I have been touched by love from all corners of the globe and I am grateful to the Almighty God and my admirers for that. Even as I bask in this glory of abundant security of love and admiration, I do not forget that our world is a troubled one. Troubled with the insecurity of the easy access to small arms and light weapons.

I am troubled by the fact that in my country and in my continent, more than 5,000,000 lives were lost to small arms and light weapons in the past decade.

The weapons that are described as 'small' cause disasters that cannot be described as small.

The internally displaced persons, the refugees teeming out from Africa, the carnage, the death of children, women and unarmed civilians and the human rights violations are a dangerous mix that cannot promote development. We need peace.

Where small arms dominate, development suffers! We need to stop weapons falling into the hands of those who are not authorised to use them. We need to stop the sale of weapons to governments in war-torn countries and conflict systems. All these needs cannot be met if we do not have strong international regulations.

An ECOWAS Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons and the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) are initiatives that certainly will bring peace to our world. For these reasons, please join me to call on the International Community to support the Control Arms campaign.
Abedi Ayew Pele Nov. 2004, Accra, Ghana