Alexander Nikolic Pisarev is a long time investigative journalist and analyst, working with CIVIL. His knowledge about arms control and security issues in the country and the region was a valuable addition to the project “Past, present and future of arms control in the Republic of North Macedonia”. This conversation took place on December 8. CIVIL’s project “Past, present and future of arms control in the Republic of North Macedonia” is implemented with the support of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime and the Resilience Fund.
Transcript of his video analysis follows:
When talking about illegal weapons and arms smuggling, there are two important elements we need to connect. With the break-up of the former Federal Socialist Yugoslavia, its constructive elements became separate states. However, the communications that connect those countries, the communications that connected the neighboring municipalities between Macedonia and Serbia, between Serbia and Montenegro, between Montenegro and Kosovo, have now become new states with new borders. However, despite the fact of the established borders, the communications remained and those communications were in some way impossible to fully control, and the control of those communications was actually taken over by the mafia and criminal groups using them for their own needs.
The second element, that strongly influenced the illicit arms trade, were the events in Albania and the former Yugoslavia with the disintegration of the Yugoslav National Army, and at one point we had some 550 thousand pieces of weapons and about 839 million pieces of ammunition, 16 million packs of various explosives from Albania, which passed into the hands of criminal groups.
These criminal groups began to transport and smuggle these illegal weapons, first along the illegal roads in the Western Balkans, but as time passed by and as the price of weapons began to fall, those weapons began to spill over into the neighbouring countries especially, and in the countries of the European Union, where both the warnings of the EU and their research centres indicated that such uncontrolled arms smuggling could destabilize some European countries.
What happened next and why is that so? Let’s say the price of a Kalashnikov in the former Yugoslavia, including Albania and Kosovo, reaches a price of up to 300 euros, but the same Kalashnikov, if you transfer it to any country in the European Union, reaches a price of up to 3,000 euros.
This clearly indicates how much the criminal groups are interested in somehow transferring the weapons left in this area to the countries of the European Union. This normally worries European governments as it could lead to security risks.
An interesting situation arose after Brexit. In England, the police practically did not even carry firearms and where the level of crime would end with cold weapons (knives, etc.), a large number of weapons began to be transferred from the Balkan countries and into the territory of this country, which is a worrying moment.
The second thing is that even large arms manufacturers, as the practice has shown over the years, when the demand for legal weapons decreases and when large restrictive measures are introduced in the procurement of legal weapons, large factories begin to supply criminals in connection with organized smugglers of weapons to deliver part of their arsenal through the black market. Nowadays it is very difficult to control all the roads on which illegal weapons are being moved.
There is an interesting example, at the beginning of the 20th century, of what Montenegro did at the time to prevent illegal weapons. By decree, it ordered that every male in Montenegro must possess a weapon but that weapon must be bought from the state. Thus, arms control was established.
It is important to establish a system in addition to the security that will control the illegal channels of arms smuggling, to establish a system to ensure the control of legal weapons. The more restrictive the laws on the procurement of legal weapons, the greater the smuggling of illegal weapons and crime.
Camera: Dehran Muratov
Video editing: Arian Mehmeti
Translation: Natasha Cvetkovska
Editing: Diana Tahiri
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