Weapons Stockpiles as Assets and Private Armies as Normal?

Digging a bit deeper (on the issue of my last post), I discovered a great explanation of an often-overlooked aspect of Pakistan’s gun proliferation problem a few days ago in The News (a Pakistani newspaper). Despite knowing of the widespread militancy unfortunately spreading in Pakistan, it is hard to accept that nearly 500 private armies are freely operating within the territory. These are not terrorist groups. They are not insurgents. And nor are they state forces (officially speaking). They are literally small gangs that are individually operated by the country’s elites. To say these private armies are ‘well-equipped’ would be an understatement. Reportedly, some even have anti-aircraft guns and rocket launchers – off-the-record, one would presume. In many cases, however, their weaponization is acknowledged with formal licenses – acknowledged, but not condemned. For the Pakistani resident and reporter Naeem Sadiq, “De facto, this is endorsement of the existence of a small group of powerful and influential people licensed to use violence to control lesser beings.” No wonder so many so-called ‘lesser beings’ (which needless to say, they are not) are driven to sleeping with unlicensed  guns under their beds, just in case. (See previous post: Guns Galore; Solutions Scarce.)

The small armies are not limited to the protection of the individual elites they are loyal too, nonetheless. These private armies are doing public harm, in effect with the tacit approval of the state. They kill and pillage; rape and murder. Far from a minor problem, “the lives and properties of citizens thus become hostage to state-licensed warlords.” One more violent group to fear – just what every ordinary Pakistani really needs.

All this continues with the blessings of the Pakistan Arms Ordinance of 1965, which supposedly creates loopholes that allow elites to acquire hundreds of weapons licenses to distribute as they please. Imagine my oh-so-unexpected surprise when I learned that these elites often issue all their allotted licenses to themselves! The Ordinance is criticized for being both discriminatory and arbitrary:

“The Arms Ordinance is nothing but a discretionary instrument of political bribery, appeasement and violence. When the members of the government grant arms licenses to their own cronies, the state itself triggers an arms race and forces those less influential and rich to acquire weapons illegally in order to maintain a balance of weaponization. By permitting invariably incompetent and corrupt state officials to grant arms licenses on a mass scale, the Pakistan Arms Ordinance has become a root cause of the arming of militant urban and feudal warlords.”

So again, violence begets more violence, especially in unstable conflict environments. Pakistan is already facing a multi-dimensional internal security crisis. Does the state need to facilitate – and must the people suffer – the corrupt arming of already powerful elites?

Sadiq suggests repelling the Arms Ordinance and beginning programs of de-weaponization throughout the country, beginning at its epicenter in Karachi. This is a worthy ideal to hold onto, but I suspect it may be a tiny bit off-center from reality. Solutions cannot simply ride the winds of idealism; unfortunately they must also be tied to the windproof counterweight of realism. Let’s start with stopping the licensing games…

smallarmssasia