MEDIA RELEASE
Released By:
DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND TRADE
The Federal Government will host a major workshop on controlling the movement
of small arms and light weapons in the Pacific region. Up to 40 senior law
enforcement and other officials from Pacific island countries, together with
representatives of Japan, United States and New Zealand, will attend the
workshop in Brisbane from 9 to 11 May.
The unregulated flow of even a limited number of such weapons can have a
destabilising and destructive impact on small Pacific island communities. This
has been brought in to sharp focus by the recent crisis in Solomon Islands and
10 years of conflict in Bougainville.
To help address this problem, the Prime Minister John Howard announced at the
Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting in Tarawa last October that Australia
would host a workshop.
Funded by the Australian Government's Overseas Aid Agency (AusAID), the
workshop will provide participants from Pacific island countries with targeted,
practical advice to control the spread and use of small arms in the region and
in their domestic jurisdictions.
Advancing Australia's national interest by enhancing regional stability is a
major objective of Australia's overseas aid program. The workshop will
contribute to this objective by covering issues such as enactment and
enforcement of legislation, control of official armories, intelligence sharing,
border control and weapons surrender, safe storage and stockpiling, and
destruction.
Pacific island countries to be represented at the workshop include the Cook
Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands,
Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and
Vanuatu.
For further information: David Apps 02 6261 2091