From 5 to 9 June 2023, the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC), alongside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Guatemala (MINEX) of Guatemala, held the Combating Trafficking in Arms and Ammunition (CTAM) Course. This course brought together 30 officers from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGAC), the Directorate General of Arms and Ammunition Control of the Ministry of National Defence (DIGECAM), the Directorate General of Civil Intelligence (DIGICI), the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP), Minex Guatemala, the Superintendence of Tax Administration (SAT), as well as representatives of the Institute of Education for Sustainable Development (IEPADES).
The course commenced with opening remarks by representatives of UNLIREC and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who highlighted the importance of the course, as demonstrated by the significant proliferation of illicit arms in the country.
The CTAM is a specialised course that provides both theoretical and practical knowledge on the global and regional stateof arms trafficking; methods of illicit arms manufacture; systems for the control and documentation of international transfers of firearms and ammunition, including brokering, as well as tools and mechanisms for international cooperation against firearms trafficking.
In this CTAM session, national representatives presented the characteristics, trends and challenges of arms trafficking in Guatemala, and shared some of the measures and policies implemented to tackle this problem. In addition, INTERPOL also presented its Firearms Programme, sharing the main resources available for the registration and tracing of weapons, and highlighting the main results of its recent operations in Latin America.
Strengthening national capacity through a specialised course such as the CTAM, contributes to the efforts of Guatemalan institutions to combat and prevent arms trafficking.
This course took place in the context of the project in support of the implementation of UNLIREC’s Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons, funded by the European Union.