{Tanzania may soon start marking all sorts of firearms with special engraving to distinguish weapons registered in the country, against those owned in other states, it was revealed in Arusha.}
Vice President, Ms Samia Suluhu Hassan, said that with nearly 900,000 light weapons and small arms circulating around the globe, it is vital for Tanzania, as well as other African countries to start engraving special national labels to indicate where each firearm was registered or being used.
Ms Hassan was officiating at the eighth Council of Ministers Meeting of the Regional Centre on Small Arms (RECSA) in Arusha, where it was revealed that proliferation of small arms and light weapons have been claiming more than 500,000 lives annually around the world.
The meeting was convened to discuss, among other things, the issues touching the welfare and affairs of the people in RECSA region, with emphasis on preventing and combating small arms and light weapons (SALW) to ensure that member states enjoy perpetual peace and prosperity to allow economic growth and development.
“I am informed that 1,000 innocent people die daily from the misuse of light weapons and small arms and that more than 500,000 are killed every year around the world due to the same,” said Ms Hassan, adding that weapon factories manufacture up to 8 million firearms every year, but few get destroyed. The meeting observed that the rate of civilian ownership of arms keep increasing in conformity with the rising number of illegal arms entering into circulation.
The Chairman of the RECSA Council of Ministers, Mr Charles Mathias Kitwanga, said that access to these weapons fuels cases of drug trafficking, maritime piracy, armed robbery, human trafficking, organised crime and terrorism.
In Tanzania, such weapons have been behind tribal conflicts, cattle thefts, highway robberies and chaos that have afflicted the Loliondo Game Controlled area in Arusha Region as well as livestock keepers versus farmers conflicts in Simanjiro, the Lake Zone and Morogoro Region.
The Regional Centre on Small Arms in the Great Lakes Region, the Horn of Africa and Bordering States (RECSA) is an intergovernmental organisation established in June 2005 to address the issue of proliferation of small arms and light weapons.
The secretariat is mandated to build the capacity of the member states, coordinate and monitor the implementation of the Nairobi Protocol within the RECSA Region.
RECSA therefore remains the only internationally recognised inter-governmental organisation within Africa whose sole mandate is to address the proliferation of illicit SALW to provide a conducive environment for sustainable development.
“With more than 500,000 people being killed each year from cases related to small arms, the problem apparently seems to claim more life than any existing killer disease on the continent,” pointed out Mr Theoneste Mutsindashyaka, the RESCA executive.
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