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OAS and Dominican Republic Sign agreement to Combat Illicit Arms Trafficking

The Organization of American States (OAS) and the Government of the Dominican Republic today signed a cooperation agreement to carry out the “Promoting Firearms Marking in Latin America and the Caribbean,” project, which seeks to strengthen national arms control capabilities in the region.

“Illicit traffic of weapons is one of the main problems today, it is associated with organized crime,” said OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza during a ceremony to mark the signing of the agreement at the headquarters of the organization in Washington, DC.

Secretary General Insulza pointed out that the majority of illicit arms “are traded illegally across the region, and that is why to combat this it is so important to have a procedure by which we can follow the weapons.”

The agreement was reached within the framework of the Convention against Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms (CIFTA), the first binding treaty on the matter. Through the agreement, the OAS will present the Dominican Republic with a firearms marking machine donated by the United States.

The chief representative of the OAS highlighted the importance of the CIFTA in combating illicit arms trafficking, and stressed that the initiative will bring under control “tens of thousands of firearms in the hemisphere” and prevent their use by criminals.

The Ambassador of the Dominican Republic to the OAS, Robert Bernardo Saladín, said “with the firearms marking machine the country will have one more tool to use in combating illicit firearms trafficking.”

Ambassador Saladín recalled that his country signed the CIFTA in 2009, and stressed that this week the Chamber of Deputies approved a project that strengthens controls on the carrying of firearms. “Be assured that the firearms marking machine that the Ministry of the Interior and Police will receive will be of great use to my country in its fight against illicit arms trafficking,” said the Dominican representative.

Steven Costner, Deputy Director of Weapons Removal and Abatement at the U.S. State Department, said “One of the most important ways to address illicit trafficking of small arms and light weapons is to be able to effectively trace the weapons. Of course, to effectively trace the weapons you need to mark them, that’s why this is a very important step” in the fight against this problem, “not just in the hemisphere, but at a global level.”

Present at the signing ceremony was the Chair of the Permanent Council and Representative of Honduras to the OAS, Leónidas Rosa Bautista, and military and police officers from the Dominican Republic.

A gallery of photos of the event is available here.

A video of the event is avaliable here.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-130/12