Merchants of death: in a booming business, small-arms brokers make a killing

International Economy, The, Summer, 2002 by John A. Kruger

The second option can be disturbingly easy--and lucrative. In one common scenario, a military officer with access can falsify documents so that even in a government-to-government shipment the number and type of arms can be understated. Then, as the shipment is en route, some may be diverted to a third country, using another set of false documents to allow entry.

Even the U.S., the world's largest supplier of arms, is subject to leaks. The U.S. sells equipment through several programs, including foreign military sales (government-to-government sales), foreign military assistance (financial credits toward the purchase of weapons) and direct commercial sales. While there are strict controls on where the weapons go, gaps in monitoring exist. According to a U.S. General Accounting Office report issued in 2000, monitoring measures vary widely in different countries depending on the resources available, how various commands interpret the rules, and how they prioritize personnel duties. "The Department of Defense has not effectively implemented the requirement that its field personnel observe and report on foreign governments' use of U.S. defense articles and services transferred through the Foreign Military Sales program," the GAO concluded. "Officials also told us that they want field personnel to spend their time on their primary duty, which is to work with foreign governments on planning the acquisition of defense equipment," the report stated, suggesting that in some countries, Defense Department officials were more concerned with sales than with security.

Arms, sold legitimately or on the black market, go where the conflicts are. In recent years, Eastern European states have sold to African countries or to the former Yugoslavia. In a 2001 letter to European Union officials, Human Rights Watch cited cases in which Bulgaria had sold arms to Angola, Ethiopia and Uganda. Other shipments from the Czech Republic to Yemen were questioned based on previous diversions of arms to countries that were under embargos. Specifically HRW cited a case involving Czech weapons stopped in Bulgaria because of suspicions that they would be sent instead to Eritrea.

In Asia, much of the inter-country trade has been targeted toward Indonesia, where religious and separatist insurgencies across the vast archipelago create demand. In 2001 Thai police arrested two military officers for attempting to smuggle weapons to rebels in Aceh, including detonators, fuses for landmines, hand grenades, and ammunition for M-16 rifles and submachine guns. That the weapons had been stolen from a military depot went unnoticed until an anonymous tip alerted police to the smuggling operation. Meanwhile, members of the Indonesian security forces stand credibly accused of funneling weapons, particularly to Christian and Muslim militants in the Malukus. Weapons and cash meant to support Indonesian rebels also come from al-Qaeda-linked terrorists in the Philippines and the mid-East.

Once in the field, durability and reliability have allowed millions of weapons to stay in circulation for years. If civilian democratic rule comes to a region or if a conflict burns itself out, governments merely sell the surplus weapons to combatants in other conflict states. In some cases this is done by legitimate means; in others, clandestinely. Occasionally, governments lose control of their weapons altogether. As the Balkan war moved south into Albania in 1998, for example, rebels and civilians stole an estimated 80 percent of the national arsenal--at least 750,000 weapons--from various military storage facilities. Many found their way to Macedonia and Kosovo.