Major Actors in Fight Against Global Small Arms Trade Lost on Flight 447

This is sad.  Two people who have been key in fighting the cross boarder transfer of small arms, especially in Latin America were on flight 447, making it likely that the real death toll of the crash will continue for years.

Excerpt Sunday Herald "Key figures in global battle against illegal arms trade lost in Air France crash ":

Pablo Dreyfus, a 39-year-old Argentine who was travelling with his wife Ana Carolina Rodrigues aboard the doomed flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, had worked tirelessly with the Brazilian authorities to stem the flow of arms and ammunition that for years has fuelled the bloody turf wars waged by drug gangs in Rio's sprawling favelas.

Also travelling with Dreyfus on the doomed flight was his friend and colleague Ronald Dreyer, a Swiss diplomat and co-ordinator of the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence who had worked with UN missions in El Salvador, Mozambique, Azerbaijan, Kosovo and Angola. Both men were consultants at the Small Arms Survey, an independent think tank based at Geneva's Graduate Institute of International Studies. The Survey said on its website that Dryer had helped mobilise the support of more than 100 countries to the cause of disarmament and development.

Buenos Aires-born Dreyfus had been living in Rio since 2002, where he and his sociologist wife worked with the Brazilian NGO Viva Rio.

More on the men and much more on the fight against illegal arms trade at link above.

tags: global arms trade  flight 447  af 477  air france  illegal arms  weapons  arms control  

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