 February 2004
American Friends Service Committee Peacework Magazine Sara Burke, Managing Editor Sam Diener, Editor Pat Farren, Founding Editor 2161 Massachusetts Ave. Telephone number: Fax number:
pwork@igc.org Peacework has been published monthly since 1972, intended to serve as a source of dependable information to those who strive for peace and justice and are committed to furthering the nonviolent social change necessary to achieve them. Rooted in Quaker values and informed by AFSC experience and initiatives, Peacework offers a forum for organizers, fostering coalition-building and teaching the methods and strategies that work in the global and local community. Peacework seeks to serve as an incubator for social transformation, introducing a younger generation to a deeper analysis of problems and issues, reminding and re-inspiring long-term activists, encouraging the generations to listen to each other, and creating space for the voices of the disenfranchised. Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC. |
Advancing Brazilian Disarmament By Jessica Galeria for Viva Rio, an NGO founded in 1993 to promote nonviolent conflict resolution, human rights, and a gun-free world, www.vivario.org.br/english/.
In an unprecedented decision for Latin America, Brazilians will no longer be allowed to carry firearms following approval of new tougher gun laws in Congress last night (December 11, 2003). The new law, called the Disarmament Statute, received final approval after six hours of debate in the Senate. The decision ends a stalemate in the Brazilian legislature, where dozens of bills to tighten federal gun laws have been sitting in Congress since 1999. The law was debated in several commissions, where the text was reviewed and reworked, and in both houses of Congress beginning in July. Earllier, on May 13, 2003, Mother’s Day, Viva Rio launched the "Choose Gun Free: Your Weapon or me!" campaign. The Mother’s Day activity seeks to empower women as agents of social change and increase pressure for stricter gun control legislation. Civil society organizers consider the biggest victory of the legislation to be a national referendum to vote on an outright ban on gun sales for civilians, to be held in October, 2005. According to a recent poll by Instituto Sensus, 82% of Brazilians were in favor of the Disarmament Statute. The country has the second biggest arms industry in the Americas and the sixth largest in the world. It is a country with one of the world’s highest gun death rates, with around 40,000 gun deaths per year. Several marches held in main state capital cities in Brazil had a strong impact on parliamentarians who voted to approve the new law. The first such mobilization brought together 50,000 people to march for the Disarmament Statute in Rio de Janeiro. The new law is a big defeat for the Brazilian pro-gun lobby. The US-based National Rifle Association (NRA) sent their president to Rio to discuss strategies to defeat the Disarmament Statute in the months before the vote. Tactics of the gun lobby in Brazil include financing electoral campaigns. Brazil is the first country in South America to do so. The Disarmament Statute also tightens up restrictions on owning and carrying guns, and makes it illegal for almost anyone outside the armed forces and police to carry firearms. In addition, the law stipulates that all ammunition must be marked in order to facilitate tracing. The minimum age to purchase firearms will go up from 21 to 25, in a country where young males are killed by firearms at a rate four times higher than that of the general population. It also makes it illegal for youth detention center guards to use guns. Firearms seized by police must be destroyed within 48 hours of being released from the judicial process in which they are implicated, thus avoiding possible stockpile "leaks." 
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