Conference on small arms, violence held in Accra
The Interior Ministry, in collaboration with the West African Action Network on Small Arms (WAANSA), is to embark on educational and sensitisation programmes on small arms and armed violence to help build peace and ensure a peaceful election in 2016.
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The Minister of the Interior, Mr Mark Woyongo, who announced this in a speech read on his behalf at the fourth annual meeting of WAANSA, urged other civil society organisations (CSOs) to support the initiative.
It was attended by representatives of international organisations and civil society groups, such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the National Commission on Small Arms, and the Kofi Annan International Peace Keeping Training Centre (KAIPTC).
Mr Woyongo said the government alone could not combat the menace of illicit small arms in the country hence the call for the support of CSOs.
He said it was the ministry’s expectation that CSOs would play a very significant role in that direction to ensure that there was peace and stability before, during and after the 2016 general election.
Mr Woyongo said small arms proliferation deserved to be tackled seriously because it had become common place in recent times to find small arms being used in simple conflicts in the regions.
Steps to curb proliferation of small arms
Mr Woyongo said the country for its part, had ratified the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) and was almost about completing the process of depositing the instrument at the United Nations.
He said Ghana had also identified itself with the importance of controlling and monitoring the arms trade and had taken a critical view of marking and record keeping of small arms in conformity with the ECOWAS Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons.
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Mr Woyongo said at the level of the ministry, it had spearheaded the move to review the legislation on small arms to strengthen provisions on brokering, marking and record keeping and tracing, as well as on weapons collection and destruction.
He commended WAANSA for its efforts at addressing the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in West Africa.
WAANSA to work towards peace
The President of WAANSA, Mr Baffour Dokyi Amoa, said the annual meeting of CSOs under WAANSA was for its members to take stock of efforts they had made at promoting peace and security in the ECOWAS sub-region.
He pledged WAANSA’s commitment to continue to work towards achieving total peace and security in the sub-region.
Porosity of borders
The Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security of the ECOWAS Commission, Mrs Salamatu Husseini Suleiman, said threats of terrorism and activities of insurgent groups as well as criminal gangs continued to occur in parts of the sub-region of ECOWAS, particularly in the Sahel Region and North-Eastern Nigeria.
She said these challenges were partly attributable to the porosity of their national borders, weak stockpile systems, coupled with increasing sophistication of local arms manufacturers.
She said the ECOWAS Commission had over the years supported member states through their national commissions on small arms and CSOs with office equipment, training in modern methods of arms control, as well as promoted cross-border collaborations.