UNMIK/FR/017/01
FEATURE RELEASE - 1 March, 2001
Weapons control
From swords to
ploughshares, spears to hooks, and beyond machismo:
why we all need
weapons off the streets and out of our homes
At first sight, the important part of last week Regulation authorizing weapons
is the stiff penalty for being caught WAC-less for carrying a
weapon without a Weapons Authorization Card. Equally important, the new
law signals the beginning of a campaign to rid Kosovar society of its
weapon cultures along with its weapons.
The underlying intention behind Regulation 2001/7 signed a week ago is
not so much to disarm Kosovo. It is to make daily life safer for ordinary
people. Since the end of the 1999, over 700, some of them children, are
now dead precisely because of the weapons the regulation seeks to control.
Many of those deaths were accidental, or at least unpremeditated, police
point out.
Kosovars will still have right to keep and use
hunting and recreational weapons. Also, politicians and other leading
figures who are deemed particularly vulnerable will still be able,
legally, to carry defensive weapons. So will their registered bodyguards
and those KPC members who have already been authorized by KFOR to carry
weapons.
What the new Regulation aims to eliminate is most other
ownership and carrying about of non-recreational weaponsCparticularly
military ones designed to attack and kill. Kosovo, UNMIK maintains, should
not insist on being an exception to the idea, accepted throughout Europe
and most of the Western world, that uncontrolled ownership and use of
automatic rifles, machine guns, mortars, anti-tank and air defence
weapons, grenades, mines and explosives is intolerable. The intention,
therefore, is to confine guns to the relatively few people outside the law
enforcement agencies, who really need themCa mere 400 or so, UNMIK Police
expects.
Above all, Regulation 2001/7 is an anti-crime law. It is a
practical tool for law enforcement authorities to deter and tackle the
increasing number of crimes where weapons are involved. Police say they
need the tool because of the very large number of post-conflict weapons
still in the hands of ordinary people. Societies where such weapons
prevail suffer high levels of crime. The crimes committed are more likely
to be violent and their outcome lethal. That is why Regulation 2001/7 has
high penalties for non-compliance (see box).
Beyond machismo
Take a typical week, the
second week in February 2001. Police files recorded over 140 cases of
weapons-related crimeCan astonishing level for a population only the size
of a modest European city. In over half of those cases the weapons were
not merely being carried about illegally. They were being used to threaten
or actually cause bodily harm. Their use reflects a culture, in other
words, that has gone way beyond mere male bravado and machismo. AA gun
culture, points out UNMIK Police Commission Christopher Albiston, Ais a
culture of fear and intimidation. It is not the way we want life to
operate in Kosovo
Two times out of every three, the weapon owners
went beyond threatsCthe pin was pulled on the grenade, bullets were fired,
the knife stabbed into human flesh, the pepper sprayed. In nearly all
cases, because they were armed, the perpetrators succeeded in their main
aimCto harm or intimidate women, families, home- and business owners,
prominent individuals or mere passers-by. Or to murder premeditatedly, to
rob and steal, to rape.
Yes, the police data do show that things
have improved since June/July 1999. But only somewhat. Kosovo, then, was
still plagued with most symptoms of Afailed state syndrome. There were
shootings and gunfire generally, explosives attacks, high murder rates,
armed robberies, and use of weapons to threaten and intimidate. But today,
with the main government structures that are important for containing
violence mostly restored, that failed state period should be a thing of
the past.
Still missing, apparently, is the other characteristic
of societies with 'normal' violence levels, namely the set of accepted
social norms, according to which certain acts are considered fundamentally
wrong and anti-social no matter who is involved. Such norms include most
of the things illegally done with weapons-killing people, stealing their
property, threatening their livelihood, depriving them of the human rights
that Kosovars as a whole have fought and suffered for.
In that
sense, Regulation 2001/7 will set up a test for Kosovo: a society that
believes that acts of social terrorism and intimidation are wrong will support
theregulation intentions. Kosovars will comply with its mechanisms,
especially its amnesty provisions.
The European way
According to peace
experts, post-conflict countries follow a common pattern. The civil war
brings in millions of small arms and light weapons which remain in the
country as the means for high levels of increasingly organized crimesCcar
jacking, kidnapping, assaults, robberies and trafficking of people and
contraband. The abundance of military-style weapons means that violence
becomes the first option for conflict resolution. And their presence
frustrates efforts to restore peace, lawfulness and stability. ADisputes
such as those over land, economic inequality and human rights are
increasingly settled by use of force, sums up Edward J. Laurence in his
report for the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly
Conflict.
Other post-conflict countries' experience thus spells out the
longer-term danger for Kosovo future. In Latin America, for example, an
abundance of weapons, a culture that encouraged their diffusion and
circulation, and weak state authority all worked for the benefit of
groups that could hardly exist without the power of small arms and light
weapons the drug traffickers, the lesser mafiosi and other criminal
gangs. Before long, normal daily life of nearly all citizens fell under
their control. Worse, in some areas, the response to high levels of criminal
violence has been Astate violence a phenomenon of which the
majority of Kosovars need no reminding.
Another lesson from the post-conflict
parts of Latin America is that return to weapons-driven violence
directly affects their economic recovery and development: beneficial
projects were either cancelled or postponed; foreign investors, on
whose interest economic recovery ultimately depended, never came near. That
could happen in Kosovo too. Continuing high levels of violence here, which
would be impossible without the easy access to illegal weapons, is already
concerning donors. Even before the recent bus bombing, the tendency
in Brussels and Strasbourg was to put Kosovo on hold, senior UNMIK
officials report. Previous funding promises were delayed, discussions
leading to future projects deferred. In Pristina, there was talk
of cancelling this week donors meeting. Last weekend, in the aftermath
of the bus bombing near Puduevo, EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Christopher
Patten put it bluntly: AThe people of Kosovo need a wake up call,
because it is the whole of Kosovo that risks paying literally and
figurativelyCif this barbarism carries on Kosovars who look forward to
European standards of living and behaviour know that international
community support is essential to their ambitions. To restore the goodwill
Kosovo enjoyed in 1999, their best message to their neighbours and to the
outside world would be their wholehearted acceptance of the idea that
weapons are bad for society, and that they, as law-abiding citizens, will
not be keeping weapons in their homes. Neither will they tote them
alongside their mobile telephones for amusement.
Anti-crime
More generally, all Kosovolaw
enforcement authorities (KFOR, UNMIK Police, the KPS and UN Security)
believe that a tough anti-weapons regulation will greatly enhance their
anti-crime efforts. So apparently does Kosovo political leadership, which
agreed to the details in the draft regulation with the barest of
discussions. Perhaps IAC members, too, share the international
concern over reports that some school teachers, paid out of the Kosovo
Consolidated Budget, take it as part of their duties to encourage, and to
demonstrate the use of guns to school children, with live ammunition.
At the same time, no one in UNMIK is underestimating the real
challenge in taking the guns out of Kosovo. The administration fully
recognizes that it is joining battle with part of an underlying culture.
It hopes that, by bringing the issues out into the open, there will be
public debate about the wisdom of the strong pro-weapons.
UNMIK would
like families to discuss whether military-style weapons still belong in
the houseCgiven the security guarantees of the international community. It
would like them to consider the Gjakovė mother now recovering in hospital
deserved being accidentally shot in the neck and shoulder by her husband
who was playing with his automatic pistol in the family living room. It
would encourage debate as to whether quarrels within the family or between
neighbours would be better settled without resort to the AK-47 still in
the attic or whether the grenades under the floorboards might one day
prove a lethal attraction for the children.
Finally, UNMIK would
urge families consider whether it is wise for its older (usually male)
members to put themselves and their joint income at risk by being caught
with the weapon and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment or a fine up to DM
20,000.
After 5 June 2001, that will be a real risk.
A gun culture is a culture of fear and intimidation
Regulation
2001/7: what it says
Regulation 2001/7: what it says
The focus of Regulation 20001/7 is the weapons of war that no society
tolerates: grenades, pistols and automatic weapons. While its purpose is
to control the large numbers of such weapons still in circulation, the law
will allow some weapons to continue to be owned, carried and/or used by a
limited number of authorized people -- those whose need for them is
authenticated. All other possession is proscribed.
The law does not
apply to hunting and recreational weapons. These will be authorized under
separate legislation.
Weapons definition
The Regulation applies to any instrument designed
or useable for inflicting harm. The following are among the weapons
whose ownership, possession and use require a separate, valid Weapon
Authorization Card: all kinds of guns, grenades and rockets, all forms of
ammunition, stun guns, blank firing and replica weapons as well as
daggers, crossbows, bows and arrows, pepper spray and CS gas. Ammunition
for use with WAC-covered weapons must be standard, full-jacketed,
military-type ball ammunition. Other types, e.g. semi-jacketed, flat-head,
hollow point, will not be authorized.
Who is entitled?
Weapon Authorization Cards will be issued for
specific weapons only to vulnerable persons and their registered and
approved bodyguards. Vulnerability will be determined by the Threat
Assessment Committee set up by UNMIK Police to review WAC applications and
carry out risk, threat and security assessment in relation to vulnerable
persons.
Who is not entitled?
Background checks by UNMIK Police and KFOR will
eliminate WAC applicants having a criminal history, a recorded history
violent behaviour (including domestic violence), mental health problems or
records of confrontations with the police.
Who is responsible?
The sole authority for authorizing weapons
possession and issuance of WACs is UNMIK Police. One exception: KPC
members already in possession of KFOR-issued WACs.
Who risks criminal punishment?
After 5 June 201, people are liable
to 10 years in jail or DM 20,000 in fines if they:
- own, control,
possess or use a weapon without being the holder of a valid WAC for that
weapon.
- use of brandish any weapon or direct others to do
so
- fail to notify UNMIK Police of changes of ownership,
possession or control of an authorized weapon
- provides false
information in connection with a WAC application
- as a
WAC-holder, fail to notify UNMIK Police of changes of address
Other risks
In addition to imprisonment or fines, the UNMIK Police
Commissioner may confiscate any unauthorized weapon, or any authorized
weapons that is used or held in ways not complying with the terms and
conditions of the WAC agreement.
Law enforcement authorities may seize
a weapon if:
- a person=s WAC is suspended or revoked
- a
person cannot or refuses to produce a WAC immediately
- uses a
weapons in a threatening, intimidating or otherwise unauthorized
manner
- there is grounded suspicion that the weapons user has or
is committing a weapons or criminal offence
- the UNMIK Police
Commissioner determines that the authorized weapon is needed for forensic,
criminalistic or ballistic testing.
Note for Editors
For a selection of photographs,
please contact Mr. Ky Chung at 038 504-604 ext. 5467
Contact: P. Ellwood
(038) 504 604 Ext. 5471
E-mail: ellwood@un.org