[Carcano]

Carcano1891
Posted - 01/25/2007 : 2:56:54 PM
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Hi all, I'm new here.
I thought I'd share this link with pictures of a firearm bonfire in Ethiopia. Have a look and you will make out at least one Carcano and a couple of battered Vetterli carbines (also see the close-ups on barrel markings). The website reports that nearly 1000 bolt action rifles ended up this way, plus some lever action weapons (possibly Remington Rolling Block carbines, whose service in Ethiopia is a story unto itself).

I wonder - did they want to make room for peace, or just for a new stock of AK's?

http://www.saferafrica.org/progs/sa...ent/destructions/ethiopia/ethiopia_photos.php



Papa G
Posted - 01/25/2007 : 11:16:56 PM
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bastages

them poor old firearms deserved better then that

i realize that they look like the rusted and busted, stuff. but such an ending is awful. but then the UN doesn't care that though unusable they are still guns.



NebrHogger
Posted - 01/26/2007 : 7:40:48 PM
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And the net positive result will be exactly nothing. The money they could have gotten from an American importer would have paid for no small amount of food & medicine. (...)



ammolab
Posted - 01/26/2007 : 8:38:40 PM
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Is this a UN program? The website reads as if it is an African Organization, no mention or sight of any UN in this program.



Papa G
Posted - 01/26/2007 : 10:59:36 PM
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there is a couple on the advisery board.

http://www.saferafrica.org/about/advisory.php

besides UN is not neccesary if those involved agree with the UN. don't need no treaty if UN has sympathetic idiots willing to impress UN leadership.

 

[tedley2]

Firearms Destruction

I was just reading about warehouses of Italian weapons that were captured when Addis Abba fell in 1941, in a book DESERT WAR by Alan Moorehead. It's actually a trilogy underone cover, published by Penguin. Moorehead was a correspondent in the Middle East and tells of other arms caches taken from the Italians in Egypt and Libya. Literally, there were warehouses of Italian small arms that were captured.

You have to wonder why Century or IO or some other importer doesn't get to these. I've heard there may be others in the former Yugoslavia and Greece.

 

[jmatchlock]

Makes one real sad. all that history gone.

 

[pastmaster]

Sad pictures from Africa

Very saddened by those pictures. That's what happens when people don't appreciate the past.

 

[corsi]

How does burning some WWII vintage, or earlier, bolt action rifles make Africa safer?

I didn't notice any AK47, AKMs etc in those pictures. Am I just being cynical or does this seem like another feel-good program sponsored by the international community that takes the easy way out in dealing with a real problem. I envision the Ethiopian government scrounging the countryside for some poor farmer's bolt action that he may use to feed/protect his family, while some right or left-wing paramilitary organization that may do the government's dirty work gets to keep their modern assault rifles. What bull.

 

[Carcano]

Corsi, you have correctly summed it up. The Small Arms Focal Points actually promote insecurity, rather than reduce it.

I might write a piece about these scams in www.kenyaimagine.com some time.

Alexander

 

[AK_CZ]

Thing is, just like anywhere else gun control never works, at least for the inocent people. So what we end up with in Africa is the poor tribesmen being unarmed and the warlords raping and killing families and genocide as a result. The down trodden are unarmed and have no way of defending themselves against the thugs.

Instead of the UN destroying these old guns they should be handing them out in villages along with ammo and training them how to use them. Imagine if the Tutsi’s where able to defend themselves…or the minorities and non-Muslims in Darfur were armed, even with these old guns. That or be able shoot an Antelope when famine hits instead of having to pay big $$$ for black market food stuffs from the UN taken by the warlords.

Genocide takes place when one ethnic or religious group is helpless and unarmed. And they just like anyone else can't trust their armed governments to defend them. Not when they keep trading one military thug ruler for another.

Even an "old" gun is a way of getting a better gun from thug with an AK...

 

[corsi]

Couldn't agree more with the last two posts. A favorite quote of mine (I think it is from Ben Franklin) reads:

"Democracy is two wolves and a Lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed Lamb contesting the vote."

My guess is an Ethiopian or Somali from Darfur would agree.

 

[NeedmoreAmmo]

 

[dwmmg08]

How pathetic. "Progress"??? what a worthless stunt...

Typical UN NGO type BS. They stated that they burned 995 or so bolt actions, probably almost all WWI or Pre WWI Antiques, by their own pictures. They also say they burned a bunch of assault & self loading rifles, (There are some AK's and SKS's I can see) and also 65 Machine Guns, which I can't see in any picture anywhere. From what they've got, I'll bet all 65 were antiques also, I recall reading an account where the Ethiopians were using MG08/15's in action in Eritrea, so some may have been those, also Fiat Reviellis from the Italians, also probably antique WWI Austro-Hungarian Schwarzlose MG's.

What a total waste. Nothing gained at all, either for Ethiopia, the people of Africa, or anywhere else. These people are a complete bunch of Liberal BS Parasites.

 

[Carcano]

Don't blame the UN; and keep your political drivel elsewhere. The fault lies with those who implement and abuse such small arms reductions programs for their purposes.

Carcano

 

[Newfoundlander2]

Don't blame the UN; and keep your political drivel elsewhere. The fault lies with those who implement and abuse such small arms reductions programs for their purposes.

Carcano

100% on the nose! It was mentioned in an earlier thread that a Western importer could purchase these items and thereby save them for posterity. The problem is who would really end up with the cash and what other individuals'/"organisations" palms would you have to grease to get these pieces out of country?

 

[jmatchlock]

MONEY - there is no money to be made -with the old guns ! that is why Italy a few years ago detroyed a lot of Carcanos as no one wanted them ! the inporters do not have the money to buy all the old guns in the world ! in most places $50 will buy you a nice AKM . Thank You, Jay

 

[keithreid]

there were ak's in the pile, saw at least one garand, too.

carcano, if they keep their political drivel elsewhere, will you do the same with your arrogant opinions?

y'all have a good day, Keith

 

[Carcano]

100% on the nose! It was mentioned in an earlier thread that a Western importer could purchase these items and thereby save them for posterity. The problem is who would really end up with the cash and what other individuals'/"organisations" palms would you have to grease to get these pieces out of country?

Yes, that's a valid question. Indeed, the same sad practice of destroying rare and valuable artifacts can be observed everywhere in the world: be under the direction of the European Union in the Balcans, be it in Iraq under the US military occupation regime, be it in Africa through NGOs (notably IANSA, and many others like BICC and and the former Saligad project) and the national governmental "small arms focal points".

http://www.recsasec.org/

What is destroyed are not only ex-military weapons of yesterday and today (in the pictures from Uganda and Kenya, one could spot a lot of G-3s and AK-47s), but frequently arms that are of little danger anyhow, and which could well be sold to importers and ultimately collectors in order to gather much-needed revenue. The real reasons for widespread violence cannot be reduced to the presence of arms; actually, it's cultural institutions that foster it. In a dry article in the "Daily Nation", one Kenyan on the ground pointed out two of them, namely bride price and moranism: http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=109985

There are few instances where such pseudo-"disarmament" has had any positive effect, instead of just endangering vulnerable people even more. One such positive example is Somaliland, which anyhow is one of the few real success stories of today's Africa. I wonder what they did there with the collected weaponry?

Carcano