Asia is world’s top weapons importer
March 20th, 2012Published on Raw Story, by AFP, March 19, 2012.
Asia leads the world when it comes to weapon imports, according to a study released Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute SIPRI. Globally the volume of international transfers of majorconventional weapons was 24 percent higher in the period 2007-11 compared to the 2002-06 period, the report said.
Over the past five years, Asia and Oceania accounted for 44 percent in volume of conventional arms imports, the institute said. That compared with 19 percent for Europe, 17 percent for the Middle East, 11 percent for North and South America, and 9 percent for Africa, said the report … //
… In Europe, Greece was the largest importer between 2007 and 2011, the institute said.
Between 2002 and 2011, Syria increased its imports of weapons by 580 percent — the bulk supplied by Russia — while Venezuela boosted its imports over the same period by 555 percent, it reported.
Throughout the Middle East as a whole, weapons imports decreased by eight percent over the period of the survey.
However SIPRI warned “this trend will soon be reversed.”
Tunisia, where mass protests ousted strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali early last year, launched the so-called Arab Spring and inspired similar movements in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere.
“During 2011, the governments of Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Syria used imported weapons in the suppression of peaceful demonstrations among other alleged violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.
“The transfer of arms to states affected by the Arab Spring has provoked public and parliamentary debate in a number of supplier states,” the report said.
The volume of deliveries of “major conventional weapons” to African nations increased by a massive 110 percent in 2007-2011 over the previous five-year period, with deliveries to North Africa up by 273 percent.
Morocco saw its own imports increase by 443 percent, the report added.
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Stockholm International Peace Research Institute SPIRI: Homepage; Publications; database.