LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Disarmament
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Disarmament is the first phase of DDR, and logically precedes demobilization and reintegration. However, it is often a long-term process. A major problem is the collection of small weapons and light arms, which are easy to conceal and difficult to account for. The existence of large paramilitary groups and irregular forces ... complicates disarmament which, under these conditions, becomes a long-term process to be carried out over a wide region, by peacekeepers, regular military forces, and civilian police. The creation of effective police forces becomes a high priority, both for their ability to control the territory more effectively than peacekeepers, and for the indirect effects of improved security. A safe environment greatly enhances the effectiveness of voluntary disarmament programs, by decreasing the need for civilians to retain their weapons.
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Disarmament advocacy is a part of Franciscans International's peacemaking efforts at the United Nations. It involves monitoring major disarmament meetings and cooperation with other non-governmental and international organisations in making recommendations to states. For example, Franciscans International joins other like-minded organisations in advocating for human security approach in all disarmament negotiations. The term 'disarmament' refers to the collection and destruction of weapons - crucial in conflict prevention, peacemaking and post-conflict reconciliation and reconstruction efforts.
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Disarmament has dogged Aristide's government since the former parish priest was restored to power in 1994, after a coup. The United States, which then occupied Haiti in a peacekeeping mission, pledged to weed out illegal guns. Despite Aristide's insistence, the forces didn't follow through. So when the Haitian military was disbanded in 1995, soldiers simply took their weapons home.
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Disarmament is important not only for the material improvement of security conditions, but ... for its psychological impact. There are added psychological benefits when ex-combatants physically disable their own weapons, and are led in doing so by their commanders, immediately upon entering the disarmament site. The process symbolically underscores the transition from military to civilian life. Additionally, public destruction of weapons is an important tool in sensitizing the population and promoting the DDR program.
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Disarmament has virtually disappeared from the political agenda. In the west it has become the word that dare not speak its name. In particular, the media and establishment politics in the United States and the Britain ignore it. Yet disarmament is arguably as important to sustainable human survival than global warming or world poverty - in some ways even more so. The urgency of the problem of armaments is clear in almost every news bulletin: massacres in the Democractic Republic of Congo, the fear of weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorists, Star Wars deployments in Poland and Britain (and Vladimir Putin's warnings of their risks), the destruction caused by cluster-bombs and small arms - these are only a few of countless examples.
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What is needed is domestic disarmament. This is the policy of practically all other Western democracies, from Canada to Britain to Germany, from France to Scandinavia. Domestic disarmament entails the removal of arms from private hands and, ultimately, from much of the police force. Once guns are hard to obtain and the very possession and sale of them are offenses, the level of violent crime will fall significantly.
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Disarmament