[Swprograms] My AK47 - a BBC World Service series

[Mike Barraclough <softbulletin1@xxxxxxxxx>]

The AK47 is the weapon of choice for guerrilla
fighters world-wide, with an estimated one million of
the Kalashnikov rifles in every-day use. Its
reliability and ease-of-use has made it the most
widely used and produced small arm over the last
century. BBC World Service sets out to find how AK47s
are distributed and who are the people who use the
weapon in a series called My AK47, going out on The
World Today from Sunday 4 December.

Series producer Leana Hosea says: "The personal
accounts given by
people who use, sell and distribute AK47s give
listeners an insight into how the weapon has become a
reality of life in many parts of the world. One
interview is with an AK47-equipped child-soldier in
Sierra Leone. According to the UN there are an
estimated 300,000 children involved in armed conflict
and nearly half of them are in Africa. Sangeba was
only 12 when his mother was beaten and his father
killed in front of him by rebels who forced him to
become a child soldier. In another interview, an
illegal arms dealer in Sri Lanka reveals how it's
routine to obtain Ak47s and other small arms, such as
grenades from the army, air force and police."

The series also includes interviews with a UN weapons
investigator, a guerilla fighter in Columbia, a
rehabilitation worker from Sierre Leone and with Vybz
Kartel, the Jamaican dancehall star who sings about
AK47s and violence in the country's capital.

The series will run on The World Today on BBC World
Service, going out at 2300 GMT and through the night
from 4 to 8 December 2005.




		
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