26728: Wayne (News) Small Arms Survey (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Desiree Wayne  desiree_wayne@msn.com

The 2005 Small Arms Survey Occasional Paper No. 14 "Securing Haiti's 
Transition: Reviewing Human Insecurity and the Prospects for Disarmament, 
Demobilization, and Reintegration" by Robert Muggah, originally published in 
April 2005 to a flurry of debate has been revised and reissued. The Small Arms 
Survey is an independent research project located at the Graduate Institute of 
International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.  The Paper provides a general 
overview of the human security crisis facing Haiti based on research over 
several months in late 2004 and early 2005.

Among the findings reported are:

Approximately 1,600 individuals have been violently killed since President 
Jean-Bertrand Aristide's ouster in February 2004.  Armed violence is expected 
to escalate in the lead-up to the planned elections. The effects of armed 
violence extend well beyond injury and undermine civilian security. 
Humanitarian and development interventions are regularly impeded by the 
presence of armed force.

Human and national security in Haiti is undermined by the presence of at least 
a dozen distinct types of armed groups, many of whom are embedded in 
communities where they enjoy robust local support, and that are beginning to 
consolidate their power throughout the country.

See the entire report at:

http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/OPs/OP14B-Haiti-English.pdf