The Real Weapons of Mass Destruction- Part II

SMALL ARMS have destabilising impacts on both states and societies. In Southeast Asia, the destabilising nature of the proliferation and misuse of small arms (both legal and illegal) has been most evident in places like Southern Thailand, Southern Philippines, and Myanmar where there are ongoing conflicts, and Timor Leste which have been recovering from the consequences of years of conflict.

In the Philippines, about 70 per cent of small arms are in the hands of civilians and 80 per cent of the illegal weapons are concentrated in restive provinces on the southern island of Mindanao – Basilan, Jolo and Tawi-tawi. Economic losses as a result of conflict in Mindanao between 1975 and 2002 was estimated at PHP 5 – 10 billion (USD 9.5 – 19 million) annually. Conservative estimates of the costs of both the Moro and Communist conflicts from 1969 to 2004 was said to be at least 120,000 fatalities, military expenditure of at least USD 6 billion, and losses in gross domestic product of at least USD 17.5 billion.

Curbing the proliferation of small arms is therefore essential. Australia offers valuable lessons in this regard. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that former Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s decision to ban and buy back more than 600,000 semi-automatic rifles and shotguns – after the massacre at Port Arthur in Tasmania on 28 April 1996  – has cut the country’s stock of firearms by 20 per cent and roughly halved the number of households with access to guns. As a result, firearm suicides declined by 74 per cent, saving 200 lives a year.

There is now an increasing call for stricter gun controls in Southeast Asia too. The Philippine Daily Inquirer for example argues that banning guns “will make the Philippines a more peaceful and safer country”. In fact, there is no dearth of gun control legislations in Southeast Asia. The Philippines has 21 individual Executive Orders, Laws, Acts, Memorandums, Presidential Decrees, Directives and Amendments (for a comprehensive list of gun control legislation in the Philippines, click here). Similarly, Thailand has the 1947 and 1967 Acts on Controlling Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, Fireworks and Imitation of Firearms. However, due to weak implementation, small arms continue to proliferate. Effective implementation of existing legislations thus constitutes an important first step to control the proliferation of small arms and its misuse.

Table 1: Small arms possession in Southeast Asia

Source: Compiled from http://www.gunpolicy.org/