Columbia International Affairs Online
CIAO DATE: 4/5/2008
Avoiding Disarmament Failure: The Critical Link in DDR An Operational Manual for Donors, Managers, and Practitioners
February 2007
Abstract
The disarmament of combatants from warring groups in armed conflict is vital to establishing the state’s monopoly over the use of force in a country. The dissolution of fighting forces and the reintegration of their former members into society are likewise essential for long-term peace and stability, and the development of the country’s national economy.
Each phase of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) is fraught with pitfalls that threaten the transition to peace. But perhaps the most delicate and urgent component is disarmament, which encompasses the handover of weapons and ammunition to the government or a designated authority, their registration, their safe storage, and, if required, their destruction. All of these steps have political, legal, administrative, organizational, financial, logistical, and security aspects that must be taken into account.
The disarmament literature is already replete with technical manuals and other publications designed to help experienced practitioners and donors implement disarmament projects, and this manual does not attempt to duplicate them. It is hoped that the value of this publication is to highlight for the engaged but largely uninformed reader some of the most important obstacles to disarmament in DDR. Most usefully, the manual uses real-world examples to suggest ways to navigate those obstacles effectively.
Given the strong links that disarmament shares with both demobilization and reintegration activities, some of the analysis in this manual inevitably touches on the process of DDR as a whole. When doing so, it focuses heavily on the DDR programme in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where the author is the Head of DDR operations for the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), and draws on examples from several other countries, such as Burundi, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Haiti.
