Arms control and disarmament in Southern Africa: An assessment of civil society and state responses in Mozambique 1995 – 2003

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis aims to ascertain the level of success which civil society and state actors have hadin dealing with issues of arms control and disarmament in the SADC region during the post-Cold War era. The main research question shall be divided into two key questions, the firstbeing: How successful have states been in managing arms control and disarmament in theSADC region? The second question being: How successful has civil society been in managingarms control and disarmament in the SADC region? The study is therefore an evaluativestudy and shall be focused on the case study of Mozambique. Two arms control processesshall be evaluated in this regard. First is the 'Transforming weapons into Ploughshares orTAE project which is a civil society campaign aimed at minimizing the harsh impacts thatSmall Arms and Light Weapons have on Mozambican society. The demarcated time periodfor this project shall be 1995-2003. Second is state driven operation between South Africanand Mozambican police aimed at locating and destroying arms caches responsible for fuellingthe illicit trade in light arms between the two countries. This project was known as OperationRachel and shall be evaluated from the period of 1995-2001.Through evaluating these two projects, the study shall seek to make the point that in terms ofarms control in post-conflict developing states, there is a role for both state and civil societies.The role of civil society organizations can be seen as one of identifying security threats,raising public awareness and democratizing security issues such as arms control so thatsociety at large becomes active in negating the problem. The role of the state on the otherhand is to live up to its duties as the chief provider of security for the designated populationwithin the state's territorial boundary. Arms control in Mozambique and in the SADC regionin general has been mediocre at best since as shall be demonstrated, states are far too weak tooffer any meaningful protection to citizens and secondly civil society organizations whichhave taken it upon themselves to offer this kind of protection are just not well resourcedenough to undertake state responsibilities. Thus the key recommendation of this study is thatSouthern African states invariably need to build up their capacities. Light weapons havespread uncontrollably throughout the region because weak and fractured states could notcontain the problem and continue struggling to manage a multitude of security threats. It istherefore up to civil society organizations to build strong societies which can demandstronger state action.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University