Guy Lamb, Programme Head: Arms Management Programme, ISS Pretoria Office

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on the Control of Firearms, Ammunition and Related Materials (2001) provides for the regulation of arms brokering activities in SADC Member States. In this regard, section 5.3(m) of the protocol stipulates that State Parties should incorporate provisions that “regulate firearm brokering” in their national laws “as a matter of priority”. However, only two of these Member States have specific legislative provisions to regulate brokering activities, namely Mauritius and South Africa.

Arms brokering activities are prohibited on Mauritian soil, although government agencies and firearm dealers may use brokers based in other countries to source limited and government approved orders of arms and ammunition. The Mauritian government is currently pursuing a relatively stringent approach to firearms control. The legal prohibition of arms brokering is one of the elements of this firearms control regime.

South Africa has the most advanced arms industry in Africa, which was established in the late 1930s. In the context of a United Nations (UN) Security Council arms embargo, South Africa’s arms industry expanded significantly in the 1970s and 1980s due to substantial government investment. In essence, the South African government was seeking to source arms, ammunition and military equipment domestically. In the late-1980s, following South Africa’s military withdrawal from Angola and Namibia, as well as a substantial reduction in the capital expenditure component of the defence budget, the defence industry began to prioritise exports. Consequently, arms brokering activities gained momentum from the early 1990s.

In 1995, the South African Cabinet penned a new arms export control policy, which was converted into legislation in 2002 (National Conventional Arms Control Act). The motivation to draft the new arms export control policy was largely due to the actions of a Lebanese arms broker (Eli Wazan) who facilitated the export of South African arms to Yemen by means of fraudulent end user certificates. Since 1995 there has been significant arms brokering activity, both licit and illicit, on South African soil. This prompted the South African government to include relatively detailed arms brokering controls in the 2002 National Conventional Arms Control Act. This year, amendments to this act, which seek to strengthen arms brokering controls, were presented to the South African Parliament for consideration.

Brokering regulations are not entirely absent in the legislative and policy frameworks of the SADC member states. Rather, some of the dimensions of arms brokering are regulated implicitly by means of arms and ammunition import, export and transport control measures. Arms and ammunition transfers are typically regulated by means of a permit or licence system, where in most cases, any individual or entity requires official documentation to transfer arms, ammunition across, into or out of the country. However, these SADC Member States have not developed regulatory mechanisms to control the activities of individuals and entities that engage in arms brokering in countries other than where they are based or registered to conduct business.

In 2007, the Southern African Police Chiefs Cooperation Organisation (SARPCCO), in partnership with the Institute for Security Studies, devised standard operating procedures for the implementation of key elements of the SADC Protocol. The objective of such operating procedures was to provide policymakers, legislative officers and firearms control practitioners with guidance on the manner in which national legislation should be amended for it to conform to the SADC Protocol. A number of these operating procedures relate to the regulation of arms brokering activities. Currently these operating procedures are in the process of being implemented, and are being employed by both the governments of Botswana and Namibia. The SARPCCO small arms co-ordinating committee will meet in October this year to discuss the further implementation of these operating procedures.