Cash for guns or buy-back programmes in post-conflict states have fallen out of favour as a method of ridding a society of weapons, and have been replaced by often elaborate schemes designed to remove money from the equation,\u00a0but the debate continues as to the best way forward.<\/p>\n
The disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) community has grappled for years with buy-back practices and acknowledges they can have a profound effect on the nature of peace and even encourage a return to conflict. However, sometimes they can be termed \u201cgood practice\u201d.<\/p>\n
Nelson Alusala, author of a monograph published recently by the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies<\/a> – entitled Reintegrating ex-Combatants in the Great Lakes Region<\/a>, and charting the largest DDR programme ever undertaken to support about 400,000 ex-combatants in nine countries – outlines the dangers of buy-back.<\/p>\n A buy-back scheme by the UN Mission in Liberia<\/a> (UNMIL) \u201cled to a near disaster\u201d at Camp Schieffellen, about 35km east of the capital Monrovia, when former warring parties of the country\u2019s more than decade-long conflict gathered to exchange weapons for cash.<\/p>\n On 7 December 2003 international peacekeepers were overwhelmed when more than four times the expected 250 people arrived at the camp, carrying weapons from AK-47 assault rifles to mortars, under the impression they would walk away with US$300 for each weapon surrendered.<\/p>\n \u201cThe riot began when they found out they would receive only $150 and the other $150 at the end of a three-week demobilization course,\u201d Alusala said. In the ensuing pandemonium, as weapons were discharged in frustration, nine people were killed.<\/p>\n Alusala told IRIN he was doubtful about the benefits of cash incentives, as the cash was often spent by beneficiaries within a few days on \u201calcohol, drugs and sex workers\u201d.<\/p>\n Apart from buy-backs raising expectations, other shortcomings were the practice of \u201cdouble dipping\u201d – where beneficiaries assume different identities to benefit from cash rewards multiple times – a malpractice \u201cmost common at the disarmament stage during the buy-back events, when cash is normally exchanged for weapons,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Inherent dangers<\/p>\n <\/strong>Andreas Mehler of the Institute of African Studies at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies<\/a>, told IRIN: \u201cCash payments have shown their limits in several cases. In West Africa former commanders were gate-keepers and got part of the money when they selected the ex-combatants to be disarmed – a perverse effect prolonging authority patterns from times of war. There might be `good practice\u2019 out there, but [also] inherent grave dangers\u2026 My gut feeling is that there is no universal solution.\u201d<\/p>\n Danny Hoffman<\/a> of Duke University\u2019s Department of Anthropology, in his 2003 study entitled Like Beasts in the Bush: Synonyms of Childhood and Youth in Sierra Leone<\/a>, recounts the disarmament process supervised by peacekeepers which attracted the surrender of weapons for blankets, buckets, slippers, soap and a small cash payment.<\/p>\n The problem was that the Kamajors militia structures meant that commanders held onto the weapons of the rank and file, and sought to profit from them.<\/p>\n \u201cAs Ali [a military commander] told me, if a commander held four or five firearms, maybe he would ask for a little something in return for giving them out to a few of his men,\u201d Hoffman said in his study.<\/p>\n Hoffman told IRIN the goal of DDR in Sierra Leone was primarily to remove weapons in circulation, but it was a \u201closing proposition\u201d considering how effective the arms trade was in supplying light weapons to conflict zones.<\/p>\n \u201cThe more serious problem is that the DDR model as it stands treats combatants as individuals, when any real `demobilization\u2019 and `reintegration\u2019 needs to deal with the networks that armed, mobilized and controlled these fighters in the first place.<\/p>\n \u201cAt least in Sierra Leone and Liberia, these networks continued to control ex-combatants very effectively after the war,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI know a number of critics of the DDR process have argued that all that money should be going to fighters’ home communities and the war’s victims. I am sympathetic to that view, though I think it\u2019s a little simplistic. If I had to make one concrete reform, it would be to use the funds available to enrol fighters in well-structured and relevant jobs training and public works projects, and to do so as entire units,\u201d Hoffman said.<\/p>\n The UN DDR Resource Centre<\/a> is cautious about buy-back practices and says on its website: \u201cIncentives may be directly linked to the disarmament, demobilization or reintegration components of DDR, although care should be taken to avoid the perception of `cash for weapons\u2019 or weapons buy-back programmes when these are linked to the disarmament component. If used, incentives should be taken into consideration in the design of the overall programme strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n The UN\u2019s aversion to cash payments for weapons, DDR specialist Wolf-Christian Paes told IRIN, was premised, among other things, on the argument it can create demand and \u201ccontribute to the cross-border proliferation of weapons\u201d. The UN promotes programmes either dealing with collective incentives, such as arms-for-development \u201cor more rarely non-cash individual incentives, `goods-for-guns\u2019, for example in the Balkans\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n Low overheads<\/p>\n <\/strong>Paes said where other incentives were used in the place of cash, such as lottery tickets in Macedonia, or tools in Mozambique, these essentially became \u201cproxies for cash\u201d, where people simply sold the supplied goods. \u201cI think we need to have another look at cash incentives in the context of post-conflict stabilization.\u201d<\/p>\n A paper published by York University\u2019s Post-war Reconstruction and Development Unit entitled Guns, Camps and Cash: Disarmament, Demobilization and Reinsertion of Former Combatants in Transitions from War to Peace<\/a>, by Mark Knight and Alpaslan \u00d6zerdem, said the incomplete Mozambican disarmament process contributed \u201cto the proliferation of weapons, not only throughout that country, but also in neighbouring countries such as South Africa, Zambia and Malawi. By 1998, Mozambique constituted the single largest source of small arms to the South African domestic market.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCash payments require comparatively low overheads compared with other interventions, which make them popular with some donors but not with the UN Development Programme, are easily understood by all actors and most importantly actually work. Personally, I’m in favour of using them under some circumstances,\u201d Paes said.<\/p>\n Cash sometimes appropriate<\/p>\n <\/strong>DDR specialist and a consultant with the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey<\/a> Lydia Stone told IRIN: \u201cThe arguments against using cash in DDR programmes are many and well documented. However, we should not throw the baby out with the bath water – even though many dismiss the practice as open to corruption and abuse and creating the impression among affected communities of rewarding people who have committed terrible acts.\u201d<\/p>\n She recommends a more nuanced approach to cash rewards, but sees the money incentive \u201csolely for the disarmament phase\u201d as \u201ca bad idea\u201d.<\/p>\n