Control Arms Launches New Media Campaign

Posted: 21 January 2006

New initiative announced at World Social Forum in Mali, and six other countries.

The Control Arms campaign launched a new media campaign in seven West African capitals on January 19th, the latest initiative in the effort to promote strict controls in the trade of small arms and light weapons in the region.

Campaign allies Oxfam International, Amnesty International, and the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) announced the new media campaign just before the World Social Forum in Bamako, Mali.

The new materials in the campaign feature well-known recording artists, actors, and writers, including Omar Pène, Nix, Philippe Monteiro and Youssou Ndour, from Senegal, reggae artist Tiken Jah Fakoly, and A'Salfo from Côte d’Ivoire, the Nigerian actress Dakore Egbuson, Jacob Desvarieux (founder of the group Kassav) from the French Antilles, and Angélique Kidjo of Benin.

All lent their picture and voice to videos, posters, and post cards promoting the campaign, featuring key facts about the global arms trade, and urging people to sign the Million Faces petition. The Million Faces petition is collecting digital photos and self portraits from around the world as a way to show support for an International Arms Trade Treaty.

The goal of the campaign is to reach 1 million participants by June 2006, and use the widespread support for the campaign to push governments to toughen rules on the trade in arms. The goals of the Control Arms campaign in West Africa are to specifically encourage members of the Economic Community of West Africanm States (ECOWAS) to change the 1998 moratorium on the trade in small arms and light weapons in the region into a more strict, legally-binding convention on the weapons trade across the region.

Press conferences to launch the new campaign were held simultaneously in Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, Mali, and Niger, attracting more than 130 journalists. There is intense interest in the arms trade in West Africa, where civil war and small-scale communal conflicts have killed millions and exacerbated poverty.

“We support this campaign,” said the well-known musician Omar Pène at a press conference in Dakar, “because we need something other than war. We must dedicate a great deal of effort to this campaign, and believe in it. This campaign is important because it will allow us to move forward, I’m sure of that.”

Mamadou Bitèye, senior program officer for Oxfam America in West Africa, welcomed the participation of the artists in the campaign because they speak for the people of West Africa, and will help promote the use of the radio and television spots featuring the artists. “The poster, and radio and TV spots will be distributed free of charge to television, radio and print media who are willing to run them,” he said.

In Bamako the Control Arms campaign took advantage of the World Social Forum, as well as the African reggae festival organized by Tiken Jah Fakoly. The new TV spots featuring him and the other West Africa artists were shown during the festival concert, in front of a crowd of 20,000 people.