UN Conference Agrees Crackdown on Small Arms Trade
[URL]http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010721/ts/arms_un_dc_1.html[/URL]

The draft program of action is at
[URL]http://www.un.org/Depts/dda/CAB/smallarms/files/aconf192_l5.pdf[/URL]

You're surprised?

Disappointed might be a better word.    [V]

No more surplus guns, by the look of it...

Interesting reading!

And they don't want to take away our rights....right.[-!-]

I can't stand the UN and all there BS, why do they keep bothering the U.S. what does american civilians having guns have to do with them.

Original link went down: here's a new link and the text.

[URL]http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010721/ts/arms_un_dc.html[URL]

Reuters
Saturday July 21 7:54 AM ET
UN Conference Agrees Crackdown on Small Arms Trade
By Marjorie Olster

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A U.N. conference reached an unprecedented agreement on Saturday to combat global firearms trafficking, but the final program was less ambitious than many countries had hoped for due to U.S. resistance.

Weary delegates hammered out the final sticking points of the two-week-long conference at a tense, all-night meeting, and nearly all the concessions on language were made to keep from crossing a series of ``red lines'' that Washington had threatened would torpedo any accord.

At the end of the session, the delegates were forced to drop the two most contentious clauses in the agreement, government sales to ``non-state actors'' and restricting civilian possession of small arms, because the United States opposed them.

``I'm happy to tell you that we have a document that reached consensus on this very important issue for all of us. It has been an extremely difficult process,'' said Ambassador Camillo Reyes of Colombia, the conference president, who praised the African countries for their diplomacy.

``Obviously, we could have obtained a better document, no doubt,'' he added when asked about the shortcomings of the final agreement. ``But at the same time I think we have a good start'' to begin ``eradicating the illicit trade of small arms and light weapons.''

The delegates are expected to meet later on Saturday to formally adopt the plan of action.

Though many participants were disappointed at the extent of compromise needed to bring the United States on board and the nonbinding nature of the agreement, most agreed the pact was still an important step forward, if only a first step, toward grappling with an enormous challenge.

``By no means can I consider this conference a failure,'' said former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard. ``We knew it would be extremely difficult, that national interests would be completely contradictory. So it is a good beginning.''

Many delegates accused the George W. Bush administration of pandering to the U.S. gun lobby, including the politically powerful National Rifle Association, but said it was clear there would be no agreement unless they yielded.

GUIDELINES TO CRACK DOWN ON ILLEGAL SMALL ARMS TRADE

The plan sets out broad guidelines for national and international measures to better track and crack down on the $1 billion-a-year business of illegal trade in small arms. The United Nations (news - web sites) says such weapons were used in 46 of 49 major conflicts since 1990, contributing to some 4 million deaths, 80 percent of them of women and children.

As finally approved, the strategy to reduce small arms trafficking was significantly watered down from a draft developed by the United Nations' 189 member-nations during two years of preparations.

-cont-

Delegates conceded most of the main points of contention to Washington, which insisted from the outset that it could not accept any strategy that did not shield private gun owners, makers and dealers.

In the end, the United States made one major concession by agreeing to a follow-up conference no later than the year 2006, an idea it initially resisted.

``They agreed to 85 out of the 86 paragraphs in the program of action,'' said Yasuhiro Ueki, a U.N. official. ``They were very hard negotiations.''

One of the toughest obstacles was Washington's insistence that governments be free to sell arms to ``non-state actors,'' arguing for the right, for example, to help freedom-fighters battling a genocidal regime. In the end, the clause was dropped.

``It was decided to drop those two issues and take them out of the program of action. That did not make a lot of countries happy. Many African countries expressed disappointment,'' Ueki told Reuters.

While the initial draft urged international treaties to clamp down on arms brokers and to institute a global system of small arms marking at the time of manufacture so they could be more easily traced, the final document made no appeal for such legally binding pacts due to U.S. objections.

The agreement instead urged the United Nations to study the feasibility of developing a global marking and tracing regime.

None of the measures are enforceable under international law. Instead they are merely ``politically binding,'' meaning it will be up to member nations to pressure their governments.

Which means it isnt worth the paper its written on- from the globalists perspective this was a complete failure.  Everyone is going to quietly go about busness as usual...

Maybe now the half-baked members of this board
will realize the U.N. is the instrument of
destruction used to destroy our BILL OF RIGHTS.
They want our LAND, our GUNS, and our FREEDOM.

Yes GW really delivered the goods this time, think of what it would have been like if Al Gore's people had been attending this confrence.

I dont know about a dodge- unless you were refering to our last election.

To me it looks like the Bush Admin took on the UN by itself and won.  

I suppose that no one in the UN would be capable of grasping the point that most of the 3.6 million civilians who died in the wars of the 90's would be alive if they had been armed. Even though most of them died from starvation and disease, not hostile action, had they been armed they would have been able to take care of themselves.  They could have enforced their demands for food and medical care.