DEALING AND WHEELING IN SMALL ARMS is a political documentary on the uncontrolled widespread of small arms, which rule and ruin the lives of a growing number of people in developing countries.

Through the eyes of different experts whose lives depend on small arms, the film shows the causes and impact of the trade - both legal, 'grey' and illegal - in small arms and its ammunitions, in particular in regions where the European Union and the United Nations are active, such as former Yugoslavia and Congo. Especially interesting for the western audience, the film shows how brokers—often under some 'organized' legal cover—buy weapons collected by the EU and NATO during their mission in Bosnia. These brokers transfer the weapons directly to African battlefields where they continue their killing lifespan unhindered.

Shot on location in Cambodia, Eastern Congo, Uganda, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Germany, the United States and The Netherlands, DEALING AND WHEELING IN SMALL ARMS opens up our consciousness to a global reality rarely shown to the general public.

Summary:

“I’d rather lose one son than my gun, because with a gun I can save my family,” declares a frightened Congolese villager in “Dealing and Wheeling in Small Arms,” a depressing, scattershot survey of the spread of weaponry around the world, especially in Africa.

This Dutch film, directed by Sander Francken, shifts abruptly back and forth between a ground-level view of how small arms have affected poor countries and a throw-up-your-hands analysis of the inability of any international agency, including the United Nations, to curtail the prolific, and profitable, small-arms trade. Although the film visits Cambodia, Uganda and Bosnia, it focuses mostly on Congo, where imported guns have plunged the country into perpetual civil war.