Make the temporary victory more permanent
Desmond Tutu 21 May 2008 06:00

In the current scandal of the attempt to ship tons of arms and ammunition to Zimbabwe it is the Chinese who have spoken the most sense. China's foreign ministry said the country's shipment of mortar grenades, rockets and bullets was "perfectly normal trade".

It certainly is. Shipping arms to African governments who could use them to abuse their own people is an abhorrent but almost daily occurrence. And at present there is nothing the international community can do about it because there are no effective global controls.

If you want to export weapons to a country that commits gross human rights abuses, you can. You might have to use a few tricks to get around the flimsy patchwork of controls that exist, but it is easy and it is done all the time.

The case of the An Yue Jiang and its cargo is different because it happened at a politically fraught time, for both Zimbabwe and China, and because the world heard about it.

Originally only the vigilance of the South African transport workers' union stopped the shipment being unloaded in Durban. This is a systematic failure, but entirely predictable because of the lack of transparency in shipping arms. The dockworkers alerted the world to the danger the An Yue Jiang and its contents posed. Then there was the sight of the international community scrabbling around trying to prevent the ship from docking and the weapons reaching Zimbabwe.

The United States in particular worked hard to stop the shipment, but it had to resort only to diplomatic pressure. Despite a record of human rights abuses, Zimbabwe is not currently under a United Nations (UN) arms embargo. This would be a welcome first step. But there are ways round embargos.

At the moment the UN is working on an Arms Trade Treaty that could stop weapons transfers. If a strong treaty eventually becomes law then an arms exporter will have to block the sale if there is evidence the weapons are likely to be used to commit serious violations of human rights law. If they went ahead with the sale, then civil society in the exporting country or other countries would be able to challenge this decision -- as they certainly would have done in this case.

Under an effective Arms Trade Treaty human rights would not be the only criteria used to assess a weapons sale. The effect on development would also be included. According to research, armed conflict costs Africa $18-billion a year in lost economic opportunities. On average a war, civil war or insurgency shrinks an African economy by 15%. More than 95% of Kalashnikov rifles come from outside the continent. So do the bullets, mortars and other ammunition upon which warring armies depend. A strong treaty should include ammunition as well as the weapons themselves.

Of course legitimate uses such as defence or policing would not be affected by an Arms Trade Treaty. Governments who treat their people well have nothing to fear and neither will legitimate arms producers. There is support from many arms manufacturers for a treaty: they want their business recognised as legitimate and the crooks banned from operating.

In December 2006 more than 150 countries voted at the UN to work towards a legally binding Arms Trade Treaty. This May the process continues as a group of experts meets to advance it.

Now that it looks like the ship and its contents are returning to China and civil society, trade unions, human rights groups and others can proclaim a momentary victory. But if the UNs' meetings do not come out in support of a tough treaty, this victory will be at best temporary, at worst meaningless.

Emeritus Archbishop Desmond Tutu is a former Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights activist