The Peruvian government decided to demand from the multilateral international organisms more rigorous rules for the concession of credits and financial support to the countries that spend with weapons purchase.

The opinion belongs to president Alan García, who opened, this Monday, in Lima, the seminar “Peace, Security and Development in the Latin America”, sponsored by the ministry of Foreign Relations of the country.

At present, Peru chairs the South American Council of Defense (CDS), of the Union of the South American Nations (UNASUR), where it defends the adoption of transparent criteria on the expenses in defense of the member-countries.

According to Alan García, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) should apply a similar mechanism of conditions to the countries that want credits to arm themselves.

According to him, “we can´t remain silent without complaining to the multilateral institutions so that they begin to think and to demand conditions of respect to the peace and to the armament, before granting credits that, in one or other way, feed and turn into arms races”.

In his evaluation, part of the resources obtained by the countries together with the international financial organisms is used in the weapons purchase.

“The multilateral institutions should impose, as condition, knowing what each country does in terms of armament because, otherwise, money that was lent for the construction of a bridge ends up being used in the purchase of an atomic submarine and this is an absurdity”.

For Garcia, the social networks also should be used in the defense of the concepts of peace, security and development.

He reminded that the election of the North American president Barack Obama is due, in large part, to the social networks that mobilized thousands of young people and that today, also the young people demand freedom and religious tolerance in the Arab world.

Analysis of the News

Marcelo Rech

Brazil still doesn´t know in which rhythm the military programs evolved after the cut of R$ 4 billions in the budget of the Defense.

In Colombia there is preoccupation with the possible reduction of the North American resources sent to the struggle against the drug trafficking and to the guerrillas.

Bolivia bets in a partnership with Russia to acquire airplanes and helicopters and, recently, reopened four quarters in the frontier with Paraguay.

It also received from China almost US$ 3 millions in war equipments.

Worried, the government of Peru wants to implement, in the context of the UNASUR, the mechanisms of transparency of military expenses.

While treating the subject in an event carried out by the ministry of Foreign Relations, Peru looks for the international recognition to its foreign politics turned to the peace and to the disarmament.

In the last five years, the expenses with the weapons purchase grew 150 percent. In 2009, there were applied US$ 51.8 billions in weapons, according to the International Institute for the Peace, of Stockholm.

The threats to the regional peace aren´t conventional and there is no scenario in which is cogitated the possibility of a conflict between countries in the South America, what, in part, doesn´t justify such expenses.

The region is threatened by young criminal bands, the organized crime, the drug trafficking and the guerrillas that act in Colombia and seem to return to Peru itself.

To fight these problems, the countries don´t need tanks, fighters or nuclear submarines.

On the other hand, the poverty rates in the region are still alarming.

According to data of the Economical Commission for the Latin America (CEPAL), 32.1 percent of the Latin-Americans are poor and 12.9 % live in indigence conditions.

In the whole region, they are 180 million poor people.

The worst is that not even the financial crises of 2008 and 2009 discouraged the expenses in ships, tanks, helicopters and sophisticated airplanes of combat.

Since December of 2010, Peru defends the homologation of the regional military expenses.

The measure intends to generate mutual confidence, though the countries have no conditions of adopting a limit for the military expense.

What is wanted is to make transparent this expense, so that each member of the UNASUR knows how much the others invest in defense.

In this sense, Peru already has bilateral agreements with Chile and Ecuador.

The region expects now that Brazil, under the administration of Dilma Rousseff, puts the eradication of the poverty in the top of the priorities and that the military expenses are postponed.