Frederic Forsyth must be standing up with a Gioondaamlle on his face at the news of the Purulia air-drop. And he Is busy in weaving another plot for his next block-buster thrillerl

At least that is how one would like to part wings on imagination. A sleepy and somnolent hamlet in West Bengal was instantly put on the world-map. Strategic centres around the globe and inner sanctum of the thinktanks in all South Asian countries pencilled a red-rubric around the name Purulia

On December 17 more than 300 deadly, high-precision AK-47 and AK 56 model assault rifles. 15 mm pistols. 9 rocket-launchers, anti-tank grenades and a huge cache of ammunitions and a good number of parachutes were dropped from a Russian-made MIG-21 Antonov aircraft. According to press reports. the AN-26 flew from Karachi on December 17. landed in Benaras and hopped to Calcutta en route to Phuket (Thailand). On the return mission, the aircraft refuelled at Madras and while the plane was zig zagging its way towards Karachi, two Indian Air Force Jets scrambled to intercept the AN-261

As AFP reports, of the seven crew members, five were carrying Latvian passports, while the sixth. Identified as Peter Bleach, is a Briton, and the seventh crew-member, a New Zealander and owner of the carrier, dodged the Airport Security cordons and made good his escape! Most of the weapons are of Bulgar ian origin and the parachutes used to drop them are South African.

The aborted gun-running had all the earmarks of a mystery-thriller. But the Mission Impossible was check mated not because of the security alertness of the state.

but. perhaps, big default or could it be because of the hamhandedness of the organisers of the Mission of Death!

The air-drop worth 10 million dollars harken back our memories to the flourishing gun-running underworld of the 60s and '70s in Africa and Latin America. As for South Asia, rumour-mongers have done brisk business In floating stories, and gossips, not substantiated, and some times deliberate disinforma-tions have been purveyed! Purulia saga, however, brings about a gravltatlve change in the dimension of the undu lated terrain of gun-running in the region. As reports sug gest, these assault rifles are commonly used by the militants in Kashmir, they have also been seen In use earlier on by the Khalistan partisans in the Punjab, according to the same reports

To add to the high drama, some experts are suggesting that the arms-drop was destined for the cult-group Anand-Marg (Path of Peace), active in the 70s against the establishment — and banned since then.

.The bathos and drama of the Purulia saga closely parallels the advisory bequeathed for the young probationers at Grosvenor House by Secretary of State for Cotnmon-wealth Relations Arthur Bottomley in which he asked the young diplomats to always take religion, aristocracy, sex and mystery for postprandial speeches! A starry-eyed neophyte pondered seriously and acted on it while making his maiden-speech — Good Gdb" said the Duchess. *1 am pregnant. Who did It!"

Way back in 1981-82. an ad hoc committee was set up for drafting an international

convention against the recruitment. use. financing and training of mercenaries, in the UN, New York. Ahmed Bedjaoui, then Algerian PR. in NY. and now a Judge at the Hague International Court of Justice, was the first chairman of the committee I was elected Rapporteur till my tenure was over. This committee prepared the Draft Report and Convention for submitting to the General Assembly in 1985

The mandate of the committee was drafting of an in-ternation^l convention against the recruitment, use.

financing and training of mercenaries, which was considered a threat to international peace and security, particularly to the stability and security of small member countries of the United Nations and their democratic process Article I of the draft convention reads: "Mercenarism is a crime under International law which must be prevented and punished." Article 11 described mercenarism as organising, financing, supplying, equipping. training, promoting, supporting or employing In any way military forces consisting of or including per sons who. are citizens of the country in which those forces will be operating and who act for personal gain in the form of a salary, wages or any Other kind of remuneration.

The number of arms and

the quantity of ammunition found in Purulia till today do not appear to be massive — but it was big enough to give a band of determined terrorists or adventurers sufficient muscle to create problem. Let us not forget that It is small arms which have been the instrument of most of the 150 or so wars that have been fought since the Second World War. What with Lebanon and Biafra. Yemen, or Kataya. Namibia or South Africa. Somalia. Rwanda, and lastly in Bosnia have all been fought with small arms and machine guns. And small-

arms coups in Comoros Islands make boring reading. Who doesn't remember the name of Sam Cummings, who reportedly owns the biggest private arsenal in Europe — in a warehouse in Manchester? In his classic book. Antony Sampson describes Cummings as a philosopher, like a Greek chorus, who has discovered the secrets of human motivation; the arms business' Cummings thinks, is founded on human folly and it will go on forever! To make It more palatable Cummings told Sampson: "All weapons are defensive, and all spare parts non-lethal"

Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, used to say that he would like to invent a substance or a machine with such terrible power of mass destruction that war would thereby be

made Impossible forever. Alfred Nobel was certainly an honourable man and a man with vision. After all, his Nobel Prize foundation has elevated the .... line of civilisation to a great height but he forgot Plato who said : only the dead enjoy eternal peace!

The mosaic of small arms used in thia century makes an interesting story. British sten guns used by the French Maquis during the Second World War were dropped by parachute. American garand rifles were first exported to Germany in the fifties, then they were re-exported to Jordan In the late sixties. They were later transported to the Philippines. British Enfield rifles were used by the Americans in Vietnam. Belgian Mausers were brought over to Taiwan by Chiang-Kai-Shek!

While government-to-gov-ernment arms transfer has certain level of accountability, the merchants of death' or pejoratively known as the unheralded Ambassadors’ like Basil Zaharoff are more comfortable with the shadow world of spooks and adventurers : the new breed of operators known as mercenaries stack this world in search of new preys and pastures. They followed their mercenary calling and took their wages and are dead.

Mercenaries are economic' with their loyalty: their operation breeds corruption much more than normal transaction in arms. The celebrated Saudi middleman Adnan Khashoggi is reported to have said in 1976: "If one offers money to a government to influence it (buying arms), that is corruption. But if someone receives

money for services rendered afterwards, that is a commission Senator Percy almost immediately retorted: Corruption is going to do more to bring down democracies around the world than almost anything else

But some merchants of death through their tools have become legendary Sir Basil Zaharoff was reportedly sent to Germany during the war. 'to discover certain things that Lloyd George wanted to know' as a Bulgarian doctor! Lloyd George kept his friendship with Sir Basil and visited him in his Chateau de Balincourt in Monte Carlo, after he lost power.

While the countries of South Asia and other world chancelleries are keenly watching the unfolding drama of Purulia airdrop, the moral dilemma involving mercenary, gun-running is getting more and more heightened Pessimists think that the soldiers of fortune' have come to stay while critics recommend stringent measures to control the world of the shadowy transactions. In this crusade against the Zahar offs. Maxims or Krupps or Henry Kusses, they seek the strict enforcement of UN convention against mercenaries and cite George Clemenceau's indignation and the historic paragraph of the Covenant of the League of Nations inspired by Woodrow Wilson. The members of the League agree that the manufacture by private enterprise of munitions and implements of war is open to grave objections. The bleeding-heart Liberals even quoted Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara to demonstrate the central dilemma of economic prosperity dependant on the manufacture of means of destruction.

Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war....!