Author(s):
Site Admin <webmaster2@icbl.org> .
Tuesday 24 July 2012
Geneva, 3 April 2012: Thousands of people in more than 70 countries will roll-up their pant legs tomorrow as part of an inspirational global day of action calling for a full stop to the harm landmines still cause.
All over the world members of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) will be rallying politicians and the public to take part in Lend Your Leg and demand and end to the scourge of mines, marking the annual International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action.
Kasia Derlicka, ICBL Director, said: “With this simple action of rolling-up our pant leg we want to remind the world that landmines are still present and devastating lives. We want global decision makers to take real actions to ban the weapon, to clear all land and to assist all victims. We want a world free of mines and we know this can be achieved within years and not decades.”
Just last month the world saw why banning landmines once and for all is so vital to stop them ever being used.
In Syria, eye witnesses confirmed seeing the Syrian Army laying mines along its borders with Lebanon and Turkey, sparking global outrage. This new danger adds to the existing threat in at least 70 other states infested with landmines. In 2010, 4,191 people were killed or maimed by this indiscriminate weapon – the equivalent of 12 people every day.
Thanks to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty there has been a sharp decrease in landmine casualties, and use, production and export of the weapon, with tens of millions of stockpiled mines destroyed and huge tracts of land cleared. However, 37 states have yet to renounce antipersonnel landmines and join the treaty.
“Raising awareness and providing assistance for mine action and victims are very important, but not enough to rid the world of these weapons once and for all.” Derlicka said.
“Syria’s mine use last month was a sad and shocking reminder of that fact. The deadly legacy of landmines will remain until all states - including Syria, Myanmar, China, the United States, and others renounce the weapon and come on board the ban,” she added.
This call to join the treaty to “eliminate” landmines was echoed by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who has been spearheading Lend Your Leg, in his annual statement marking the international day.
On 1 March, the 13th anniversary of the Mine Ban Treaty becoming law, landmine survivors from all over the world joined the Secretary General to launch Lend Your Leg.
Since then activists, United Nations officials, politicians, celebrities, journalists and ordinary people everywhere have pledged to “lend their legs” to speak out against this indiscriminate weapon which continues to blight people’s lives.
“It’s inspiring to see how many people around the world are ready to stand alongside many of my fellow survivors and taking part in Lend Your Leg today,” said Firoz Alizada, ICBL Campaign Manager and himself a landmine survivor.
“Lend Your Leg is really about the people, not about the weapon. If we don’t want to see more people killed and hurt by landmines, landmines must not be used again by anyone, anywhere. The solution is all states joining and implementing the Mine Ban Treaty,” he added.
The ICBL’s global members, all dedicated to improving life for communities suffering because of landmines and other explosive remnants of war, will also today join Ban Ki-moon’s call for all countries to join the Convention on Cluster Munitions, another weapon internationally recognised for the unacceptable humanitarian harm it causes.
Lend Your Leg Around The World
The worldwide wave of Lend Your Leg actions will start in Wellington, New Zealand and within 24 hours will have swept across Asia and Europe to the U.S. East Coast and through Central and South America, thousands of people in its wake.
Amongst those Lending Their Legs will be leading ministers and heads of state from Albania, Chile, Italy, Denmark, El Salvador and Colombia, best-selling author and concentration camp survivor Stéphane Hessel in Germany, and famous sports stars, musicians and media personalities in Norway, Ethiopia and Macedonia, amongst other countries.
Lend Your Leg events are being held outside parliament buildings from Canada to the Democratic Republic of Congo, the U.K. to Fiji to Bosnia, where only last month two men in their 20s were killed by one of the country’s millions of landmines still lurking in the ground.
In Libya, where tens of thousands of landmines were newly laid last year by forces loyal to Gaddafi, staff from the dozens of mine clearance NGOs working to remove the threat will march with locals through the cities of Tripoli, Misrata, Sirte, Ajdabiya and Sabha Lending Their Legs in solidary with those suffering from the lethal remnants of last year’s conflict. In Misrata, where the threat from mines and other unexploded ordnance is ever present, there will be an event to educate people of the risks, thereby reducing them.
Outside the Sydney Opera House and the Brandenburg Gate, in Kabul’s University and on Geneva’s main shopping street the call will go out to Lend Your Leg and join people worldwide in this simple, symbolic action.
The Lend Your Leg global day of action was initiated by the Colombian NGO Fundación Arcángeles and its President Juan Pablo Salazar. One of the world’s most mine-affected countries, last year thousands of Colombians, including President Juan Manuel Santos, took part in the first Lend Your Leg action. This year President Santos and the U.S. Ambassador to Colombia joined 4,000 others to run an 11km race around the capital to mark Lend Your Leg.
Lend Your Leg 2012 is officially partnered by the ICBL and the United Nations, with support from the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement.
ENDS
Media contact
Kate Wiggans, Media & Communications Manager (Geneva, GMT +1)
Email: kate@icblcmc.org
Swiss cell: +41 786 851146
Notes to editors
IMAGES: High resolution images of the ICBL’s Lend Your Leg actions all over the world on Flickr. Please credit images as shown.
GLOBAL COMMUNITY & REAL TIME UPDATES: ICBL Facebook. ICBL Twitter.
VIDEO: Watch / embed the Lend Your Leg video featuring Ban Ki-moon.
PEOPLE IN THE VIDEO:
• Ban Ki moon - Korea - UN Sec Gen
• Helen Clark - New Zealand - Former Prime Minister and head of UNDP
• Iker Casillas - Spain - Goalkeeper Real Madrid
• Ben Foster - United States - American actor (from X-men)
• Juanes - Colombia - Pop Star
• Dejan Zavec – Slovenia - professional boxer
• Tun Channareth – Cambodia - ICBL campaigner and landmine survivor
• Jose Luis Rodriguez – Venezuela – Famous singer
• Carlos Valderrama – Colombian – former footballer
• Wing-Kun Tam - Hong Kong - 2011-12 Lions Clubs International President
• Oren Moverman - Israel - filmmaker and screenwriter
• Firoz Alizada - Afghanistan - ICBL campaign manager and landmine survivor
• Song Kosal - Cambodia - ICBL campaigner and landmine survivor
• Antonio Lemos - Angola - not sure
• Stuart Hughes - UK - BBC journalist and landmine survivor
• Muhudin nur Hassan - Somalia
• Ismaelina Narvaez - Colombia
• Robert Kramberger - Slovenia
• Han Tchrok - Cambodia
• Mohamed Rahab - Libya
LEND YOUR LEG – HIGH PROFILE PARTICIPANTS:
• Chilean President of the Senate – Senator Guido Girardi and the Vice President, Senator Juan Pablo Letelier
• Colombian President Santos
• Danish Minister for Development Cooperation – Christian Friis Bach
• 94-year-old Stéphane Hessel, a diplomat, ambassador, concentration camp survivor, and former French Resistance fighter
• Italian Minister of Health Renato Balduzzi & Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Mr Staffan De Mistura
• Foreign Minister of Norway, Jonas Gahr Støre
LANDMINE FACTS:
• 4,191 landmine casualties were recorded in 2010 - nearly 12 people per day.
• 72 states are confirmed or suspected to be mine-affected. Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia in Herzegovina, Cambodia, Chad, Croatia, Iran, Iraq, Morocco, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey & Zimbabwe have contamination of 100km2 or more.
• 12 countries are identified as ongoing producers of landmines.
• 2011 saw a seven-year high in the use of antipersonnel landmines by states not party to the Mine Ban Treaty. Government forces in Myanmar (persistent user of landmines year on year), Israel, Syria and Libya (forces loyal to Gaddafi) used mines.
• Hundreds of thousands of people are still living with life-changing injuries caused by landmines, many in some of the world’s poorest communities and without access to any basic rights.
• More than 80 per cent of the world’s countries – 159 states – are legally bound by the Mine Ban Treaty.
For more facts and stats on the global landmine problem, and to view a detailed breakdown of the situation in each country, please visit the Landmine Monitor.
About the International Campaign to Ban Landmines
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) is a unique global network in some 100 countries, working for a world free of antipersonnel landmines. Founded in 1992, the ICBL celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. In 1997, the ICBL received the Nobel Peace Prize together with its founding coordinator Jody Williams for its efforts to bring about the Mine Ban Treaty.
About the Mine Ban Treaty
Adopted in 1997, the Mine Ban Treaty entered into force on 1 March 1999. The treaty comprehensively bans all antipersonnel mines, requires destruction of stockpiled mines within four years, requires destruction of mines already in the ground within 10 years, and urges extensive programs to assist the victims of landmines.
