Intersessional Daily Update 4 - Stockpiles

(Friday 13 February 2004 ) Co-Chairs: Italy & Guatemala
Co-Rapporteurs: Bangladesh & Canada

Key Discussions

• Many governments made statements and presentations on their destruction efforts resulting in a lot of new information.
• There was an exchange of views on technical information and donor input.
• NATO (NAMSA) and the European Commission gave presentations on their contributions in stockpile destruction.
• Steve Goose of Human Rights Watch gave a global overview of the stockpiles and their destruction using information provided by Landmine Monitor (Mark Hiznay).

Highlights for ICBL

• The Turkmenistan mission to NATO contacted Handicap International Belgium (Stan Brabant) to inform him of their plans to destroy most of the 69,200 they have retained for training. ICBL is waiting for written confirmation of their intent before popping the champagne cork.
• Sierra Leone announced it has completed stockpile destruction, while Romania, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan are on track to complete before the Review Conference.
• Romania will reduce its 4,000 antipersonnel mines retained for training down to 2,500, Lithuania is reconsidering the number it has retained, and Cameroon stated it has destroyed its entire stockpile of 500 mines retained for training and it will rely on inert ones only from now on.
• Turkey declared a stockpile of 2.9 million antipersonnel mines. According to Landmine Monitor, both Turkey and Greece stockpile ADAM antipersonnel mines, which include depeleted uranium; destruction of these mines will need to be done very carefully. $
• NATO’s prominent use of the ICBL’s ‘Take a Stand : Ban Landmines’ artwork and logo in its powerpoint presentation (Go HI-B! Your efforts are paying off).

Concerns for ICBL

• Liberia was not present, has not submitted its Article 7, and its stockpile destruction deadline is 1 June 2004.
• Questions remain about whether Guinea has completed its stockpile destruction, following its 1 April 2003 deadline. It has not submitted an intitial Article 7 report either.
• Indonesia indicated they will retain 10,000 of its 16,000 stockpiled antipersonnel mines for training, Burundi announced it is retaining all of its 1,200 mines for this purpose as did Eritrea for its ‘small’ amount. According to Zambia’s new Article 7 report obtained during the meeting, the number of mkines retained for training has been reduced from 9,000 to 3,400.

Quote of the Day

A video presentation by Venezuela included shots of their soldiers throwing mines for stockpile destruction on a pile by hand and then walking over them ( !?), while a narrator said:

"High safety standards are observed by Venzeuela in all aspects of its stockpile destruction program."