UN prepares for arms smuggling summit

Smuggled arms help fuel Africa's wars, say campaigners

By UN correspondent Mark Devenport

Diplomats at the United Nations have been told that aircraft pilots who smuggle arms into African war zones should be held accountable for their actions.

Diplomats and anti-arms trade campaigners are meeting at the UN ahead of a major conference on weapons smuggling which is due to take place in July.

"If you want to move arms, you have to use aircraft, and if you want to stop illegal arms dealing, you must stop the air transport,"

Mike Selwood, pilot

Anti-arms trade campaigners would like to see governments taking decisive action against weapons brokers and transporters when the conference on the small arms trade convenes in four months' time.

At a preparatory meeting ahead of the conference, diplomats heard how easy it is for gun-runners to circumvent the present international controls.

False flight plans

They can file false flight plans, obtain forged arms certificates and exploit the poor radar cover across much of Africa's air space.

One veteran pilot who has flown in the continent's war zones, Captain Mike Selwood, argued that the air crews involved have been allowed to escape their responsibility too easily in the past:

Children are among the main victims of the illegal arms strade

"It is very simple," he said. "If you're flying a Boeing 707, it is impossible not to know that you have 38 tonnes of munitions on board.

"To try and suggest that you didn't know is absurd. Therefore, there must be a very strong move to say, 'Look, make the crews responsible.'"

Captain Selwood argued that action should be taken by the governments in pilots' home countries.

He suggested they could revoke the licences of any crew members found to be involved in arms smuggling.

Other suggestions from campaigners included the routine inspection of plane cargoes at African airports within a specified distance of a war zone, or the compilation of a blacklist of crews involved in the arms trade.

One African human rights activist suggested that the international community would have acted far more urgently if the smuggling had been taking place in European, not African airspace.