Lima, May 20, 2005. Experts from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defense and the Interior and from the Customs departments of the Andean Community countries today recommended the preparation of Community legislation to regulate control of the importation, exportation and movement of firearms, explosives and related materials in the subregion.

This and other recommendations were formulated at the Workshop on the “Importation, exportation and movement of firearms in the Andean Community,” organized by the CAN General Secretariat in cooperation with the Government of Peru, the OAS Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission and the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development.

A series of conclusions and recommendations were formulated at the meeting, of which the most important underscore the need to develop harmonized measures for the effective control of firearms in the subregion; to create national, subregional and regional networks in order to reinforce cooperation; and to train the main actors, among other political, legal and customs recommendations. All of these come within the framework of the implementation of the Andean Plan to Prevent, Fight and Eradicate Illicit Trafficking in Small Arms and Light Weapons in all its Aspects (Decision 552).

In closing the Workshop, CAN Secretary General, Allan Wagner Tizón, indicated his adherence to the initiative of preparing a common legislative provision on international traffic in arms and offered his support for putting this and the other recommendations approved at the meeting into practice. He also drew attention to the importance of the legal instruments the Andean Community already posses for confronting the challenges created by new security threats.

Wagner also brought up the need for deeper reflection about the structural or other elements that contribute to the proliferation and continued existence of patterns of violence in societies affected by poverty, exclusion and historical social gaps.

In concluding, he reaffirmed the will of the Andean Community General Secretariat to establish closer cooperation links with the co-organizing institutions “with a view to multiplying experiences of this kind that help find shared solutions to the serious problem of arms trafficking.”