US hard-line stance clouds UN small arms conference
by Irwin Arieff
Reuters US
18 July 2001
UNITED NATIONS -- Delegates to a U.N. conference on small arms said on Wednesday they were preparing for the possibility the Bush administration, a close ally of the U.S. gun lobby, would block agreement on a global plan to clamp down on firearms trafficking.
European Union delegates discussed that scenario on Tuesday and generally agreed that if the U.S. delegation stood firm, as it has threatened, on its hard-line stance, they would simply not press for a vote on a draft action plan at the meeting's end, one EU diplomat said.
"If there is no consensus, there will be no document," the diplomat said, asking for anonymity. "The Americans have sometimes swung around at the last moment, but given that they appear to be driven solely by their domestic agenda, it's difficult to see how it could come to an end game."
A failure to reach a consensus "is always a possibility, and that will depend on the United States," said Loretta Bondi of the Washington-based Fund for Peace, which is pressing the 189 U.N. member-nations to back a broad small arms crackdown.
"Everyone agrees that the most obstructionist party at the conference is the United States," she said. The United Nations says the illegal trade in small arms is $1 billion-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 easy to hide in civil wars as well as on city streets.
The Bush administration has insisted the conference, due to end on Friday, focus exclusively on the illicit transfer and stockpiling of small arms and light weapons in areas of conflict.
Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton, the head of the U.S. delegation, told the conference on its opening day that Washington would draw the line at anything in the draft action plan that might restrict private ownership or constrain the legal trade or manufacturing of small arms.
Washington would also block any call for a global accord on marking guns at the time they were made so they could be more easily traced, or an international crackdown on arms brokers.
Despite this blunt stance, Ambassador Camillo Reyes of Colombia, the conference resident, unveiled a new draft of the action plan on Monday that was in most ways tougher than an earlier plan, drafted before the conference began.
Republican Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, a member of the U.S. delegation and a board member of the National Rifle Association, promptly dismissed the new draft as unacceptable.
Conference delegates have spent the past two days in closed meetings, trying to plow through the new draft in search of compromise. But the United States has so far stood firm, raising the odds that no final agreement will be reached as delegates work strictly by consensus.
"The Americans have been entirely negative. They've got no agenda except to protect the agenda of the National Rifle Association," said one Western diplomat.
"We sincerely hope there will be a document," Ambassador Ole Peter Kolby of Norway told Reuters. "They have a tough stance. I hope in the end they will find it useful and agree on a document."
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