Books
From
the Barrel of the Gun
Ekram
Kabir's study on small arms proliferation sheds light on a
menace that has threatened to tear apart our already fragile
democracy.
The post-Soviet
unipolar world has been witnessing a flurry of unauthorised
small arms falling into the hands of warlords and insurgents.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, about 10,000 or
more people have died due to small arms. In his first book,
titled 'Proliferation of Unauthorised Small Arms', journalist
Ekram Kabir traces back this threat to the cold war; due to
which, he writes, "more and more small arms are pumped
in by the western powers to fight Communism in Indo-China".
During
the early eighties, things got even worse for these South-east
Asian countries, as ethnic insurgents started to use poppy-trade
to fuel their war. This disturbing trend repeated itself across
South Asia too. The Soviet-backed revolution led to a bloody
and ruthless civil war in Afghanistan; and the mujahideens,
armed with the blessings and military logistics of the US,
flooded the already volatile underground arms market with
the latest devices.
"During
the war in Afghanistan, of the original 900 stringer SAMS
that the US supplied to Pakistan to deliver to the Mujahideens,
as many as 560 were untraceable," Ekram writes. Unbridled
arms business, soon followed by poppy-trading, wreaking havoc
in Afghanistan and Southern Pakistan where thousands of Afghan
refugees were staying in camps.
Another
major source of illegal arms in the region has been the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE). When the Indian government withdrew
its support in the eighties, the LTTE kept its supply-line
up and running by developing a unique international network.
Unauthorised
arms proliferation has taken a grave turn in the early nineties.
In fact,
US, the world's only superpower, is also the world's largest
producer of small arms. "It has the largest number of
companies for a single country that produce small arms or
ammunition, is a major exporter of small arms, and is estimated
to have one of the world's largest domestic markets for small
arms," Ekram writes.
In Asia,
China produces the largest cache of small arms, most of which
are used by its own army. Ekram, quoting a recent study writes
that, " At its peak the Chinese military inventory probably
totalled at least 27 million firearms, probably the biggest
in the world."
So, how
do these weapons make their journey from a manufacturing plant
in North America or Europe to the ragged terrain of Nepal
or yam fields of Uganda? In varied ways, writes Ekram; of
them one is stealing arms and ammunition from national storehouses.
Ekram
has discovered that some manufacturing companies, in connivance
with their governments, forge documents to supply arms to
Sierra Leone or Liberia, countries that are under arms embargo.
Ekram
touches the threads of this threat to world peace with brilliance,
but what makes the book a must for any researcher is its portrayal
of the local scenario. And it is quite grim indeed. The country,
which was primarily used as a transit for smuggling weapons
in the late eighties, has now become a big market itself.
Ekram's
investigation goes deep down into this thriving business;
with a journalist's nose and a writer's mastery, he tracks
down the types and nature of the weapons used in Bangladesh.
Huge caches of arms that were used to fight the Pakistani
occupation forces have never been surrendered. Three other
major sources of arms procurement that Ekram has found in
his study are external sources like, "a foreign government
that gives arms to friendly insurgents, international arms
dealers and individuals/insurgents who sympathise with insurgents
of another country."
Signs
of a researcher's hard work are evident in every page of this
book. The writer does not even forget to sprinkle some wit
on this sordid saga; while describing brands of pistols, readers
get to know things like what 32-bore (Ruby pistol) or 22-bore
(tokai pistol) pistols are called in the curb market. Ekram's
prose is, in most cases, pleasantly intelligible and at times
gets poetic ("Crawling with crime and sleaze, Dhaka's
underworld is a place where the extent of murder, mayhem and
the use of illegal arms would put any mafia movie to shame").
Though
throughout the book Ekram mesmerises the reader with his mastery
over the subject, readers may stumble on some acute bouts
of sloppy editing. The indigenous people of the Chittagong
Hill Tracts are referred to as Juma people (instead of Jhumma).
Apart
from the slip-ups, Ekram's first book is thorough, extensive
and a job well done. It is something researchers working on
national security issues in the country have looked forward
to, and Ekram quenches their thirst well. A must read.
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