Faltas, Sami, Glenn McDonald and Camilla Waszink. 2001 ‘Haiti.’ Removing Small Arms From Society: A Review of Weapons Collection and Destruction Programmes; Occasional Paper No. 2, p. 11. Geneva: Small Arms Survey, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. 1 July

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One of the first attempts to disarm civilians in Latin America was carried out by the US Army in Haiti, operating from 1994 to 1995 within the framework of the US-led Multinational Force that restored democracy to the country in September 1994.

Participants in the buy-back programme were given cash for functional weapons according to a set price scale and benefited from a 'no questions asked' policy. Between September 1994 and January 1995, a total of 3,684 weapons and 6,512 munitions were bought-back. An additional 15,236 weapons were seized during the same period.

Before the programme was scaled back in March 1995, over 33,000 weapons and munitions had been bought-back or seized. After the replacement, in March 1995, of the Multinational Force by a UN peacekeeping force, US troops continued to run the buy-back programme, but in a far more modest form.

Only one collection site was kept open and relatively few weapons were turned in. Modern weapons in good condition were given to the US Justice Department's International Criminal Investigations Training Assistance Program for use by the Haitian police, while those of historical value were set aside as museum pieces.

The remaining weapons were shipped to a destruction facility in the US state of Pennsylvania to be melted down (Laurance, assisted by Meek, 1996, p. 84; O'Connor, 1996).

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