Latin America’s economies have been in decline for some time, but that has not stopped buyers of American arms from going on a spending spree.
Last year, the US Department of States issued a total of $55.3 billion in export licenses, with a enormous share of these weapons, spare parts, manufacturing and technical assistance and related military equipment going to Latin American countries.
Overall, US arms exports in the year 2000 represent a 100 percent increase over licenses granted in 1998. The so-called “655 Report” mandated by section 655 of the Foreign Assistance Act, is the primary government disclosure of US arms export licenses granted by the State Department’s Office of Defense Trade Controls.
According to the report, in Fiscal Year 2000 the State Department granted millions worth of licenses for small arms and ammunition to thirty-one of thirty-eight Latin American countries.
The US issued licenses for thousands of small arms exports to Central American countries currently struggling with domestic violence associated with surplus weapons from armed conflicts between guerrilla movements and governments in the 1980s and 1990s.
Recipients in Latin America also included countries cited last year by the State Department for serious human rights abuses, and in the case of the Dominican Republic and Mexico, two countries the Drug Enforcement Administration identifies as major drug transshipment points.
A recent study of problems associated with the proliferation of small arms in Central America by the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress, a Costa Rican peace and justice organization, compares weapons possession trends and societal violence across the region. Several factors are common to the region: Weak democratic institutions and judicial systems, legalization of firearms, and illegal movement of arms across borders. According to the study, individuals are increasingly buying weapons for protection, and private security companies, often unregulated by governments, have rapidly grown in size.
The Aria Foundation study concludes: “The importation and commercialization of new arms, many of which have a great destructive power and are easily concealed, has increased together with the often irresponsible and sometimes archaic legal mechanisms that legitimize the existence of private battalions and arsenals of weapons.”
Carlos Walker, a program officer with the Arias Foundation, believes that, given the number of firearms issued for export compared to the size of Latin American military and paramilitary forces, a large number of the weapons being licensed by the State Department are destined for private security firms and individuals. This could be problematic, Walker says, “because the state is delegating its responsibility for providing security to its citizens to the private sector.”
Adds Walker: “As long as there are no or little controls and little effective regulations on these private security firms you have to argue that it is a danger to society.”
Significantly, the amount of small arms and light weapons licenses issued last year, and every year since 1996 when this type of information became available, often exceeds the number of personnel under arms in the recipient countries. For example, Costa Rica, which does not have a military, and has only 8,400 police and security forces, could receive 5,987 pistols and revolvers, 2,247 rifles, and over 24 million small caliber ammunition cartridges based on licenses issued in 2000. Since 1996, over 61,000 export licenses for pistols and revolvers to El Salvador were approved while only 36,600 people are in the security forces. Honduras has 14,300 active military and paramilitary forces, but was issued 23,000 licenses for pistols and revolvers since 1996.