
Defensa (JID) y la OEA, y otras instituciones podrían comenzar a
pensar sobre la forma adecuada para mejorar estos instrumentos para
que se adapten de mejor forma para la función de fomento de la
confianza. /
Algunos expertos de los Estados
Miembros en el Registro de Armas Convencionales de las Naciones Unidas
hicieron uso de la palabra en el orden siguiente: Juan Carlos Valle
Raleigh, Argentina /; Paulo Cordeiro de Andrade Pinto, Brasil /; Dr.
Mark Gaillard, Jefe de la División para la Noproliferación y el
Desarme del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Canadá. /; y el
Embajador Claude Heller, Representante Permanente de México ante la
OAS. /
ANEXO I
Presentaciones de representantes de
las Naciones Unidas
en la reunión de la Comisión de
Seguridad Hemisférica, celebrada el 15 de diciembre de 1998
1. Jayantha Dhanapala, Secretario
General Adjunto para el Desarme.
2. Pericles Gasparini Alves,
Director del Centro de las Naciones Unidas para la Paz, el Desarme y
el Desarrollo
PRESENTATION BY
THE UNITED NATIONS
UNDER-SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR DISARMAMENT
JAYANTHA DHANAPALA
Distinguished delegates:
On behalf of the Department of
Disarmament Affairs, and of my colleague, Pericles Alves Gasparini, I
would like to thank you for the warmth of your welcome and for your
invitation to me to be present here before your committee in order to
brief you on the work of the Department of Disarmament Affairs, in
general, but more in particular on the subject of small arms and light
weapons.
I believe it is extremely important
that the United Nations has a regular dialogue with regional
organizations and with the Organization of American States, in
particular in this subject in order to advance our common cause of
disarmament and arms limitation.
As you know, the need for the UN to
coordinate its activities with regional organizations is very much a
part of the UN Charter. Chapter VIII lays down very clearly the ways
in which we should be working together and the articles concerned,
particularly Article 52, are articles that we take very seriously in
New York. And my Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has attached special
importance to the relations between the United Nations and regional
organizations. Indeed, we have regular conferences between the
representatives of regional organizations and the UN, and I was,
myself, privileged to participate in the most recent meeting that was
held a few months ago at New York.
We in the UN also attach a great
deal of importance to the subject of regional disarmament in order to
ensure that global norms that are evolved in UN fora are translated
into practical action in the regions of the world. And it is in
pursuance of that that we have established in three regions of the
world regional centers for peace and disarmament: in Katmandu, we have
a regional center for Asia and the Pacific; in Lomé, Togo, we have the
regional center for Africa; and in Lima, we have a Regional Center for
Peace and Disarmament for Latin America and for the Caribbean.
Now, the Centers in Lomé and Lima,
unfortunately, have been not functioning at optimum level for some
years for a number of reasons. But the Member States decided, in 1997,
that these Centers should be reactivated. And in pursuance of that and
following my own appointment as Under-Secretary-General, I have made
it an important policy of my Department to reactivate these Centers.
And I am proud therefore that my own appearance before your Committee
coincides with the appointment of the new Director of the Regional
Center for Latin America and the Caribbean in Lima -Mr. Gasparini has
just begun his functions on December 1, and it is therefore a happy
coincidence that he should be present here today with me and he will
be making his own presentation after I provide you with an overview of
the activities of my Department.
Let me begin by stating very
clearly and up-front that the re-establishment of the Department of
Disarmament Affairs was an important component in the reforms that my
Secretary-General made last year in his document of July 1997, which
was adopted by the UN General Assembly last year. This proposal to
re-establish the Department of Disarmament Affairs after a lapse of
about six years, was the result of a conviction on the part of the
Secretary-General that disarmament in the post-Cold War period
remained a very vital area of international activity. It also was an
area of activity where the UN had a very central role to play, and it
is out of this conviction therefore that the Department was
re-established.
Now, in reestablishing the
Department we were given a number of mandates to ensure that the
Member States were able to, not only evolve new norms in the field of
disarmament, but also have an organization committed to the
implementation of existing norms in order to ensure that these norms
were very widely adhered to in the international community.
In undertaking my tasks at the
beginning of February, I decided it was necessary for us to ensure an
organizational structure that would help to serve the international
community better in the field of disarmament. And so, I decided that
we would have a five-branch structure with a branch in Geneva
servicing the needs of the Conference on Disarmament, which, as you
know, is the sole multilateral negotiating body which negotiates
treaties and agreements in the area of disarmament. And the branch
there, which services the Conference on Disarmament both substantively
as well as logistically, is also responsible for all activities in
Europe with regard to disarmament matters.
In headquarters, in New York, we
head four branches: a Weapons of Mass Destruction branch, which, as it
says, deals with weapons issues –nuclear chemicals and biological as
well as the missile question. It services the existing treaties like
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in the nuclear field; the treaty
with regard to biological weapons and liaises with the established
organizations such as the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons, which implements the Chemical Weapons Convention as well as
the Provisional Technical Secretariat in Vienna, which is there to set
in motion the process that will have the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
Organization in place when the CTBT is ratified by the 44 countries
that are expected to ratify it under Article 14.
We also have then a Conventional
Arms branch, and that branch, as the name implies, deals with the
entire range of conventional weapons including particularly the
subject of small arms, on which I will give you a more detailed
presentation shortly. Conventional arms, as you know, are the arms
that have been used in armed conflicts since World War II and have
caused over 20 million deaths. We, therefore, have to address the
issue of conventional arms. I have found from the inception of my own
work in the UN that this issue of small arms assumed very important
proportions and I’m particularly glad that the OAS and your Committee,
in particular, has been of such great assistance in trying to
formulate norms in this particular area.
Third, we have the branch in
headquarters dealing with Regional Disarmament. Again, the fact that I
have a special branch for the coordination of a regional disarmament
and the three Centers is an example of the importance that we are
attaching to the subject of regional disarmament in various parts of
the globe.
And finally, we have a Monitoring
Database and Information branch which maintains outreach activities
with nongovernmental organizations, with the research institutes
devoted to the subject of disarmament and security, as well as
maintaining databases, which will be available to the general public
as well as to the specialized scholars in this particular field. We
also, through the Monitoring Database and Information branch, maintain
liaison with the UN Institute of Disarmament Research, which is an
autonomous institution in Geneva devoted to conducting research in the
areas of disarmament and security; an organization which I was
privileged to head for five years in the 1980s and early ’90s when my
colleague was also working there.
We also maintain an Advisory Board
on Disarmament Matters where we have 20 eminent persons in the field
of disarmament providing the Secretary-General with expert advice on
the work of the United Nations in this field. And here, I’m happy to
state, that we have representatives from your region also on this
board.
Let me now say that the work of the
Department is, in the first instance, to provide advice and support,
of course, to the Secretary-General in discharging his own
responsibilities and in accordance with the relevant Charter
provisions as well as the mandates given to us by the General Assembly
and the Security Council. We monitor and analyze developments and
trends in the field of disarmament; we prepare necessary reports and
background papers to various intergovernmental bodies and we,
generally, ensure that we also try to expand the frontiers of
disarmament by providing new information and new ideas in order that
the Member States could feel that the UN is providing a leadership
role in this area.
Second, we also help the
Secretary-General with regard to the multilateral disarmament
agreements in order to monitor compliance with these agreements and to
ensure that the review process of some of these treaties are
undertaken, and so, for example, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
Review Process is very much a responsibility of my Department. We
conduct the Preparatory Committee’s meetings and the review
conferences that are held once every five years. And we report on the
effective implementation of these agreements.
Third, we, as I said before, help
Member States in multilateral disarmament negotiations and
deliberations in order to try to evolve new disarmament norms and
agreements. And here, we provide the background support for the First
Committee in the UN General Assembly, we provide support in the UN
Disarmament Commission and other subsidiary bodies of the General
Assembly and, of course, in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva
where there are many subsidiary bodies and expert groups which require
expert support and background work on the part of our department.
Fourth, we try to provide Member
States and the international community with objective information on
disarmament and international security matters, through our program of
information and outreach activities. We organize conferences,
seminars, and workshops, and also try to stimulate exchanges of views
on arms control disarmament and international security.
Finally, we try to promote openness
and transparency in military matters, in verification, in
confidence-building measures, and in regional approaches to
disarmament. Now, it is in this context that we have the Convention on
Arms Register and the Standardized Instrument in order to try to have
a military expenditure reported by all Member States. And my
colleague, Mr. Gasparini Alves, will give you a detailed report on how
the Convention on Arms Register and the Standardized Instrument for
the reporting of military expenditure functions.
With that brief overview of what we
do in the Department, let me move on to the subject of small arms. The
issue of small arms, of course, has acquired considerable importance
in the last few years, we estimate that there are something like 500
million pieces of small arms in circulation throughout the world
today.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall,
which marked the end of the Cold War, we also estimate that there have
been about four million deaths caused by small arms in armed
conflicts, and of these four million deaths, 90 percent are civilians,
80 percent are women and children. And so the impact of the use of
small arms in armed conflict has been much more on civil society
rather than on the armies of the world.
We know that the use of small arms
is very difficult to control because they are also used for legitimate
national defense purposes by law enforcement agencies and by armies in
various countries. But what has happened is that there has been an
explosion in the proliferation of small arms and in their
accumulation. And although we accept that arms by themselves do not
cause conflicts, they certainly exacerbate conflicts and cause
enormous death and destruction in countries throughout the world.
And so it is a priority today for
the United Nations to work on this subject. And our own experience of
working on this subject began with resolutions which set in place a
panel of government experts who reported at the end of last year on
exactly what the problem was and what their recommendations were to
combat this problem. This panel of experts, Chaired by Japan, came up
with a series of recommendations and a follow-up panel has been
appointed, which continues to function until the end of next year when
they will submit a further report on the implementation of these
recommendations.
We derive our mandate, of course,
from the General Assembly resolutions and this year, you will be
interested to know and I have arranged for these resolutions to be
circulated to you because they were only adopted in the General
Assembly at the beginning of this month after the First Committee had
already approved it. We adopted four resolutions on the subject of
small arms: One was on Assistance to States for curbing the illicit
traffic in small arms and collecting them. There was a general
resolution, second, on small arms; a third resolution on Illicit
Traffic in Small Arms; and finally, a resolution on the Consolidation
of Peace through Practical Disarmament Measures.
These four General Assembly
resolutions–No. 53/77B, 53/77E, 53/77T, and 53/77V–are the mandates
which gives my department additional responsibilities in the area of
small arms. And I will, of course, be requiring the assistance of
regional organizations such as the OAS in the implementation of these
responsibilities.
Also in your batch of resolutions
that were distributed to you is a resolution on the Security Council,
which adopted its first ever resolution on illicit arms traffic. This
was a consequence of a report submitted in April of this year by the
Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, on the causes of conflict in
Africa. And this report included many paragraphs on the subject of the
circulation of small arms and the Security Council decided that it
would try to act out this issue and it had a resolution on illicit
arms traffic, Resolution 1209, on Illicit Arms Flows to and in Africa
and a new resolution on Arms Embargoes, Resolution 1196, on
Strengthening the Effectiveness of Arms Embargoes.
As a result of these resolutions,
the Secretariat has been given a mandate by the General Assembly to
hold consultations with all Member States interested, regional and
subregional organizations, international agencies, and experts, in the
field of three areas. First, the magnitude and scope of the phenomenon
of illicit trafficking in small arms; second, possible measures to
combat illicit trafficking in and the illicit circulation of small
arms including those suited to indigenous regional approaches; and
third, the role of the UN in collecting, collating, and sharing and
disseminating information on illicit trafficking in small arms.
Together with these established
mandates that we have received from the General Assembly and the
Security Council, we also receive. from time to time, requests from
individual Member States to undertake weapons collection programs in
their countries. And at the beginning of this year, the President and
Prime Minister of Albania requested the Secretary-General to undertake
such a program in Albania, which last year was the scene of a great
deal of internal unrest when the people of Albania took away from
government depots an estimated 650,000 small arms. And these small
arms remained in the unauthorized possession of the people of Albania
constituting a very great threat to a country that is in the process
of establishing democratic institutions after the Cold War.
Therefore, it was my task, in June
of this year, to lead an evaluation mission together with
representatives of the Department of Political Affairs, my own
Department of Disarmament Affairs, and the Department of Peace-Keeping
Operations in order to try to draw up a proposal for weapons
collection. In doing so, we visited Tirana; we undertook consultations
with all aspects of Albanian society, governmental representatives,
opposition parties, nongovernmental organizations, students, and all
other interested organizations.
We visited districts where the
problem was particularly acute and we came up with a program where we
suggested that weapons collection should best be linked to development
projects which would be of a value to the community. And so as an
incentive to the surrender of weapons, we suggested that there should
be community development projects and this proposal was welcomed by
the people at the grassroot.
And we have begun a pilot project
in a central part of Albania called Gramsh where we have the UNDP
assisting us with this idea of having community development projects
as a means of providing an incentive to the people to surrender their
weapons in order to ensure that there would no longer be this danger
of having an over-weaponized society in Albania. And in the process,
the Government itself has undertaken to destroy many of these weapons
that are being collected as a visible proof of the need to strengthen
the peaceful resolution of disputes within Albania.
Now in doing so, we will draw from
the lessons of other areas. I would like to emphasize that your
experience here, in the OAS, and the experience in Latin America are
experiences that we are learning from because we would like to see a
cross-fertilization of ideas throughout the global community. We would
like to see what has worked well in one region translated into action
in other regions as well with, of course, adaptation taking into
consideration specialized local conditions.
Let me also now mention that
because of the increasing importance of small arms I found it
necessary in addressing this issue to recommend to the
Secretary-General that we should have a focal point within the United
Nations to address the issue of small arms. And following a paper
presented by me at the Senior Management Group, which functions as a
cabinet in the UN headquarters presided over by the Secretary-General,
we had—the Secretary-General—identified the Department of Disarmament
Affairs as a focal point for small arms.
And we created a mechanism which we
call “Coordinating Action on Small Arms (CASA)” an acronym whereby we
wanted to address the small arms issue in all its dimensions—the
security dimension, the humanitarian dimension, the development
dimension, and all other dimensions including the human rights. And so
in the CASA mechanism, which meets regularly, we have representatives
from all the departments in the UN who are concerned about the subject
of small arms. We have all the specialized agencies as well
represented, for example, UNICEF, UNDP, and others also present and,
in this way, we try to evolve a coordinated response on the part of
the UN system to the problem of small arms.
And we have a number of projects
that we are evolving as a result of this coordination that is working
so smoothly. One is, for example, a documentary film on the subject of
small arms. Another is an exhibit on the question of how small arms
impact on children and here UNICEF is working very closely with my
department in order to come up with this exhibit which will be funded
by a contribution from Andorra, one of the smallest Member States in
the UN. But this is an example of how we are trying to bring in the
Member States, bring in all the different aspects of the UN system in
order to provide precisely a coherent, a cohesive response to the
problem of small arms. And my presence here is another indication
about the importance that we are attaching to working with regional
organizations also to address this issue.
Let me also tell you, in this
context, what we have done with regard to the subject of practical
disarmament measures which is a series of disarmament measures where
we take disarmament to the grassroots, particularly in post-conflict
situations in various countries. Where the problem of weapons
collection from former combatants or defeated armies represents a very
serious threat which could result in the recrudescence of violence in
those countries. And so it is vital as part and parcel of any conflict
resolution or peace agreement that is finalized in these countries
that we should have a weapons collection component built into that
agreement.
And we have analyzed the situations
that have occurred throughout the world and tried to formulate
something which will be going into a manual that we are preparing in
my department on the subject of weapons collection. But in addition to
weapons collection, we need to also integrate the combatants and the
looser armies into civil society: Give them new skills, train them in
order to be useful and productive members of society abandoning the
life of wielding weapons which they have bled hitherto.
And for these practical disarmament
measures, I would like to say that there is a group of interested
states which has been formed at the beginning of this year. And I
attended its fifth meeting yesterday, which has resulted in a great
deal of money being generated to finance programs. One of the programs
that we had was a workshop in Guatemala from November 18 to 20, which
was entitled, “Weapons Collection and Integration of Former Combatants
into Civil Society.” And we looked in this workshop at the experiences
of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Colombia.
We are in the process of preparing
an information paper on the findings of this workshop, which we will
send to your committee as soon as it is ready.
I’d like to also say that we, in
the evolution of norms with regard to the subject of small arms, have
derived great encouragement from the Inter-American Convention against
the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition,
Explosives, and Other Related Materials. I’m particularly impressed by
the fact that, under Article 8 of this convention, there is provision
for an exchange of information whereby state parties shall exchange
amongst themselves in conformity with their respective domestic laws
and applicable treaties, relevant information on matters such as the
producers, dealers, importers, and exporters of firearms; the means of
concealment used in the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in
firearms; and third, in the legislative experiences, practices and
measures to prevent, combat, and eradicate the illicit manufacturing
of and trafficking in firearms.
Now it is precisely in the context
of this exchange of information that I would like to draw your
attention to paragraph 9 of the Security Council’s Resolution 1209,
where the Secretary-General was asked to explore means of identifying
international arms dealers acting in contravention of national
legislation or embargoes established by the UN on arms transfers to
Africa. This is a welcomed development. Therefore we are learning from
your experience and, I think, the greater scope there is for
coordination between what you do in terms of Article 8 of your
convention and the sharing of information with us will help us to
advance this issue on a global scale.
I’d also like to take this
opportunity of welcoming the signing in July of this year by Member
States of MERCOSUR together with Bolivia and Chile of the Joint
Mechanism for the Registration of Recipients and Suppliers of
Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials. I note
that the Register provides minimal necessary information such as the
name of the individuals or enterprises authorized to trade in arms as
well as those ports which are authorized to host trade operations in
firearms, explosives, ammunition, and other related materials.
Let me conclude by mentioning two
instruments that are implemented by my department in the field of
conventional weapons. The first is the Conventional Arms Register that
has been in existence since 1992. Today, we have over 90 governments
voluntarily providing us with information on imports, exports, and
national production with regard to seven categories of conventional
weapons. I will let my colleague give you a more detailed exposition
of how the Convention operates.
But I would like to emphasize the
fact that this is undertaken on the principle of voluntary submission
of information. We would like to see the number of countries greatly
expanded. As you know, we have 185 Member States, but only 90
countries, in fact, provide us with information.
Second, the scope of the Register
is confined to seven categories and this is because this has been done
through consensus. We have still not been able to expand beyond these
seven categories into, for example, the area of small arms. But we
need to, I think, gradually expand both the number of countries
participating in the Conventional Arms Register as well as the
categories of weapons in which we need to have statistical data.
My further point is that it is
extremely important for the Department of Disarmament Affairs to work
closely with regional organizations in order to encourage wider
participation in the Conventional Arms Register because this is a
vital tool in trying to promote transparency and confidence-building
in regions. If you are confident about the arsenals of your neighbor
you are more likely to have a stable relationship with that neighbor.
And it is in this spirit that I appeal to the OAS and, particularly,
to the Committee on Hemispheric Security to work closely with us so
that the Conventional Arms Register will become an important item in
building regional confidence measures as well as in building
stability.
The other element of our work in
this particular field is on the question of the standardized
instrument for reporting of military expenditure. And here again the
participation by Member States in the UN in this voluntary submission
of the military expenditure has been very, very disappointing. We need
to have more countries participating in it and most of the countries
that have volunteered information happen to come from Europe. But we
do need to have more countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, in
Africa and in Asia and the Pacific participating in this standardized
instrument which we have evolved as a result of working with experts
in the World Bank, in the IMF, and in other regional organizations in
order to try to be as scientific in our designing of the instrument
that we would like countries to use in submitting this information.
And so let me conclude,
distinguished delegates, by saying that we have a number of areas in
which the Organization of American States and the Department of
Disarmament Affairs can work in common in the cause of evolving a
concept of cooperative security/common security at the lowest level of
arms. And I think this is what we need to do to ensure that the use of
arms to resolve disputes is put away so that we could emphasize
peaceful resolution of disputes and also that we could divert
resources that are being utilized at the moment for arms expenditure
into more productive social and economic uses.
I would like to conclude now by
thanking you once again for your invitation to address you and to
express the hope that this is only the beginning of a close dialogue
between my department and your committee in order to link the UN and
the OAS closer together in the field of disarmament. Thank you very
much.
PRESENTATION BY
THE DIRECTOR OF THE UN CENTER FOR
PEACE, DISARMAMENT
AND DEVELOPMENT, PERICLES GASPARINI
ALVES
Muchas gracias, señor Presidente.
Para mí es un placer y un honor estar acá junto con el Secretario
General de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarme que demuestra la
determinación de las Naciones Unidas para trabajar con las
organizaciones regionales, principalmente en un marco histórico del
desarrollo de un departamento con la reactivación del Centro Nacional
de Naciones Unidas para Paz, Desarme y Desarrollo en Latino América y
el Caribe, donde empecé como Director el primer de diciembre.
La semana pasada estuve
participando en las Naciones Unidas en una reunión con la Organización
de los Estados Americanos y CARICOM donde se están desarrollando un
acuerdo de cooperación concreta en un tema muy específico “prevención
de conflictos”. Esto se hace a través del Departamento de Asuntos
Políticos, o sea, ya no se pregunta más si tenemos que trabajar juntos
pero sí ¿qué vamos hacer juntos? Y hoy con la presencia del
Departamento de Desarme, creo que también tenemos esta oportunidad de
se preguntar ¿en que temas vamos a trabajar juntos? Los dos temas,
donde voy hablar ahora y habló el señor Subsecretario son
posibilidades muy concretas.
Voy a hacer una presentación muy
corta, simplemente para dar algunas informaciones y algunos detalles
sobre lo que pasa en los dos instrumentos que pueden ser útiles a
ustedes en preparar los seguimientos de la resolución 1566 y 1570.
We will be looking at the two
instruments that we use for reporting. Mr. Dhanapala has spoken about
the Department’s activities, the Conference on Disarmament and Small
Arms, the Registration of Conventional Arms, and the standardized
report will be done by me. Let me just start by showing some of the
objectives, the coordination, the CASA Agreement that was discussed by
Mr. Dhanapala and the next one will be mine.
The Conventional Arms Register
functions in a voluntary contribution approach and actually the
operating article is this one here which holds the seven categories of
weapons considered to be heavy weapons. The states are called on to
give information on these elements including combat vehicles, large
caliber artillery shells systems, attach helicopters, warships are
really heavy weapons stuff equipment.
States are also invited to produce
information on military holdings, procurements through national
production and relevant policies, which actually give a greater
picture of the military potential of the different countries and,
therefore, enhances the capability of the Conventional Arms Register
for being an instrument for confidence-and security-building and
transparency.
States are all encouraged to
produce additional information which includes national arms imports
policies, legislation, and procedures on authorization and prevention
of illicit transfers. Actually these two elements here are additional
information which help build that environment for analyzing the
military potential of a particular country.
Let us look at the data at what
happens, in terms of the existence of the Conventional Arms Register
in the last six years of existence 1992-1997 (as you know the calendar
year for the 1998 year will finish only on March 31 next year).
Let me just call your attention to
the exports because the Conventional Arms Register covers both exports
and imports. If you look at the exports -the no answers, the yes
answers, and the blank- there was an evolution in what we have
received throughout these six years: a relatively stable number of
reports; an increase in the new reports -it should be noted that a new
report is also considered to be an important contribution to the
Register because it indicates that the country does not have or has
not exported any particular element of the seven categories; a sharp
decrease in the years in the number of blanks -that is also important
because it shows that whenever a country is reporting an export it
believes that it is important to give the information yes or no and
not necessarily just leave it in blank.
If you look at the data also
related to imports, here too we have a relatively stable number of
reports throughout the years; an increase again in the number of “nils”,
which again reinforces the theory that states believe that whenever
they give information they should give complete information, also
evidenced by the decrease in the number of blank reports.
Let’s look at now another important
data which would be the percentage of reports by region, and focus on
the region of Latin America and the Caribbean, which is of our
particular interest. If you look at the five regional areas here you
will see that -this is by percentage- in 1992, 100 percent of the
countries in Western Europe and other states, which include the United
States and Canada, have reported to the Register, and it is rather
consistent throughout the years; it went down for maybe one or two
countries that have not reported here one or two years, but it is a
consistent line. So what comes out of this experience is that
throughout the six years Western Europe and other states have been
very consistent. There is a decrease in the number of reports from
Latin America and the Caribbean Group though: about 39 percent at the
end of the exercise, from 51 to 39 percent. It actually puts Latin
America and the Caribbean as fourth in the group of countries.
Let’s look at the same data from
another angle to better understand the implications here: the number
of countries –the countries report by region. Here, too, we have
Western Europe and other states as being the most predominant: 24
states out of 27 have reported here and you go all the way to the 100
percent, which is 27. A decrease in the number of reports from Latin
America and the Caribbean group: 13 out of 33 countries report to this
Register, which puts it as fourth out of five groups of states. So
it’s not the last one, but it’s certainly less than half of the number
of states.
Let me go a little bit further here
and look at the reasons why -some of the reasons being discussed.
Definition of common terms: there
is a feeling that the Register does not have the same meaning for
every potential contributor .
Common standards: the standards
within different countries are not the same; not necessarily only
within the same region. So we may talk about the neighboring countries
which look at the standards of the Register from a different angle.
Legal and administrative
difficulties: sometimes some countries have difficulties in reporting
a particular item according to their constitution or according to
their practice of unarmed forces. Sometimes the three or four
different branches of the armed forces do not have the same procedure.
And also there is a feeling that there should be among some countries
an increase in the scope of the Register including other items. Some
speak about small arms that should be included or the weapons of mass
destruction per se. So there is a host of different issues which for
some countries are not yet resolved.
So if you ask me after the ongoing
discussions how to improve the Register, particularly from the
standpoint of Latin America and the Caribbean? Well, first, we believe
that the causes of nonparticipation should be looked at and in these
areas of the causes there are what we had mentioned in the previous
lines. Also a call for 61 percent of the countries in Latin America
and the Caribbean to resume participation in the Register.
It is also important to continue
the effort of explanation that “nil reports” equal support for the
Register. It is difficult at times for countries to have the same
person in charge of the Register -the same focal point. Only two
countries in Latin America have designated focal points for the
Register.
So the question which may follow is
how much is the Register talked about, how much is known of the
Register, the importance of the Register in different countries?
This takes me into another area
which could be discussed which is the increase in advocacy. The
increase in advocacy, actually, could be seen from two different
points of view. The first one is precisely gathering more people who
actually work in the area of military procurement, military thinking,
doctrine, and diplomatic political issues. Putting them together and
continuing some sort of information of the Register, what the Register
is all about and how it should be reported. This is what I would call
a more “mechanical” solution to the problem.
There is a more fundamental issue
which is what is the value of the Register. It seems that countries
would not necessarily find any interest in the Register if they think
that the Register is there only to collect information. And therefore
the more fundamental question is what is the role of the Register? One
of the roles and perhaps the most important one of the Register is to
create an environment of transparency and therefore,
confidence-building among different states.
Now this is a very delicate issue.
As we saw from the evolution of the Register and the information that
was given to the Register in the case of the Western European
countries. That’s why I also highlighted that particular group of
countries: it seems that these countries have started giving that
information after the confidence-building process in Europe was very
advanced. Therefore, the Register for the standardized information on
military expenditures is used as a tool for confidence-building. It is
not the confidence-building in itself but part of a process of
confidence-building. It is perhaps time to look at the Register from
the regional standpoint as part and parcel of a confidence-building
tool.
If you look at the standardized
reporting of military expenditures, the objective of these reports
was, as per the resolution, the reduction of military expenditures,
the transfer of 10 percent of savings to development programs,
promotion of transparency, and confidence-building. Here, too, there
is a willingness to use this instrument as a confidence-building tool.
Well in order to use it as a confidence-building tool one needs to
analyze it and see in what ways it could be used as a
confidence-building tool. It serves no purpose for us to have it
written in a resolution in the body of the agreement if it’s not
conceived by the Member States as such.
So if you look at the reporting
record since 1981 to 1997 you will see three different trends at
least: one is the very low reporting levels. You can see 20 countries
per year. In the first group, Western Europeans and other states: you
can see a sort of a stable reporting level, actually picking up a
little bit more after the end of the Cold War, which also confirms
that within the OSCE’s framework there was a lot of involvement of
information exchange on military expenditures, and therefore, that the
Europeans looked at the global reporting system as an additional
report: it is something which is part of a whole process.
When you look at Latin America and
the Caribbean, again, you see very low levels; no more than five
countries. At least I believe one year, only six countries, but no
more than four or five countries at a time, have reported to this
instrument throughout the existence of the agreement which is 20 years
old.
So there is a perception, expressed
in the lack of reporting, that this instrument is not used as a
confidence-building tool, it’s not used as a transparency tool, as was
intended, and certainly not as an instrument which would permit the
diversion of military funds–saved in the diminishing purchase of
weapons–into the program for development.
If you look at the reasons, it’s
basically what you see in the Arms Register: problems of definition of
common terms, common standards. It is understandably very difficult:
some countries develop certain weapon systems or maintain certain
troops under budgets which are not necessarily budgets for military
expenditures. Maybe the Ministry of Education has part of the military
school under its budget. So there are a number of points which are not
common especially when you talk about worldwide spectrums. Legal and
administrative difficulties may also apply to this type of instrument.
And a perception that there has to be an increase in the scope of the
reporting instrument, which also is derived from this understanding of
the fact that different countries may have different elements for
designing their budgets -procurement.
Let us look at how to improve
reporting instruments. Here I would say we could address the causes of
nonparticipation, again, in the Conventional Arms Register and in the
Standardized Reporting of Military Expenditures. We will find similar
problems and similar proposals to address them. A call for the
countries to participate, particularly Latin America, which does not
have the greatest participation, and as we saw in the case of Europe,
that maybe there is a need to undertake cross-regional comparisons,
understand how the process went through in the European context -an
increased advocacy.
Perhaps here I could make a call
for your reflection as you think on how to proceed, how the United
Nations Regional Center could, eventually, with the OAS, the
Inter-American Defense Board, or other organizations, embark on a
deeper reflection of information on how the two instruments could be
improved. Also, and perhaps most importantly, how these two
instruments could fit hemispheric security better.
I will end with that, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
ANEXO II
Presentaciones de los
representantes de los Estados Miembros que participaron en el Grupo de
Expertos en el Registro de Armas Convencionales de las Naciones Unidas
de 1997,
formuladas en la reunión de la
Comisión de Seguridad Hemisférica,
celebrada el 15 de diciembre de
1998
1. Argentina: Juan Valle Raleigh,
Consejero, Representante Alterno de Argentina ante la Organización de
los Estados Americanos.
2. Brasil: Paulo Cordeiro de
Andrade Pinto.
3. Canadá: Dr. Mark Gaillard, Jefe
de la División sobre la No-proliferación y Desarme del Ministerio de
Relaciones Exteriores de Canadá.
4. México: Embajador Claude Heller,
Representante Permanente de México ante la Organización de los Estados
Americanos.
Intervención de la Delegación
Argentina en la reunión de expertos de los Estados Miembros que
participaron en el grupo de expertos gubernamentales sobre el Registro
de Armas Convencionales de Naciones Unidas, de conformidad con el
párrafo resolutivo 6 de la resolución AG/RES. 1566 (XXVIII-0/98).
Organización de Estados Americanos,
15 de diciembre de 1998
Señor Presidente,
La Delegación Argentina quiere
expresar su agradecimiento al señor Subsecretario para Asuntos de
Desarme de Naciones Unidas, Sr. Dhanapala, por la valiosa información
brindada a esta Comisión en relación con las actividades que se
encuentra desarrollando la oficina a su cargo, y en el mismo sentido
agradecer al Sr. Pericles Gasparini por sus comentarios sobre el
funcionamiento del Registro de Armas Convencionales de Naciones Unidas
y del Instrumento para la Presentación Internacional Estandarizada de
Informes sobre Gastos Militares.
Argentina también quiere expresar
sus felicitaciones al Dr. Gasparini por su reciente nombramiento al
frente de la Oficina Regional para la Paz y el Desarme de las Naciones
Unidas, con sede en Lima, y desearle éxitos en sus funciones.
Introducción
El registro Armas Convencionales de
Naciones Unidas es un ejercicio que al momento de su lanzamiento, en
1991 fue realmente novedoso. Debe recordarse al respecto que durante
muchos años diversas iniciativas sobre este tema fracasaron, en gran
medida debido al hecho incontestable que se trata del tipo de sistemas
efectivamente utilizados en conflictos armados.
Superando no pocos obstáculos el
registro se estableció sobre una base universal y no discriminatoria.
Se escogieron para su funcionamiento siete categorías, que si bien
recogían el ejemplo adoptado para el Acuerdo sobre Fuerzas
Convencionales en Europa, son las que concretamente revisten una
especial significación desde el punto de vista militar para
operaciones de tipo ofensivo en cualquier lugar del mundo.
Desde su entrada en vigor el
Registro ha funcionado de manera remarcable. Mas del 90 por ciento de
las transacciones dentro de las siete categorías son captadas por el
mismo, y en este sentido, las voces que prematuramente anunciaron la
irrelevancia o las dificultades del sistema se han visto desmentidas.
Debe destacarse que los sucesivos informes del Secretario General de
Naciones Unidas prueban que estadísticamente el Registro ha alcanzado
una velocidad de crucero que nos permite afirmar que ya forma parte
del paisaje de medidas y acuerdos tendientes a dotar de la tan
necesaria transparencia a las transferencias de armas.
Sin embargo existen áreas en las
que el Registro de Armas Convencionales de Naciones Unidas podría aun
ofrecer más. Como ustedes saben, la resolución 46/36 f estableció una
secuencia concreta según la cual el mismo debe ampliarse a fin de
incorporar las existencias militares y las adquisiciones de material
de producción nacional en un pie de igualdad con las transferencias.
Esta ampliación, bueno es recordarlo, surgió en respuesta a un
legitimo reclamo de los países en desarrollo, quienes deseaban
asegurar el carácter no discriminatorio del Registro, el que de
limitarse de modo indefinido a las transferencias focalizaría la
transparencia en aquellos países que adquieren en el mercado
internacional sus armas, dejando de lado a los grandes productores que
poseen industrias domesticas y que por la misma razón adquieren gran
parte de sus arsenales dentro de sus fronteras.
Esa iniciativa, sin embargo, ha
probado ser más difícil de llevar a la practica que lo que podía
preverse inicialmente. A pesar de tratarse de una idea inspirada en
ese marco, surgieron dificultades de orden político, ajenas a la
naturaleza y a los alcances mismos del Registro de Armas
convencionales que por el momento no han hecho posible su concreción.
Ellas se refieren a problemáticas como la de las armas de destrucción
masiva, cuya importancia nadie puede poner en duda, pero que se sitúan
mas allá de los alcances actuales del Registro.
Desarrollos recientes
Mas allá de estos debates, la
evaluación efectuada en 1997 fue de gran utilidad, en la medida en que
permitió constatar la validez del sistema y el compromiso de la
mayoría de la comunidad internacional con el Registro y aun con la
idea y el principio de su ampliación. Esto debe ser prolijamente
apuntado de cara a la futura revisión del Registro.
Con relación a las existencias y
adquisiciones, el ejercicio de 1997 permitió anexar a los informes
nacionales los datos que sobre una base voluntaria muchos países ya
aportaban. En este sentido es alentador constatar que el ultimo
informe del Secretario General evidencia que los estados han hecho uso
de esta facultad, lo que parece prefigurar una evolución favorable
hacia la ampliación del registro.
Un aspecto importante al que los
expertos dedicaron considerables esfuerzos fue el de la operación
practica del Registro. En este sentido se analizaron, o volvieron a
analizar según el caso, la panoplia de temas y cuestiones que
conforman el cuerpo del Registro. Se reconfirmó la descripción de las
transferencias como una forma practica de ingresarlas, sin recurrir a
una definición común, que por la propia complejidad y diversidad de
las legislaciones nacionales hubiese resultado un objetivo
inalcanzable. Se acordaron algunos aspectos prácticos como la
designación de puntos de contacto en cada país, los que servirán para
aclarar dudas y eliminar discrepancias entre los informes nacionales
de países que hubiesen realizado una transacción.
Con relación a las definiciones de
los sistemas se estudiaron posibles modificaciones, referidas por
ejemplo a los Sistemas de Artillería de Gran Calibre. En este acápite
se considero seriamente la posibilidad de reducir de 100 a 75 mm el
calibre a fin de captar algunos sistemas (morteros) vastamente
utilizados en conflictos regionales y que escapan al Registro tal y
como existe actualmente. Los debates sobre esta y otras modificaciones
(tonelaje de naves de guerra) fueron inconclusos debido a una serie de
factores entre los que debe apuntarse el hecho que al momento de las
sesiones del grupo de expertos, otro grupo, encargado del análisis de
las armas pequeñas estaba abocado al análisis de propuestas que podían
en cierto sentido encabalgarse a las del Registro. Algunos expertos
prefirieron aguardar los resultados de esas deliberaciones antes de
decidir una eventual ampliación que -temían- pudiese resultar en
mecanismos redundantes.
Perspectivas
Hoy, la comunidad internacional
cuenta con las conclusiones de aquel grupo sobre armas pequeñas y
existe en la actualidad otra instancia de seguimiento cuyos resultados
esperamos con sumo interés.
En todo caso queda claro que entre
el ámbito de las armas que capta el Registro y el ámbito de las armas
pequeñas existe una brecha que se conoce con mayor claridad. Hoy por
hoy, el Registro sigue siendo el único instrumento universal de
intercambio de información oficial entre estados sobre sus
importaciones y exportaciones de armas. Ello debería comprometernos
aún más para avanzar de modo mas decidido cuando en las Naciones
Unidas se encare una nueva revisión del Registro. Los expertos de
África y Asia reiteraron de modo muy enfático la importancia que para
sus regiones tendrían algunos retoques técnicos de las actuales
categorías. En ausencia de esquemas análogos para otros sistemas y
tipos de armas el Registro reviste aun más relevancia que en el
pasado. Queda entonces esta asignatura pendiente para la próxima
revisión.
Como se puede ver, el Registro de
las Naciones Unidas ha dado mucho pero mucho mas puede esperarse de
él. Entendemos que las iniciativas que se han adoptado en el marco
interamericano indican un camino y evidencian la voluntad de
transparencia que impera entre los estados miembros de la OEA.
Los criterios comunes que puedan
desarrollarse para el tratamiento de las armas pequeñas; instrumentos
como la Convención contra la Fabricación y el Tráfico Ilícito de Armas
de Fuego, Municiones, Explosivos y otros Materiales Relacionados; la
adopción de un acuerdo sobre transparencia para la adquisición de
armas convencionales y la adopción de códigos de conducta a nivel
regional; son todas líneas de convergencia que encuentran en el
Registro de Armas Convencionales de las Naciones Unidas el único
sistema universal en vigor. El Registro de la ONU puede y debe ser el
punto de encuentro e interfase entre lo global y lo regional, en un
terreno en el que indiscutiblemente los esfuerzos deben coordinarse y
converger para ser útiles a la seguridad de todos.
En el ámbito de la Comisión de
Seguridad Hemisférica de la OEA, nuestra Delegación considera
impostergable subrayar cuan útil resulto el apoyo de los expertos de
la región a la labor de la Presidencia argentina del grupo. En todo
momento los expertos de las Américas se mostraron a la vanguardia de
los esfuerzos para fortalecer el Registro, lo que contribuyó a
consolidar la imagen de un Hemisferio legítimamente preocupado por la
seguridad internacional.
PALABRAS DEL REPRESENTANTE DEL
BRASIL
JUNTO A LAS NACIONES UNIDAS
El REPRESENTANTE DEL BRASIL (Paulo
Cordeiro de Andrade Pinto): Muito obrigado, Senhor Presidente.
Gostaria de, por seu intermédio, agradecer a exposição do
Secretário-Geral Dhanapala e do Doutor Pericles Gasparini.
Confesso, nesse momento, que é a
primeira vez que compareço a Organização dos Estados Americanos e não
estou muito acostumado a falar em português em reuniões multilaterais,
de modo que peço desculpas pela possível falta de ordem com que eu
fale aqui, principalmente aos meus colegas da Missão junto à OEA.
Estou, no momento, lotado na Missão do Brasil junto às Nações Unidas e
lá o português não é uma língua oficial.
Inicialmente gostaria de fazer
alguns comentários à questão do Registro de Armas Convencionais. O
Brasil dá uma grande importância ao Registro de Armas Convencionais e
a expressão que o Doutor Pericles Gasparini utilizou na sua excelente
exposição, pergunta que nós fazemos, qual é o objetivo e a utilidade
do Registro. Muitas vezes nós nos perguntamos em debates internos no
Brasil com os representantes das Forças Armadas e, até o momento
presente, o Brasil é um país que não tem um Ministério da Defesa,
então nós temos debates, de certa maneira, multilaterais no nosso
país. O Ministério da Defesa está sendo criado neste momento. Há uma
mensagem do Presidente da República ao Congresso para certas
modificações na Constituição. E alguns oficiais me perguntavam no
início da nossa preparação para enviar as primeiras informações do
Brasil à Registro: qual é a diferença entre este Registro e o Military
Balance do Instituto Internacional de Estudos Estratégicos de Londres
que, de certa maneira, é o padrão de registro de armas convencionais
utilizado pela maior parte das forças armadas no mundo. O Military
Balance não é um documento oficial, e essa era exatamente a resposta
que nós, diplomatas discutindo com os nossos colegas militares,
dávamos para incentivar a resposta efetiva do nosso país a essa
solicitação das Nações Unidas.
E a segunda era a questão da medida
de confiança. Na medida em que o Estado informa ao Registro de Armas
Convencionais, ele está dando o seu aval a uma informação que é
previamente conhecida. Nós ao enviarmos as nossas informações ao
Registro de Armas Convencionais da ONU, nós, em princípio, não estamos
enviando segredos militares, mas informações que são amplamente
conhecidas. Então trata-se também de uma ação de cunho político, de
uma vontade de engajamento num exercício que levará a esta maior
confiança entre os nossos países e entre os nossos estamentos
militares.
O Brasil desde o início da
discussão do Registro de Armas Convencionais tem encontrado este
objetivo, que é um objetivo inclusive de preparação das nossas forças
armadas e das nossas sociedades neste tipo de exercício global. Outro
aspecto que gostaríamos de sublinhar e que também foi levantado pelo
Doutor Pericles Gasparini, é a diferença de participação entre os
países da América Latina e do Caribe e os países chamado Grupo dos
Países Ocidentais e outros. Os outros, em princípio, são a Austrália,
Nova Zelândia, são aqueles países pertencentes ao Japão, a alianças
militares. Esses países vinham de um exercício anterior onde havia um
enorme grau de desconfiança entre os participantes. O Processo de
Helsinki era um processo de diminuição de tensão entre duas alianças
opostas, inimigas e voltadas, em princípio, para a destruição da
outra.
No nosso continente, apesar de
existirem casos, tópicos de desconfiança baseadas em – no que chamamos
às vezes – “fósseis históricos” quer dizer, um legado de nossos
antepassados e que está extremamente localizado em certas áreas de
fronteiras, nunca houve este tipo de percepção. Quer dizer as nossas
sociedades não estavam necessariamente preparadas para a destruição da
outra ou das forças armadas da outra. Isso talvez explique esta falta
de participação maior no Registro de Armas Convencionais, porque era
difícil explicar a certos organismos militares que muitas vezes tinham
muito mais a missão tradicional da defesa do território, da soberania
do território e principalmente da manutenção da ordem interna, de
mostrar e de ser tão transparente. A posição brasileira nas Nações
Unidas é de dizer que o Registro, do nosso ponto de vista, ele é um
êxito, ele é um sucesso.
A participação de metade dos países
das Nações Unidas, cerca de noventa, varia entre 90 e 97 de acordo com
o ano, num universo de 185, é significativa. Se examina dentro do
quadro ou aqueles países que não informam são aqueles que são
pequenos, que têm uma estrutura administrativa que não tem condições
de levantar todo ano, ou que acham, de certa maneira, inútil fazê-lo
porque não compram muitas armas, são forças armadas que têm
equipamentos que estão abaixo das categorias indicadas pelo registro,
ou então países que têm problemas de segurança que os impedem de
participar com a transparência que seria desejável. Isso é muito
característico dos países do Oriente Médio, alguns casos no nosso
continente e de certos casos no Sudeste da Ásia. Então a lição que o
Brasil tira disso e que tem sido expressa pelos nossos peritos no
Grupo de Peritos sobre Armas Convencionais, é – e aqui vou criar um
problema para os nossos intérpretes – é um velho provérbio brasileiro
que diz: “Devagar com o andor que o santo é de barro”. Basicamente diz
que nós devemos andar relativamente de uma maneira cautelosa I think I
caused a problem for Mr. Dhanapala, but in Catholic tradition, during
a procession, you have all those Catholic saints that are taken to the
streets, and if you go too fast, maybe the saint will fall and as it
is made of clay it might break [take it easy in procession; saints are
made of clay.]. Voltando ao português, essa é a percepção que nós
temos.
Quais são os grandes problemas do
Registro? Diríamos, num extremo os países do Oriente Médio, não só do
Oriente Médio, querendo incluir a questão das armas de destruição em
massa. O Brasil – faria aqui um parêntesis – vota afirmativamente nas
duas resoluções que são anualmente apresentadas na Primeira Comissão
das Nações Unidas sobre Registro de Armas Convencionais. Uma delas, de
iniciativa do Egito, tem essa preocupação de tentar incluir ou de
dizer que é necessário incluir as armas de destruição em massa. A
outra, tradicionalmente apresentada pelos Países Baixos, pela Holanda,
não se refere a esta área. Nós votamos positivamente porque
compreendemos as posições de ambos grupos de países.
No entanto, nós não co-patrocinamos
a resolução de iniciativa do Egito, porque consideramos que o Registro
é de armas convencionais, ou seja, ainda que reconheçamos a
preocupação com armas atômicas e gostaríamos que essas armas atômicas,
que são as únicas armas de destruição em massa que não estão cobertas
por tratados multilaterais que as proíbe, porque as armas químicas
estão, as armas biológicas estão e os mísseis, se são de destruição em
massa, estão cobertos pelo TNP por esta área, porque os mísseis, em
princípio, eles são vetores que levam certas cabeças de guerra. Então
nós não consideramos que seja apropriado colocar as armas de
destruição em massa dentro do Registro de Armas Convencionais porque
elas não são armas convencionais.
Depois as pequenas armas. As
pequenas armas – e nós utilizamos no foro das Nações Unidas a
perspectiva da Organização dos Estados Americanos – nós temos uma
convenção que está referida na resolução do Conselho de Segurança,
recém mencionada pelo Embaixador Dhanapala, a 1290, e nós procuramos
mostrar a Convenção como um instrumento modelo e um instrumento que se
adapta às necessidades do nosso Continente. Isso é um outro ponto que
o Brasil defende no Registro de Armas Convencionais, é que nós
aceitamos a criação de registros regionais e até o incentivamos em
algumas regiões como a região africana. E incentivamos que estes
registros sejam compatíveis com o registro das Nações Unidas. Isto por
uma questão prática.
O Brasil é um país relativamente
grande, que tem uma burocracia relativamente numerosa – o FMI de
qualquer maneira quer que nós a reduzimos, há um empenho permanente na
redução do número de funcionários – públicos, mas os nossos
funcionários encarregados de preparar os dados para o registro da ONU
tem um trabalho difícil, porque todos os anos há que descer até o
escalão mais baixo das forças armadas para verificar quais são as
armas que são obsoletas, que foram transferidas para a reserva, que
foram destruídas, que foram danificadas e tudo isto subir e ser
consolidado. Imagine se nós temos que fazer isto com todas as pequenas
armas! Nós deixamos de responder a um questionário enviado pelo Doutor
Dhanapala este ano, que foi o questionário sobre explosivos e
munições. Um questionário extremamente completo, mas tão completo que
eu, como perito encarregado de enviar à Brasília, disse, vou deixar a
administração pública brasileira enlouquecida. Porque nós teríamos que
ir a cada pequena pedreira quarry no Brasil, para verificar a
quantidade de pólvora e dinamite que seria utilizada, a cada
organização de policia municipal, num país federal, com 5 mil
municípios. Se tivesse que efetivamente entregar uma informação que
fosse fide digna, completa, o meu país não tem neste momento condições
de fazê-lo.
Então nós temos que ter muito
cuidado, do ponto de vista prático, quando ao prepararmos as nossas
resoluções e os nossos questionários entregamos à nossa administração
pública, em casa, em países, exceto Canadá e Estados Unidos e um ou
outro país caribenho, como Trinidad and Tobago, são países em
desenvolvimento, que têm instituições ainda em processo de
aperfeiçoamento.
Nós vemos que o Registro é uma
bandeira a ser mantida, a ser aperfeiçoada e que devemos discutir com
muito cuidado e que a discussão nas organizações e organismos
regionais deve ser compatível com a das Nações Unidas, porque, por
exemplo, se formos estudar a questão das informações na categoria de
navios de guerra, de meios navais, barcos abaixo de 700 ou 800
toneladas quase nenhum país do Caribe, exceto talvez Cuba, disponha.
Então se os países do Caribe têm uma intenção ou se os países da
África Ocidental de desenvolver um registro complementar que possa
colocar dentro daquele registro das Nações Unidas certos tipos de
armas que aumentem a confiança naquela região, nós consideramos
bem-vinda. Então, se nós pudéssemos partir para, isso é uma idéia, da
criação, digamos, de building blocks que sejam complementares ao
registro das Nações Unidas, mas que nós também devamos evitar grandes
regras gerais que sejam tão complexas que na verdade elas vão evitar
que países que gostaríamos que participassem melhor como a Índia, a
China, de uma maneira mais completa, que teriam, efetivamente,
dificuldades de aceitar.
Então a nossa percepção é: temos um
instrumento de idealismo, que é um instrumento de um registro amplo,
profundo, que cubra todos os países do mundo e que seja efetivamente
um instrumento de confiança mútua, algo que se aproxime a um military
balance feito pelas Nações Unidas, complementada pela informação
objetiva sobre orçamento militar. Brasil é um país que desde o início
– e farei aqui, se o Senhor Presidente me permitir, um pequeno
parêntesis – de que o registro de armas convencionais seja pouco a
pouco colocado em paralelo com a informação sobre despesas militares.
A informação sobre despesas militares é de extrema utilidade. Ela pode
ser melhorada, o documento deste ano, que é o documento A53218, apenas
a Argentina, o Brasil e os Estados Unidos apresentaram informações dos
seus gastos militares. Nós temos ainda, dentro do processo brasileiro,
algumas dificuldades de fazê-lo. A nossa informação antes da adoção do
plano real, era quase inútil, no sentido que tínhamos uma moeda
cadente e saber qual o cruzeiro que se aplicava para medir em termos
de dólar aquelas despesas, eram uma dificuldade para o próprio Estado
brasileiro.
Depois, foi levantado também pelo
Pericles, o que são gastos militares? No nosso país, as forças
armadas, ao contrário do que foi mencionado, elas cobrem grande parte
de instituições educativas. O Ministério da Aeronáutica ele é na
verdade o Ministério da Força Aérea e do Transporte Aéreo, então
gastos com aeroportos são colocados dentro das despesas militares, e a
marinha e a força aérea não colocavam os seus aposentados enquanto o
exército colocava. Mas de qualquer maneira, este tipo de informação é
um indicador importante, inclusive para a nossa própria sociedade
saber, quanto estamos gastando, que tipos de gastos vamos fazer, para
a própria sociedade examinar se aquele gasto com defesa é um gasto
eficaz.
Fui um pouco desorganizado, tinha
uma série de instruções do meu Governo, de dizer que basicamente o
Brasil dá um valor, deseja continuar e convida os países do Continente
a apresentarem, de uma maneira voluntária, tanto nas importações
quanto nas exportações, informações sobre os seus estoques de
armamento, informações de compras no seu mercado interno, e também,
como nós temos procurado fazer e que é algo muito importante,
informações sobre a política de defesa, sobre a visão estratégica de
aplicação das forças armadas, porque esse conjunto de dados, junto com
as despesas militares é que mostra qual é a atitude de cada país na
utilização dos seus meios de defesa.
Nós temos uma certa precaução em
dizer que vamos diminuir ou que vamos nos abster de comprar armas.
Muitas vezes, falando em palavras internas no Brasil, quando diziam
para que é que o Brasil necessita de um avião de guerra moderno? Eu
respondia: sou um pai, tenho um filho de 18 anos e realmente não gosto
de entregar a ele um volkswagen 1954 para que ele dirija pelas
estradas esburacadas do meu país, e tenho certeza que a mãe de um
piloto da Força Aérea não gostaria que o seu filho pilote também um
avião de 1950, 1960. Essa preocupação com a segurança dos operadores
militares, com a segurança do país tem que ser levada em conta.
Acho que a participação do
instrumento que a Nações Unidas criou como Registro de Armas
Convencionais possibilita aos nossos países de atenderem legitimamente
as suas preocupações de defesa ao mesmo tempo em que, de uma maneira
transparente, dão segurança aos seus vizinhos e parceiros de que
aquela compra de arma não é ou não se dirige a um objetivo de
agressão. Era isto o que tinha que dizer. Muito obrigado, Senhor
Presidente.
PRESENTATION BY MARK GAILLARD
NON-PROLIFERATION, ARMS CONTROL AND
DISARMAMENT DIVISION,
FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL
TRADE, CANADA
TO THE COMMITTEE ON HEMISPHERIC
SECURITY:
DISCUSSION BY THE 1997 GROUP OF
EXPERTS ON THE UN REGISTER OF CONVENTIONAL ARMS
Washington, D.C., 15 December, 1998
Thank you, Mr. Chairman
The Canadian delegation is grateful
to the Committee on Hemispheric Security for this opportunity to share
with you some Canadian perspectives on the issue of conventional arms
registers. Also, through you, Mr. Chairman, we would like to express
to Under Secretary-General Dhanapala and Dr. Gasparini our gratitude
for their illuminating briefings.
Your Excellencies, distinguished
delegates, senhores e senhoras,
Transparency has come to be
understood as the systematic provision of information on specific
activities in the military field under formal or informal
international arrangements. Depending on the terms of the
arrangements, the information can be made available between States or
provided to a central repository.
The UN Register of Conventional
Arms is a concrete manifestation of the principle of transparency.
The primary function of the UN
Register on Conventional Arms is to promote greater transparency in
international conventional arms transfers in the hope that better
information on the nature and extent of the arms trade will encourage
greater restraint on the part of both supplier states and recipient
states.
Canada has strongly supported
efforts to improve the utility of the UN Register of Conventional
Arms. We were active participants in the 1997 Group of Experts on the
Register, as we were in the Group convened by the Secretary General in
1994. Canada has consistently called for a measured and careful
deepening of the Register to improve the qualitative nature of the
data. There are qualitative differences between different types and
models of conventional weapons within each of the categories. Thus,
types and models should be part of the reporting requirements at the
same level of commitment as transfers. To encourage the development of
greater transparency, Canada routinely provides additional
"background" information to the Register on our domestic holdings, and
national production of conventional weapons, and we have argued in
support of the addition of this information to the Register.
Canada has also actively supported
the provision of the UN Register data to regional organizations by
their participating states, as a supplement to the annual submission
to the UN. We have also advocated analysis and discussion of the
relevant data in regional fora, including in special sessions devoted
to the UN Register.
Since the inception of the UN
Register of Conventional Arms, many countries have pointed out that it
is categories of small arms and light weapons that are of the most
direct security concern to them. These weapons, which include
fully-automatic weapons, grenades and their launchers, as well as
shoulder-fired rockets and missiles, are "conventional weapons" par
excellence in that they are the principle tactical weapons used by
ground forces in "conventional warfighting". These weapons in many
cases in many parts of the world and in large numbers have spread from
military arsenals into the hands not of soldiers but of criminals and
terrorists. The impact of these weapons is not abstract nor
theoretical. It is real and deadly. They cause death and injury today.
We know this only too well.
An idea has been mooted in some
circles that perhaps an eighth category, one to cover small arms and
light weapons, could be added to the already existing seven categories
of conventional arms. However, the 1994 Group of Experts thought such
an inclusion was inappropriate or impractical. These weapons are
traded in such large volumes and among many different kinds of traders
that it was felt that it would be an impossible task for states to
report on these transactions.
Is it time to reconsider this view?
For one thing, the problem is probably getting worse, not better. The
UN Panel of Governmental Experts on Small Arms, whose work was noted
by the 1997 Panel, reporting at roughly the same time as the 1997
Panel of Experts on the Register, noted:
"In one way or another, virtually
every part of the UN system is dealing with the direct and indirect
consequences of recent armed conflicts fought mostly with small arms
and light weapons. Some of the most intractable armed conflicts ...are
those in which a recurring cycle of violence, or erosion of political
authority and a loss of economic viability have deprived a State of
its authority to cope either with the causes or the consequences of
the excessive accumulation, spread and use of small arms".
Would increased transparency for
small arms help? Of course. Only by developing a more comprehensive
and accurate picture of the global trade in small arms can we really
begin to tackle its negative consequences on communities and people.
We know, however, that event the best transparency measures are
unlikely to include illicit trafficking or grey market flows. We must
still work harder to deal with these. Nevertheless, transparency
measures which spotlight overt and legal transfers can act to stem the
overall trade. This can be done by the gaining of the ability to
measure flows against international norms, and by the focussing of
international attention on the scope and nature of the problem,
locally, regionally, or globally.
To date, measures to render
conventional weapons more transparent have consistently focussed on
the seven categories of the UN Register. As small arms are not
included in any of these categories, the UN Register is not directly
relevant to this trade. The Register does however provide potentially
useful models and precedents for future measures.
There are three basic approaches to
increasing transparency in small arms that one could take:
(1) expand the UN Register to
include small arms;
(2) develop a UN or global register
exclusively for small arms; and
(3) develop regional registers.
As to (1), the UN Register we
believe is probably not the ideal instrument to deal with the small
arms issue. The main reason is that the Register is a mechanism to
promote "regional peace and security" and its principle purpose is to
reduce the threat of armed conflict across international borders. The
greatest threat posed by small arms is the destabilization, insecurity
and suffering occurring within states. The effects of the spread and
accumulations of these weapons are not so much on military and
strategic affairs as they are on the political, social and
humanitarian concerns of States and people.
As to (2), there is some potential
here, but there has been little discussion to date. We are certainly
open to hearing ideas about how a separate global register might
operate. Canada desires to contribute in a modest way to the ongoing
discussion and thinking on this issue. Accordingly, the
Non-Proliferation, Arms Control and Disarmament Division has recently
commissioned a study on an international register of small arms,
identifying certain issues and describing a possible model approach.
And as to (3), we feel that there
is promise in this approach. There are three reasons for this
optimism. First, because the small arms problem is usually regional in
nature, a geographically focussed mechanism is more likely to be
effective than a global one. Second, in some places of the world,
support for a regional register is already beginning to develop. The
OAS is a good example of this. And third, because a regional register
would be the product of an indigenous process, the norms established
are more likely to reflect local concerns and sensitivities. These
will act to enhance the credibility and the effective-ness of the
register process.
In conclusion, let me say that
there is no dispute that the trade and excessive accumulation of
conventional weapons can, and does, in some circumstance, threaten
regional security, divert resources needed elsewhere for basic social
and economic development, and increase the likelihood of destruction
and human suffering in the event of armed conflict. Canada remains
committed to the process that will improve the efficacy of the UN
Register of Conventional Arms, and is desirous of contributing to the
process leading to the establishment of regional registers where these
are appropriate.
Canada is also very concerned about
the uncontrolled spread and excessive accumulations of small arms and
light weapons. To some, these are also "conventional weapons".
Notwithstanding this, by noting the conclusions of the 1994 Experts
Panel, it is arguably inappropriate to include small arms as a new
category of conventional arms in the existing UN Register. A more
promising approach might be to consider including them when deciding
on the scope and operation of yet-to-be crafted regional registers.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Intervención por el Embajador
Claude Heller,
Representante Permanente de México
ante la OEA
Comisión de Seguridad Hemisférica:
Registro de Armas Convencionales de la ONU
En primer lugar quiero agradecerle
la organización de esta sesión que me ha parecido extraordinariamente
productiva y rica, así como agradecer las presentaciones que hicieron
tanto el Secretario General Adjunto de Desarme, el Embajador
Dhanapala, como el Director del Centro Regional de Lima, doctor
Gasparini, y los expertos de la Argentina, Brasil y Canadá.
Yo quisiera hacer unos cuantos
comentarios generales. Primero me quisiera referir al tema de las
armas pequeñas, de las armas ligeras, como un tema –que ustedes bien
saben– preocupó al Gobierno de México desde hace varios años y que
motivó de hecho la presentación de una iniciativa que culminó el año
pasado con la Convención Interamericana contra la Producción y el
Tráfico Ilícitos de Armas de Fuego, Municiones, Explosivos y Otros
Materiales Relacionados.
Creo que debemos de ser
profundamente realistas al tratar de este tema. Avanzar en la
Convención no fue una tarea fácil, hubo que vencer resistencias y
escepticismo. Creo que hay un problema más que conceptual que
enfrentamos constantemente: cual es la diferencia, o donde está la
frontera entre lo que es legal y lo que es ilegal. Ustedes bien saben
de que la Convención –cuando se planteó y se negoció– quedó muy en
claro de que estaba esencialmente orientada, digamos a la naturaleza
legal. ¿Porqué razón? Porque existe un comercio legal que es muy
importante en varios países, incluso de nuestra región y es tan
importante que incluso la adquisición de armas pequeñas es favorecida.
No se han tomado, incluso en algunos casos, justamente legislaciones
que permitan reducir este proceso. Esto es un problema, creo yo que es
fundamental, que tenemos que abordar, hay países productores,
exportadores, hay también productores ilegales, efectivamente. Pero
creo que hay que ver en sus distintas vertientes este problema.
Cuando México hizo la presentación
de su iniciativa, lo hizo pensando obviamente en el vínculo que
existía del tráfico y la producción ilegal con tres vertientes
fundamentales, con la del terrorismo, la del narcotráfico, y el crimen
organizado como fenómenos esencialmente transnacionales.
Lo que nos debe de preocupar en
estos momentos, sentimos nosotros, es la multiplicación de iniciativas
que se vienen presentando en distintos foros. De alguna manera este
tema está siendo abordado en Viena, está siendo abordado en Nueva
York. Hay un riesgo, sentimos, de cierta duplicación y duplicidad de
esfuerzos. En algunos casos se piensa que hay que hacer registros, en
otros convenciones. Creo que falta todavía claridad sobre lo objetivo
que debemos perseguir en esta dirección.
Por lo que nos parece esencial al
Gobierno de México es precisamente si vamos a avanzar en el tema de la
codificación de la adopción de nuevos instrumentos, es la importancia
de los medios de seguimiento de estos instrumentos. Yo quisiera
destacar aquí, y es una iniciativa que el Gobierno de México piensa
tomar próximamente, que la Convención Interamericana contra la
Producción y el Tráfico Ilícitos de Armas de Fuego, Municiones,
Explosivos y Otros Materiales Relacionados establezca un comité
consultivo. Un comité consultivo que desafortunadamente todavía no
está en funcionamiento porque este comité no podrá existir hasta que
se obtenga la décima ratificación por parte de los Estados. Es decir,
todavía el proceso legislativo ha sido lento. Pero nos parece muy
importante la tarea que realizará este comité consultivo porque será
el que realmente podrá darle un monitoreo y un seguimiento a la
Convención.
En el mismo sentido nos proponemos
establecer una coordinación entre este comité consultivo y otras
entidades o instancias competentes en materia internacional. Voy a dar
un ejemplo, muy reciente tuvimos la reunión en Mar del Plata sobre el
tema del terrorismo en que la propuesta que se presentará a la
Asamblea General de la OEA en año próximo es la creación de un comité
interamericano para combatir justamente el terrorismo, integrado por
las autoridades competentes en la materia. Lo que se propone el
documento de Mar del Plata es precisamente una coordinación entre
comité y el comité consultivo de la Convención. Pensamos que debemos
de crear justamente una red, una coordinación entre las distintas
instancias que tienen un vínculo con este tema.
Aparte del tema de las armas
pequeñas, ligeras, etcétera, unos breves comentarios sobre el tema de
registro de armas. Sin duda, el Gobierno de México así lo vio desde un
principio, la creación del registro como un paso positivo en la
búsqueda del fomento de la confianza pero también pensamos que debemos
de reconocer las limitaciones que está viviendo este proceso. Las
limitaciones en el sentido de que no hay una respuesta todavía, como
la deseáramos. Se preguntaba el director del Centro de Lima, pues que
tal vez uno de los temas fundamentales será el de analizar las causas
de la no-participación. Creo que es un tema fundamental, creo que
sería muy interesante organizar seminarios para buscar unas respuestas
a estas preguntas. Pero también tengo la impresión que en ocasión
hablamos de transparencia, hablamos de información como se fuera un
objetivo en sí mismo y, as veces, creo que es un poco abstracto como
se maneja el tema.
Francamente, muchas veces, uno ve
una de las respuestas que existen de información que se da en
documentos de este tipo, pues, tiene que ser interpretada y será
válida en la medida en que sepamos conectarla con otras variables y
otros factores importantes. El país en cuestión tiene unos conflictos
con países vecinos, se ven inmersos en algún tipo de situación externa
o interna especial y, creo, que muchas veces se pierde un poco de
vista, parecería con que basta con contestar información, dar
información, para cumplir, casi por inercia, un objetivo.
Coincido plenamente con el experto
del Brasil que mencionaba que el importante es lograr tener una visión
sobre la concepción estratégica que tiene cada uno de nuestros países
sobre la utilización de los medios nacionales de defensa y al mismo
tiempo sus prioridades y sus concepciones mismas de seguridad
nacional.
Creo que hay una pregunta que hay
que hacerse muy frecuentemente ¿Cuando hay amenaza a una carga
armamentista? Creo que el interés de tener información no es
únicamente como fomento de la confianza, pero cuando podemos prender
una luz amarilla o una luz roja porque está pasando algo inusual que
amenaza o que puede amenazar a la estabilidad regional. Creo que este
tipo de preguntas deberían orientar más, por lo menos un debate
teórico e intelectual en el ámbito de la OEA y de las mismas Naciones
Unidas.
México ha favorecido, también
coincide con la necesidad de ampliar el tema del registro de armas
convencionales a altas armas destrucción masiva. Nos parece que este
es un criterio correcto, el cual México ha apoyado.
Pero al mismo tiempo pensamos de
que volviendo al tema de que la presentación de información no es un
fin en sí mismo, es que debe haber un vínculo entre la información que
se da a Naciones Unidas, posteriormente en el marco de la misma
Organización de los Estados Americanos, un vínculo con el objetivo de
emprender negociaciones concretas sobre regulación de transferencias
de armas convencionales y sobre reducción de armas convencionales.
Pensamos de que el objetivo del desarme como tal, de la utilización de
recursos cada vez menos disponibles en tiempos de crisis, debe estar
orientado fundamentalmente a la satisfacción de las necesidades
básicas de la población, obviamente teniendo en cuenta las
percepciones, las necesidades de seguridad nacional. Pero creo que
rescatar, precisamente, todo este trabajo que se ha venido haciendo en
el marco multilateral con el objetivo esencial de la búsqueda de
acuerdos de desarme, sigue siendo el objetivo y la prioridad
principal. Muchas gracias, señor Presidente.
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