Letter from ICBL campaigns in the Americas to MERCOSUR member states

(Tuesday 19 June 2001 Ottawa)

We, members of civil society and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) request that you once again turn your attention to the landmine problem in the Americas, at the Presidential Summit of MERCOSUR, Chile and Bolivia to be held in Asunción, Paraguay on 21-22 June 2001. The declaration of Mercosur, Chile and Bolivia as a zone of peace and free of weapons of mass destruction, made in Ushuaia, Argentina in 1998, was an important step towards eradicating the landmine problem in the Americas. The Mercosur declaration included in its sixth point the commitment to advance towards Mercosur, Chile and Bolivia as a region free of antipersonnel landmines, and work to extend this to the entire Western Hemisphere.

As we approach the Third Meeting of State Parties, to be held in Managua, Nicaragua on 18-21 September 2001, we feel it is important for Mercosur, Chile and Bolivia to renew its commitment and reiterate its declaration on antipersonnel landmines.

Since that pioneering declaration, countries of the hemisphere have taken significant steps towards that objective, within the framework of the Mine Ban Treaty. Of the founding countries and associated members of Mercosur, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay have completed the ratification process. We congratulate the government of Uruguay for depositing its instrument of ratification with the United Nations on 7 June 2001, thereby becoming the 117th country to ratify the Mine Ban Treaty globally, and the 28th country to do so in the Western hemisphere.

We also congratulate the Chilean Senate on unanimously ratifying the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 May 2001, and urge the Chilean government to deposit its instrument of ratification at the United Nations as soon as possible and certainly before the Third Meeting of State Parties in Managua in September 2001.

With the ratification process under way in Chile, there remain only four signatory countries that have yet to ratify in the Americas: Guyana, Haiti, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Suriname. Cuba and the United States are the hemisphere's only two countries not to have joined the Mine Ban Treaty. We urge Mercosur countries to call for ratification by the four remaining signatories, and accession to the treaty by Cuba and the United States in time for the Third Meeting of State Parties in Managua in September 2001.

We also urge Mercosur countries to meet the Managua Challenge, made by the ICBL at the regional seminar on stockpile destruction held in Buenos Aires, November 2000, and issued by co-chairs Argentina and Canada at the conclusion of the seminar, and call for other countries of the region to meet the challenge as well: by the Third Meeting of State Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty, 18-21 September 2001 - to complete ratification of the treaty if they have not yet done so; to complete all transparency reports as required by Article 7 of the Mine Ban Treaty; and to completely destroy their antipersonnel landmine stockpiles before Managua.

Achieving these goals by the Third Meeting of State Parties, when world attention will be on Managua and our entire hemisphere, will be a clear demonstration of the will and intention of our countries to declare the Americas the first mine-free hemisphere in the world.

Yours truly,

Paul Hannon,
Executive Director, Mines Action Canada

On behalf of national campaigns to ban landmines, members of the ICBL coalition, in Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, México, and the USA; and Landmine Monitor researchers for Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, the Caribbean countries, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, the United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela.