Illegal arms pipelines around the world tend to be dualdirectional, meaning they are both a source and a destination for guns from other markets. The Sulu Arms Market is no different. Its ratio of exports to imports ebbs and flows with political events in conflict zones like Mindanao, but while the balance of trade is traditionally (and currently) in favour of imports, it is not immutable. During several years of relative peace between Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in the early part of this decade for instance, exports actually gained ground on imports. Exports from the Sulu market to other parts of Southeast Asia as well as to niche markets in Northeast Asia went up as increasing numbers of Moro fighters occupied themselves with more peaceful pursuits.

The Demand Side: Routes

On the whole, the Sulu Arms Market is a net importer and always has been. Illicit commodities of every variety flow into its dark markets through countless clandestine supply lines. Its rugged and remote coastlines, hidden coves, mangrove swamps, and coastal shanty towns provide endless shelters for rogues of every ilk: pirates, terrorists, drug smugglers, slave traders, kidnappers, bird's nest poachers, and of course gun-runners. Sulu is a remote area; it does not lend itself easily to the large scale, organized smuggling operations common in places like Hong Kong or Miami. In Sulu, one finds a more diffuse and therefore intractable form of trafficking enabled by centuries of entrenched smuggling “culture”.

The word “smuggling” implies movement of goods across a boundary in contravention of laws or established norms. In the Western mind, and that of the recognized governments in the region, the very existence of the state is dependent on the inviolability of these lines on the map. Most Sulu traffickers, ant traders mostly, have never fully recognized the boundaries imposed upon them by outsiders nor do they see any moral argument for or against their activities.