The widespread availability of small arms is a global plague that rages more or less out of control. There is little systematic information about it, though the suffering it causes is well understood. Not only are small arms the commonest weapons in armed conflicts (as well as in crime and in political repression) - their very presence makes it hard for war-torn societies to recover from conflict. The easy availability of small arms can make war more likely in tense situations, more vicious once started, and harder to recover from once over.

This is a problem with many dimensions. There is both a legal and an illegal trade in small arms. One aspect that makes the trade extremely difficult to monitor, let alone control, is the role of the middlemen - the brokers and the shipping agents, the dealmakers who arrange for the shipment of quantities of small arms and associated military and paramilitary equipment, sometimes new, sometimes second-hand. This is one part of the problem about which there is particularly little information, and an aspect with which governments have not yet come to grips.

Arms brokers and gunrunners have been able to get hold of surplus stocks of weapons, no longer needed now that the Cold War has ended. The globalization of trade, communications and finance has enabled them to push the envelope of legality, and take advantage of the gaps within and between national legal systems. Laws have not kept pace with their activities, so much of what arms brokers do takes place within a grey zone of legality. And if one country has inconveniently stiff laws, arms brokers simply locate part of their activities in a state that is more lax, exploiting the weakest links in the international chain.

The aim of this investigative and policy report is both to lift the veil on the world of arms brokers, and to suggest policies that can address the problem. What is needed is international agreement to control and restrict the activities of arms brokers, to close the gaps in the laws, to make sure they are as answerable to law as any other international trader.

Recent years have witnessed a growing international movement of nongovernmental organizations and some governments, who have formed a coalition aimed at bringing under control the international transfer of small arms from one country to another. The Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers (NISAT) was established in 1997, in the wake of the Ottawa Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on their Destruction. The organizations that constitute NISAT - Norwegian Red Cross, Norwegian Church Aid, the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, and the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO) - joined other NGOs around the world in recognizing small arms as the next great humanitarian campaign after landmines. The British-American Security Information Council (BASIC) has been involved in research and lobbying on the small arms issue since 1994, when BASIC established its Project on Light Weapons. Recently, BASIC has been one of the driving forces behind the establishment of IANSA - the International Action Network on Small Arms - a global coalition of NGOs active on small arms. BASIC, NISAT and PRIO have worked together to produce this report.

The Arms Fixers is based on painstaking research over the past year conducted by Brian Wood and John Peleman, in which they interviewed primary sources, compiled the evidence, and identified the patterns. On the basis of that close examination of the problems, the authors make detailed proposals for controlling the activities of arms brokers worldwide. Unless specifically stated, no individual, company or other entity mentioned in this report is considered to have deliberately set out to contribute to serious crimes, and information is presented by the authors merely to illustrate the nature of the problem and what governments can do it address it.

NISAT and PRIO are grateful to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for its financial support for NISAT activities, including the work for this report. The views expressed in this work are the authors' own, and neither the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the various organizations behind NISAT are responsible for empirical accuracy, nor views expressed here.

Our special thanks go to Dan Smith (PRIO), Lora Lumpe (NISAT) and Martin Butcher (BASIC) for their invaluable editorial comments, as well as to Susan Høivik (PRIO) and Ingeborg Haavardsson (PRIO) for their endurance and diligence in overseeing the copy editing, printing and design of the publication; also to Jan Egeland (NISAT), Ole Petter Sunde (NISAT), Dan Plesch (BASIC), Geraldine O'Callaghan (BASIC), Sally Chin (BASIC), Preben Marcussen (NISAT) and the librarians of IPIS, for providing practical assistance and information.

Many of those who helped us with data collection and verification, like government and UN officials and those in zones of violent conflict, cannot be named here, but they will know our appreciation. Others who have provided valuable information and insights would prefer their organization to be mentioned - these include some staff at Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, the Omega Foundation, Oxfam, Saferworld and Global Witness; also barristers at 10-11 Greys Inn Square, London, solicitors at Stephens Innocent, London; and journalists and researchers from numerous media organizations, among them the BBC, Corriere Della Sera, Carlton Television, CNN, De Morgen, Granada Television, The Guardian, Het Belang van Limburg, The Independent, Janes Information, Group, Journeyman Pictures, La Jornada, The Mail and Guardian, The New York Times, The Observer, SouthScan, Time Magazine, 20-20 Television, and The Washington Post.

Other individuals whom we can publicly thank for generously sharing their research information are Brian Johnson-Thomas, Jakkie Potgieter, Massimo Alberizzi, Mark Honigsbaum, Ettienne Hennop, Roger Huisman, Thomas Scheuer, Liz Clegg, Peter Chalk, Khareen Pech, Paul Lashmar, Ernst-Jan Hogendoorn, James Rupert, Mark Stucke, Peter Steyer, Francois Misser, Walter De Bock, and Daniel Santoro. We also wish to express our gratitude to Kathi Austin, Erik Kennes, Jonathan Bloch, Stefaans Brummer, Sergio Gennani, George Berghezan, Paul Eavis, John Liebenberg, Abdul-Fatau Musah, Alex Vines, Alberto Estevez, Peter Lock, Bemardo Mariani, Katherine Joseph and Oliver Sprague.

Naturally, none of the above persons or organizations is responsible for the text of this study.

The brokers and transport agents studied here systematically use Europe as a staging post for deals in the rest of the world, while also developing satellite posts with partners in other countries. Many authorities in Europe are of course aware that some of their citizens and residents are involved as brokers and transport agents trading arms via third Countries to illegal and controversial destinations, but the most powerful governments – those who could set an example - have failed to close the loopholes in their national laws. Lack of international trust and cooperation, political inertia, public ignorance of the gravity of the problem, failure to develop professional law enforcement, and fear of the powerful arms industry lobby - these are some of the reasons that allow this deadly situation to continue.

Most agents try to ensure that the activities they conduct are purely legal – but 'legal' often has little meaning, because few states have strict laws and regulations specifically designed to control the international activities of such agents. Home authorities tend to assume that their foreign arms deals are controlled from other jurisdictions. Some brokers and transport agents in this study are shown to have arranged the 'legal' supply of arms to perpetrators of international crimes against humanity and war crimes. They have been allowed to circumvent United Nations mandatory arms embargoes and national arms control regulations, making a mockery of the rule of law.

Agents who broker and arrange the transport of arms outside their home countries, taking the profits through offshore accounts, can easily locate cheap supplies of arms in states that lack the capacity to control arms exports and surplus stocks properly, or whose governance is so weak that there is no manifest political will to exercise proper control. By using increasingly global networks, these 'fixers' can find customers – some in governments, some not – who will buy or barter small arms, light weapons and associated military equipment so as to engage in organized crime, suppress political opponents and fight civil wars, regardless of the high proportion of civilian casualties.¹ To cover up their trail – for legal or purely ethical reasons, but also to secure their future business prospects from unscrupulous customers – arms fixers establish intricate international networks of sub-contractors, front companies and devious transport routes. Some also use the same techniques for trafficking in other controlled or illegal goods.

A growing body of research and published literature is emerging to address the worldwide problem of small arms and light weapons proliferation. Often, however, the analysis and policy solutions do not fully address the real world of international small arms dealers and the methods used to carry out arms transfers on the fringes of the law. The only available data on international arms transfers concern those items sent or authorized from country A to country B. This information may be adequate for tracking large conventional arms, but not for identifying who is behind much of the modem trade in small arms. Moreover, most governments are insufficiently transparent about exports of small arms, light weapons and paramilitary equipment, making it very difficult for independent researchers to uncover and reliably document the hidden deals and complex routes used by arms fixers.

This study seeks to cast light on some recent cases of arms brokering and trafficking via third countries to regions of violent conflict and serious human rights abuse. We want to describe the activities of arms brokers and trafficking or transport agents (also known as shipping agents or brokers) and their associated sub-contractors, in order to examine what measures governments can take to prevent such activities from contributing to serious violations of international law. We also propose an agenda for change which includes a package of interdependent recommendations for priority action by governments.

Research on this topic is difficult because secrecy is de rigueur in the arms brokering and supplying business, especially where illegitimate customers and controversial destinations are involved. Creating the documentation and laundering the money is a skill that brokers deploy for this purpose. Experienced transporters and shipping agents, some willing to risk their lives and freedom for a substantial undercover payment, are also central to the arms-fixing business; they try not to leave accurate records, especially not about their paymasters. The cases in this study should be read with that in mind.

Into the 21st Century
During the Cold War, arms brokers and shippers developed outside the state system, but with close ties to competing national security agencies. They were used to make covert arms transfers to politically favoured recipients of the major powers. But with the growth of free markets in international finance and products, and changing technologies, a new breed of arms fixers has broken away from informal reigns of the old patrimonial state security systems. They are beyond control.

Arms brokering and trafficking have expanded virtually unchecked throughout and beyond the Cold War era. This expansion seems set to continue into the next century unless governments can establish significantly better laws and regulations, as well as administrative and law enforcement systems to address the problem. Most European countries now have hundreds if not thousands of private brokering agents and companies that are registered or allowed to trade internationally in military and security equipment. They have used the deregulated European common market to seek opportunities to trade arms as part of the free transfer of goods within the European Union, and have taken advantage of other international agreements, such as the NATO treaty, to circumvent stricter export and import controls.

A new wave of arms brokering and shipping agents has emerged in the 1990s, located in hitherto less-developed countries. Learning the tricks of the trade from their counterparts in the better-off countries of Western Europe and North America, such brokers and shippers have the comparative advantage of being closer to the zones of violent conflict and hence to the demand side of the market for arms. Many in the new wave of brokers and trafficking agents are retired or even serving military and security officers who have started up their own companies, or who go into partnership with others with a business background. They might also be former employees of arms companies.² Sometimes these dealers and operators have emerged from the procurement wing of armed opposition groups like the Tamil Tigers. Alongside them are the growing band of private military companies that have a more specific arms brokering and shipping role. One such company, Executive Outcomes, has been based in South Africa and registered in the UK, but it was part of a wide international network of corporate interests providing military services for mining interests.³

The international community has agreed to exercise restraint and caution in considering arms transfers that may contribute to excessive and destabilizing accumulations of small arms and light weapons and ammunition.⁴ Powerful Western governments, in particular, have led the calls for joint action to this end.⁵ However, such calls for restraint and caution are meaningless unless backed up by strict laws and regulations, and effective law enforcement – because, in the real world, the senders and recipients of arms in countries chosen for business by unscrupulous brokers can be corrupt officials, or regimes that grossly violate human rights, or even armed opposition or criminal groups.

Some Definitions
In this report, manufacturers of arms and arms dealers are defined as follows:

• Manufacturers develop, make, assemble, repair or convert small arms and light weapons and ammunition (and components). In many cases, manufacturing operations involve co-production and other licensing arrangements of an international nature.

• Dealers in arms engage in one of at least three types of commercial activity:

In the following we will focus on the second and third types of dealers, which are closely interdependent.⁷

For the purposes of this study, 'arms' may include all types of military, security and police equipment and services, although many governments fail to include all such items. The focus here is on small arms, light weapons and associated explosives and equipment; the generic term 'small arms' will be employed as shorthand to cover this wide range of military and paramilitary equipment that is used in current civil wars, internal repression and violent crime.⁸ 'Arms transfers' refers to all arms transferred outside the control of the state from which they are sent. All dollars are US dollars.

If governments wish to argue that such arms dealers have legitimate activities, they must strictly regulate all three types of arms dealing. Despite the millions of victims in the world who have suffered from the proliferation of small arms, most governments have failed lamentably in their duty to provide such regulation.

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Endnotes

¹ International Committee of the Red Cross, Arms Availability and the Situation of Civilians in Armed Conflict (Geneva, June 1999).