Developing, managing, and sharing knowledge on natural resources, conflict, and peacebuilding
Library / The Impact of Illicit Arms on Security: Case Study...
Source: University of Nairobi, 2016
Author(s): Ndambuki Muthike
Topics: Conflict Causes, Livelihoods, Renewable Resources, Weapons, Waste, and Pollution
One of the major challenges facing countries that are vulnerable to conflict is the existence of illicit small arms. This is because the illicit small arms open up opportunities for non-state actors to initiate and engage in continuous armed violence. Additionally, the ease of accessibility to small arms by individuals or insurgent groups is a key component in the endless internal conflicts in countries. With the demand for the small arms exceeding the supply, civil war is easily waged in countries at the brink of conflict against the sovereign governments.1 Klare2 states that antigovernment groups easily assemble enough weapons to wage an insurgency or revolution. The author further adds that the features of small arms are quite distinct making them desirable to insurgent forces, ethnic militias, criminal bands as well as other paramilitary forces. These features include; availability and affordability, lightweight enabling the people handling them to easily move on the ground, their small nature which makes it quite easy to conceal and hide from opponents or targets. It is against this backdrop of the small arms features (lightness, operation, conceal ability, affordability and availability) that the weapons are commonly used in times of conflicts including all internal conflicts that have taken place during the post Cost War era.