NEPAL ARMED VIOLENCE ASSESSMENT Issue Brief Number 2 May 2013 Legacies of War in the Company of Peace Firearms in Nepal Introduction re-establish political stability and cope Private firearms in Nepal are esti- with post-conflict violence. mated to number 440,000. Roughly When Nepal’s civil war ended in 2006, Responses to armed violence have one-eighth (55,000) are believed to the country had changed fundamen- not been based on clear information be legally registered. tally. Legacies of the war included the about the scale or distribution of weap- Most privately owned firearms are end of the monarchy and the accom- ons in the country. It is not clear what unregistered craft weapons, referred modation of Maoist rebels (Unified kinds of firearms are in Nepal or where to as country-made or katuwas. Communist Party of Nepal–Maoist, they are concentrated. There are estimated to be roughly UCPN-M), who were integrated into the This Issue Brief applies published 330,000 of these. government. A total of 1,462 Maoists reports and data, as well as estimation Despite a decade of warfare, pri- (including 71 officers) were selected techniques, to explore the scale and vate firearm ownership remains for integration into the Nepal Army distribution of firearm ownership in low by global standards. The rate (Pun, 2012). Like many post-conflict post-conflict Nepal. Its major findings amounts to approximately 1.7 fire- societies, Nepal is struggling to include: arms for every 100 residents. Maoist fighters with SAR rifles at a function to hand over command to the government at the Shaktikhor Maoist cantonment in Chitwan, south-west of Kathmandu, January 2011. © Gemunu Amarasinghe/Associated Press www.nepal-ava.org 1 Figure 1 Estimated distribution of firearms in about Nepal’s illegal small arms other countries (Karp, 2007b). Instead, Nepal, 2012 trade. the portrait of ownership assembled In 2003, a total of 56,357 antique or in this Issue Brief is based on various obsolescent Nepalese military small types of evidence, including registra- arms and light weapons were sold tion figures, police confiscations, and to an American dealer. The arsenal public surveys. sold provides a unique record of military modernization and insight Registration into the proportion of older weap- Firearms registration is the most reli- Civilian-owned firearms ons in a contemporary arsenal. Nepal Army able source of information on private Law enforcement agencies This Issue Brief examines three main ownership of weapons in Nepal. Maoist (UCPN-M) categories of Nepal firearm owners: According to media reports, there are civilians, state security services, and 34,468 licensed owners in the country Public surveys confirm that private former guerrillas. It concludes that (Sharma, 2012). They reportedly own firearms are neither commonplace approximately 710,000 firearms are in some 55,000 legally registered small in Nepal nor rare. the country (see Figure 1 and Table 1). arms, for an average of 1.6 legally The Nepal Army has about 160,000 Civilians own two-thirds of firearms, declared firearms per owner (Racovita, small arms, and law enforcement mostly primitive craft guns. By compari- Murray, and Sharma, 2012, pp. 57–59; agencies have roughly another República, 2009). 74,000. son, the Army and law enforcement Obtaining a gun licence is not easy When the peace agreement was agencies emerged from the civil war in Nepal, and measures introduced signed in 2006, Maoist People’s with greatly expanded personnel and since democratization in 1990 have Liberation Army had an estimated modernized weaponry. made it more difficult. Under the 9,500 small arms and light weapons. Arms and Ammunition Act of 1963, Of these, 3,475 were handed over. applications must be approved by the Some 6,000 small arms probably Private owners Home Ministry and the applicant’s remain with former guerrillas. No previous systematic studies or ex- Chief District Officer (Nepal, 1963; According to UN Comtrade, the pert estimates of total private firearm Kharel and Shrestha, 2010). No hand- United States was the principal ownership in Nepal were found in the gun licences are reported to have been exporter of legal firearms to Nepal research conducted for this report. The issued since 1990 and the basic licence in the last two decades. Weaknesses only country estimate published to date fee was increased in 2010 to NPR 10,000 in data mean that little is known is based on statistical comparison with (USD 140) (Kharel and Shrestha, 2010), further restricting legal ownership. The Table 1 Estimated distribution of firearms in Nepal, 2012 cost and complexity of the licensing Population Category Ratio of Estimated Total system make it difficult, if not impos- firearms to firearms firearms sible, to legally possess craft (country- population made) firearms, thought to be the most Private residents Private registered, factory-made 55,000 numerous. The police are authorized 26,600,000 Private unregistered, factory-made 55,000 to confiscate such firearms on sight Private craft-made (country-made) 330,000 (Nepal, 1963, s. 12; Sharma, 2012). All privately owned firearms 0.017 440,000 Nepal Army Nepal Army 1.7 160,000 160,000 Unregistered ownership 95,000 The expense and difficulty of acquiring Law enforcement Nepal Police 1.0 47,000 a licence drives people who want fire- 47,000 arms, especially handguns, to seek them 31,000 Armed Police Force 1.8 56,000 illegally. Unregistered factory-made All law enforcement agencies 103,000 firearms include guns illegally imported Maoist UCPN-M 0.6 6,000 6,000 from China and India, weapons stolen 9,500 from the Nepalese security services, and Total 709,000 some former Maoist guerrilla weapons (see Map). It remains difficult to assess Note: Estimates and totals are rounded to two significant digits. The Maoist total is lowered by the transfer of 3,475 weapons to Army control in 2012. Ratios are calculated on population statistics sources from CBS (2001). how many factory-made weapons are Sources: For sources on private firearms, see pp. 3–5; on Nepal Army, p. 7; on Nepal Police and Armed Police, pp. 8–9; and on Maoist firearms, p. 10. privately owned, however, because 2 Nepal Issue Brief Number 2 May 2013 Illegal arms market Kathmandu Valley Illegal arms point of origin Nagarkot Entry point for small arms Kathmandu trafficking Bhaktapur Sudal ThankotThankot Trafficking route, 2012 Kirtipur Patan Trafficking route, 2005 Sangabhanjyang H Luvu International boundary I National capital M DakshinkaliDakshin Chapagaon Banbasa A Lele L AnnAnnapurnaapurna A CHINAC HINA (8,091 m) Y A TIBETTIBE T Mt Everest Everest (8,848 m) Kanchenjunga Kathmandu (8,586 m) UTTAR PRADESH Raxaul Lucknow INDIA Kanpur Mujjafarpur Jogbani Map of the major routes of illegal firearms into Nepal BIHAR 0 km 100 Note: Illegal arms points of origin are cities and villages that host ad-hoc manufacturing and small arms storage facilities, reported as sources of illegal arms in circulation. Source: Racovita, Murray, and Sharma (2013, p. 60) licence and registration figures are far industry that fabricates black-market firearms, including illicitly owned guns, from comprehensive and police con- handguns in the adjacent Indian states both factory- and country-made. fiscation data and public polling do of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh (RAOnline, not provide an exact basis of calcula- n.d.; Racovita, Murray, and Sharma, Police seizures and country- tion. This said, illegal handgun owner- 2012, p. 64). The predominance of made firearms ship does not seem to be exceptional country-made firearms is suggested Police reports of seizures of illicitly (Sharma, 2012). For this Issue Brief, the by a survey that found the majority owned firearms and firearms used in number of unregistered factory-made of guns in private ownership to be crimes show a three-to-one ratio of firearms is assumed to equal the number very cheap, costing NPR 1,000–10,000 country-made craft guns to factory- that are legally owned. On this assump- (USD 14–140) (Hazen et al., 2011, p. 27). made firearms. A 2011 police report tion, a total of approximately 110,000 Post-conflict dynamics seen else- registered and unregistered factory- where in the world also appear to have made handguns, rifles, and shotguns affected Nepalese gun culture and Table 2 Handguns seized by Nepal Police, July 2006–November 20101 are privately owned. crime. No comprehensive estimate is In Nepal, however, factory-made available of the gun ownership before Type Total firearms probably represent a small the country’s civil war started in 1996, seized proportion of privately owned guns. but analysts agree that the conflict Country-made handguns (katuwas) 458 Given their price and the cost and dif- created new norms and expectations. Factory-made handguns 139 ficulty of registration, there appears Private ownership, including that of to be a widespread demand for the country-made weapons, increased Factory-made by type cheaper craft handguns or katuwas and (IRIN, 2012). Sources that provided 7.65 mm pistols 5 improvised rifles,bharuwas (RAOnline, weapons to Maoist guerrillas before 9 mm pistols 25 n.d.). Craft guns typically are very 2006 now supply them to violent crim- Sixer pistols 28 simple, usually single-shot handguns inal groups (Rauniyar, 2011). Given fashioned from scrap metal, and are the simplicity of craft weapons, it is Indian pistol 1 much less accurate and reliable than very likely that some are produced Revolvers (type unknown) 37 factory-made firearms (Modi, Nigam, locally in Nepal too. Italian pistols 13 and Kumar, 1984). Police seizure data and household One source of supply is the well- surveys offer quantitative insights into US pistols 30 established—yet completely illegal— the distribution of privately owned Source: Fuyal, n.d.