States Parties 161 States Not Party 36
The Sixth Meeting of States Parties in Zagreb, Croatia (November 28-December 2, 2005) represents the first opportunity for governments and non-governmental organizations to formally evaluate progress made on the Nairobi Action Plan 2005-2009, an ambitious 70-step commitment plan adopted by States Parties at the conclusion of last year’s Nairobi Summit on a Mine-Free World.
Over 180 people from civil societies around the world will converge in Croatia, representing the many faces of the ICBL, to ensure governments remain vigilant in fulfilling their obligations for the full universalization and implementation of the Ottawa Convention including clearance of mined areas by deadlines; the full rehabilitation and reintegration of landmine survivors back into their communities; and that this work remains priority for all States Parties.
They come from over 60 countries and all have interesting personal stories, perspectives and a variety of expert knowledge on the landmine issue. Representatives can provide interviews on the status of countries in all geographical regions; thematic areas related to the Mine Ban Treaty; youth issue; and stories of survival.
Interviews can be arranged in various languages: English, French, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swahili, Russian, Arabic, Khmer, Thai and more. Below is a small sample of some of the spokespeople available for interviews.
To request an interview please write to media@icbl.org or contact Nancy Ingram +385 (0)98 958 7256.
Interviewable campaigners, mine action experts and landmine survivors are listed here under the following thematic or geographic regions:
I. ICBL AMBASSADORS AND REPRESENTATIVES
Jody Williams
Founding Coordinator of the ICBL and now ICBL Ambassador, Williams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with the ICBL in 1997. She is one of only eleven women to have received the prize and only the third woman in the U.S.
Tun Channareth
A landmine survivor and activist from Cambodia, Tun Channareth received the Nobel Peace prize on behalf of the ICBL in 1997. He is one of the ICBL’s Ambassadors. He speaks English and Khmer.
Song Kosal
Kosal lost her leg as a small girl in Battambang Cambodia. She has campaigned against landmines since the age of 12 and in 1997 launched the Youth Against War Campaign. Kosal is currently ICBL Ambassador. She speaks English and Khmer.
Anne Capelle
Appointed as the head of the ICBL in early 2005, Capelle has a long track record in working to eradicate landmines. It was while working for Handicap International in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan and later in Angola that she witnessed the horror of landmines for the first time. She is available for interviews in French and English.
Stephen Goose
Serving as the Editor-in-chief of the ICBL’s Landmine Monitor report from 1999-2004 and the Executive Director of the Arms division at Human Rights Watch, Goose is the official Head of the ICBL delegation.
II. LANDMINE MONITOR
Paul Hannon
Hannon is the Executive Director of Mines Action Canada (MAC), a coalition representing the Canadian arm of the ICBL. MAC is the new lead agency responsible for the coordination of the Landmine Monitor Initiative and Hannon leads this team.
III. VICTIM ASSISTANCE
Margaret Arach Orech
A landmine survivor from Uganda, Orech co-coordinates the ICBL’s working group on victim assistance and works on victim assistance programmes in Uganda.
Sr. Denise Coughlan
Sr. Coughlan was a founding member of the Cambodian Campaign to Ban Landmine in 1995 – one of the first country campaigns to form in the ICBL. Sr. Coughlan has over 20 years of experience working with landmine survivors in Cambodia through her work at the Jesuit Service of Cambodia. Sr. Coughlan has also provided leadership to the ICBL through her long service on its former management body, the ICBL Coordination Committee, and currently on the ICBL’s Advisory Board.
IV. MINE CLEARANCE
Sara Sekkenes
Sekkenes works for Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) and currently serves as the Project Manager for NPA’s Mine Action Program in Mozambique. She has worked on NPA's demining projects in Angola and the Balkans. Interviews available in English, Portuguese and Norwegian.
Mohammed Shohab Hakimi
Mohammed Shohab Hakimi has directed the Mine Dog Centre (MDC) since its establishment in 1989. The MDC has grown from a dozen mine dog handlers and deminers into a major programme with 1,100 personnel, 250 mine dogs. It has cleared 86 million square metres of mined land and supported survey of 250 million square metres. Hakimi has participated in a number of international conferences on the mine issue and assisted in the establishment of a demining project in Yemen.
V. MINE RISK EDUCATION
Habbouba Aoun
Aoun coordinates the Landmines Resource Centre in Beirut and does the Landmine Monitor report on the Lebanon. She is also active in the sub-Working Group on Mine Risk Education and implementer of mine risk education programs in Lebanon. She speaks Arabic, English and French.
Stan Brabant
Brabant serves as Head of the Mine Policy Unit for Handicap International Belgium and also acts as the Co-Chair for the ICBL sub-Working Group on Mine Risk Education. Brabant also sits on the Editorial Board of the Landmine Monitor. He speaks Dutch, English, and French.
VI. LANDMINE SURVIVORS
Ali Abdulla
Abdulla, age 23, is a landmine survivor from Iraqi Kurdistan. Ali is an advocate for the rights of disabled persons, and hopes to benefit from the media training at the international youth symposium in order to educate the public about the need for survivor assistance and rehabilitation. Interviews available in English, Arabic, and Kurdish.
Armin Köhli
Köhli, a Swiss double-amputee athlete, is best known for being the first athlete with a disability to participate in the “Tour d’Afrique” – a bike race covering 11,500 km over 100 days through the deserts and rain forests from Cairo to Capetown in 2004. He crossed the finish line in third place. On November 24, Köhli departed from Geneva rode his bicycle across Southern Switzerland, Northern Italy and Slovenia in order to arrive on the 30th in an effort to raise public awareness about the Ottawa Convention banning landmines and the 6MSP.
Zorko Peric
Born in August 1984, Petrovo Selo in the Gracanica municipality of Bosnia-Herzegoviana, Peric was injured by a mine while collecting woods in the forest, when he was 12 years old. As a result of the accident, Peric lost his right leg, below the knee. With support of Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), Peric attended the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty negotiation conference in Oslo, where he also had his prosthesis fitted. In August 1997, Peric was visited by Princess Diana during her trip in Bosnia. Peric’s photograph was taken by landmine photographer, John Rodsted, ten years ago and will be featured in a comparative photo exhibit entitled, Halfway – Bosnia, 10 years after the war. Peric will participate in the 2005 “In Our Lifetime” International Youth Symposium.
Moaffak Al-Khafagi
An Iraqi landmine survivor who serves as the head of an indigenous disability organization in Iraq, Al-Khafagi speaks specifically on the challenges and needs of landmine survivors in Iraq. Interviews in Arabic and English.
VII. NON-STATE ACTORS
ELISABETH REUSSE-DECREY
Reusse-Decrey is the President of Geneva Call, a Swiss organization dedicated to engaging non-state actors (NSA) in the Mine Ban Treaty movement by negotiating with NSAs to sign a deed of commitment to abide by conditions laid out in the Ottawa Convention. For over 20 years, she has been working with various NGOs on issues relating to refugees, torture and landmines, including as the NGO representative of the Swiss government delegation to the October 1996 Ottawa Conference. Elisabeth speaks French and English.
VIII. YOUTH
Eva Morrison
Morrison is a program officer with Mines Action Canada and co-coordinator of the second annual international youth capacity building symposium, In our Lifetime , whose aim is to build up and train the next generation of mine ban movement. Twenty-eight youth, including six youth survivors, from 23 countries will participate and are available for interviews. Interviews available in English and French.
Maria Clara Ucros
Ucros, age 24, works with the Colombian Campaign to Ban Landmines (CCCM). She will be making a presentation at the international youth symposium on CCCM's engagement with non-state actors in Colombia. Interviews available in English and Vietnamese.
Dang Quang Toan
Quang Toan, age 26, works for Project RENEW in Vietnam. His work includes mine risk education, mine victim assistance and research. Interviews available in English and Vietnamese.
IX. AFRICA
Mereso Agina
Agina is the National Secretary of the Maendeleo Ya Wanawawake - Kenya’s largest and oldest women’s organisation with over five million members. She represents the Kenyan Coalition Against Landmines (KCAL), and served as a member of the ICBL’s Coordinating Committee from June 1997 until 2005. KCAL was instrumental in hosting the ICBL in Nairobi for the first Review Conference on the Mine Ban Treaty and the most important diplomatic meeting on the Treaty since the 1997 negotiations.
Charles Ndayiziga
Ndgayiziga is the Coordinator of the Burundi Campaign to Ban Landmines. In addition, he is also the Coordinator for the Prevention of Conflict and AlertCenter, a local non-governmental organisation (NGO) working to promote peace in Burundi. He speaks French.
X. AMERICAS
Charlie Avendaño
Americas Research Specialist for the Landmine Monitor Report 2005, Avendãno works for Mines Action Canada. He speaks English, Spanish and French.
XI. BALKANS
Vanja Sikirica
Sikirica currently serves as the Mine Action Advisor for Norwegian People's Aid Mine Action Programme in Croatia. She is an economist by profession, working in mine action in Croatia since 1996, firstly for the UNMAC, followed by CROMAC and, since 2001, for Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA). Interviews available in Croatian and English.
Plamenko Priganica
Priganica stepped on landmine in 1992 during the war conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He lost left leg below the knee. In 1997, he became the Director of the first Landmine Survivors Network in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was a part of the LSN team that hosted Princess Diana’a private tour to Bosnia and Herzegovina when she met with number of landmine survivors from all around the country. In addition to striving to ensure survivors receive the medical care they need, LSN also works to ensure that the socio-psychological impacts of surviving a landmine injury are addressed with peer support and outreach programs.
XII. ASIA-PACIFIC
Purna Shova Chitrakar
Chitrakar has coordinated NGO efforts to ban mines in Nepal since 1995. In June 2003 she met with Nepalese armed opposition groups, and others, to persuade them to give up landmines.
Prasanna Rajiv Kuruppu
Kuruppu is a Sri Lankan war-injured landmine survivor and was the primary researcher for the Sri Lanka report in Landmine Monitor 2005. Prasanna has led efforts to establish rights and social services for combat casualties and the disabled in the wake of civil war in Sri Lanka. He was the first individual award recipient of the Landmine Survivors Network’s Stavros S. Niarchos Foundation Prize for Survivorship. The Prize, established to promote resiliency and recovery in post-conflict societies, will be awarded to a survivor who has contributed to reconstruction and reconciliation.
XIII. EUROPE
Sylvie Brigot
ICBL’s Advocacy Director, Brigot has worked on the landmine issue since 1994 and is based in Paris. She speaks French and English.
XIII. FORMER SOVIET UNION
Roman Dolgov
Dolgov currently works for the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and provides the Landmine Monitor research for Russia and speaks English and Russian.
XIV. MIDDLE EAST/NORTH AFRICA
Ayman Sorour
Sorour is the director of the Landmines Struggle Center (LSC), the only NGO working directly on the mines and UXO problem in Egypt. Sorour is the Landmine Monitor researcher for Egypt, and other countries of the Middle East. He speaks Arabic, English and French.
