ABSTRACT: Since the war the ideological, political and military rivalry between East and West has been at the expense of the interests of eastern and central European people and then the peoples of the the South of the world. The arms race has swallowed up huge amounts of resources that should have gone to the Third World. At the same time, to extend political influence, a myriad of dictators have been armed and supported, often then using the same arms on their own people. What is worse is that both East and the industrialised West have exported models and values that have had devestating effects. The myth of national independence, coupled with the creation of a state bureaucracy and popular armies has been an explosive mixture leading to massacres. Meanwhile in the west the liberal myth was invoked to justify indifference. This is the situation that causes underdevelopment, poverty, famine and illiteracy. A new transnational, democratic, non-violent and international organisation is needed to counter this

state of affairs. This movement must be one which extends over national borders, does not yield to the impotence of international organisations and does not retreat when faced with ethnic conflicts.

(The Party New, n.1, June 1991)

In the wake of the Gulf War, a resolution calling for the creation of an international body to halt the transfer of conventional weapons systems to developing countries has received considerable support in the Italian House of Representatives. It would include a ban on the technology and components that are necessary for the manufacture of such systems as well.

Attempts have already been made to co-ordinate policy on the export of some technology in the formation of the London Suppliers Club, concerned with nuclear energy technology, and the Missile Technology Control Regime (eight western countries are members). On paper, it would not be a large step to extend these efforts to cover the transfer of major conventional weapons systems (planes, warships, missiles, armoured vehicles, artillery, guided missile and other radar systems). Conventional arms in the world are manufactured and sold by a relatively small number of primary producer nations and secondary producer nations. The latter are countries that are totally dependent on foreign patents and components. Altogether, according to figures produced by the International Research Centre for Peace based in Stockholm, about 95% of total military exports to the Third World in 1989 originated in just 11 countries. These are: the Soviet Union, the United States, France, China, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Netherlands

, Czeckoslovakia, Sweden and Spain. Contrary to common belief, the wealth created from arms exports is negligible if compared to the Gross National Product of the producer nations and even more so in respect to their total exports. That is with the exception of the Soviet Union, where, according to the American Arms and Disarmament Control figures, exports of arms made up 20% of total exports in 1987. Furthermore, the transfer of arms between the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere in the last decade has not shown a profit. In 1987, the president of the World Bank, Barber Conable, calculated that a third of the foreign debt of the largest Third World countries can be attributed to arms imports. Since 1985, the American taxpayer has financed about 30% of arms exports to the Middle East, mainly through military assistance programs for which no payment has been made. In this way, a large part of the debts arising from arms sales from North to South have remained unpaid, and in all probability will r

emain so. Finally, it should be remembered that it only needed one Saddam Hussein to consume capital, which had been built up over 20 years from arms exports to the Third World and which was valued, by SIPRI in 1985, at about $390 billion. This is more or less equal to the cost of the war recently waged to liberate Kuwait, plus the reconstruction costs for Iraq and Kuwait.

The formation of a group representing the major weapons systems producers could be the first real step towards stemming the flow of arms from North to South as well as preventing the emergence of another Saddam Hussein. From what we have seen, it would also meet strong criticism, if not downright opposition from those arms exporting countries who the ban would effect. Nevertheless, the Italian legislators who put forward the proposal should regard such a reaction as an encouraging change of policy for the Third World countries, as it would mean that they would have to look for political solutions to their conflicts, through dialogue and collaboration. In addition, the proposal requires industrialised countries, at the same time, to take measures to accelerate the transfer of civil technology to developing countries. Control of transfers could be carried out by a treaty similiar to the one for Nuclear Non-Proliferation. Countries with democratically elected governments which had been shown to have a good huma

n rights record and had reduced their military spending would be favoured in such civil transfers.

It seems contradictory, in our opinion, to oppose the proposal on the grounds that it is discriminatory. People who use this argument surely know that those countries possess the technology to produce weopons systems and they are unlikely to dismantle their arms industries - and are even less likely to agree to a total and universal disarmament - from one day to the next. In the meantime, it is in everyone's interests to halt the flow of arms to developing countries. It is in the exporting countries interests to so, if they really, as they claim, wish to avoid another conflict in the Gulf. It is in the importing countries' interests to stop squandering their scarce resources on the acquisition of lethal war machinery. A second step can be taken when East-West tension has diminished further and the two blocks have been dissolved, to draw up a Conventional Arms Non-Proliferation treaty, in which all nations would commit themselves to cease production and transfer of major weapons systems.

The motion put forward by the Italian members of parliament is a small step in the direction of an ambitious goal to substitute the transfer of military technology with civil. To realise this, other parliaments , in as many countries as possible, should ask their governments to move in the same direction.