I was energized before. Now I'm angry. Angry that as the world comes together to try to do something about a very real threat to world peace in the 21st century, the United States is blocking it. I'm talking about the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, which U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has labeled "weapons of mass destruction." I'm talking about the Bush Administration's warning to the U.N. Conference on Small Arms which just opened in New York that it would not support measures which constrain trade and manufacturing of such small arms and light weapons.
Citing the fact that the majority of small arms trade is conducted legally, the Bush administration has turned a blind eye to the enormous black market trade of such weapons which occures, for example, when stockpiles of older weapons find their way unlawfully to groups when they are replaced by newer models. The United Nations estimates that there are some 500 million small arms in the world, with some 40-60% acquired illegally, sometimes by bartering commodities like diamonds (thus the term "blood diamonds" which have been used by some West African rebel groups to buy arms). The small arms trade may be legal but it is not moral.
I'm angry because 10,000 deaths a week worldwide can be attributed to armed violence. Moreover, in the new kinds of wars fought today, many of those deaths are civilians - women and children. And then there is the fact that the same sorts of guns which fuel civil wars in Africa, Latin America and Asia can be found on the streets of Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. These guns are killing young people in cities, and increasingly, in rural areas across the U.S., in addition to killing child soldiers and civilians around the world. Such arms include pistols, assault weapons, machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars and some missles.
I'm angry because I remember the recorded speech by a National Rifle Association leader saying to his audience that if George W. Bush were in the White House, it would be like the NRA having its own desk there. So maybe it should not be surprising that the man that President Bush has appointed as under secretary of state for arms control and international security affairs and sent to the U.N. Small Arms Conference is John Bolton, a former executive of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. Not surprising, but disappointing.
I'm angry because the United States is the largest supplier of arms worldwide and Mr. Bolton said at the U.N. Conference that the U.S. would not support and move to restricting arming rebel groups, nor would it help finance a campaign by human rights groups to raise awareness of the arms trade. In effect, that means that the blood of the victims of armed violence around the world, not just in the U.S., is on the hands of those who supply arms which kill innocent civilians and on us.
I'm angry because it is bad enough for those of us in the U.S. to be held hostage to the politicians woh buckle to the gun lobbies while our children are dying in schools, in homes and on the streets because of our accessibility of guns in our nation, but now we are holding the whole world hostage. The World Council of Churches has designated the decade of 2001-2010 as teh Decade to Overcome Violence. Thus, at the U.N. Conference churches from around the world have erected a 30-foot long Wall of Pain - photographs of those killed by guns, art work and stories of personal experiences of armed violence in our world. That wall is a symbol of our choice of death as a society and our challenge, through this U.N. Conference, is to choose life instead.
The U.S. stands in the company of China, India and Russia in its opposition of expansion of gun control internationally. Two of those other are known for their human rights violations and one has in recent years tested a nuclear bomb. On the other hand, we once again are finding ourselves opposing our European allies, who differ with the Bush administration on the Kyoto global warming accord, the anti-ballistic missle defense treaty and capital punishment.
It's time for those Americans concerned about peace in the world to come together to speak out. It's time for those who were the old peace/nuclear disarmament advocates to join with the Million Mom march folks. It's time for those parents whose children have died because of gun violence to join with those marching against globalization. Because the proliferation of small arms in the world is not about the U.S.' right to bear arms, it's about sane world policies and about ending the awful greed of the arms trade which is responsible for millions of deaths and threatens world peace in the new millenium. It's about choosing life instead of death.