Kashmir Insurgency Bans Use of Antipersonnel Landmines

4. NON-STATE ACTORS: Kashmir Insurgency Bans Use of Antipersonnel Landmines

On 16 October 2007, the United Jihad Council (UJC), which includes 13 armed Kashmiri groups (five other non-Kashmiri groups have ‘observer’ status, and UJC directives are binding upon them) publicly declared a total ban on antipersonnel mines. The UCJ simultaneously pledged to respect the prohibitions of the four Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocol I.

This public declaration by the combined leadership of militant organizations in Kashmir was the result of a year-long series of activities carried out by the ICBL in partnership with the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), a Srinagar-based ICBL member.

Welcoming the UCJ’s pledge as “yet another sign of the growing acceptance of the norm which prohibits antipersonnel mines because of their indiscriminate nature”, ICBL Executive Director Sylvie Brigot encouraged both India and Pakistan to consider a moratorium on new mine use and to launch comprehensive mine clearance programs.

Landmine Monitor reports for both India and Pakistan indicate a serious mine problem along the Line of Control between the Pakistani and Indian administered sections of Kashmir. The full extent of mine pollution in this area remains unknown, with no official public statistics for mined areas or mine casualties. Available information suggests that hundreds of mine victims exist on both sides of the Line of Control.

Warsun vilage, nestled under mined slopes. Photo: Moser-Puangsuwan/LM.

 

Activities leading to support for the ban by political parties and to the final declaration by the UJC started with and ICBL mission to Indian administered Kashmir in November 2006. When visiting a mine affected village in Kupwara District, the mission discovered that the mine threat in Indian administered Kashmir extended at least as far as 70 kilometers from the Line of Control. The ICBL was disturbed by the amount of anecdotal reports of mine use in a large number of districts of Indian administered Kashmir, even within the Srinagar valley. When the mission met with some political parties in the Kashmir valley, they were found to be sympathetic to a global ban on landmines.

Due to widespread resentment for civilian casualties caused by explosive attacks, civil society in the Kashmir valley, and some political opinion makers, lobbied the insurgency in 2005 to halt attacks which resulted in civilian casualties. This led to a self-imposed code of conduct by the UCJ, banning ‘mine’ (here referring to improvised explosive devices, often referred to as mines in the media) and grenade attacks in public areas. The success of this previous activity served as the basis on which to build momentum to persuade the insurgency to ban antipersonnel mine use.

The UJC stated that use of antipersonnel mines is equivalent to blind terror and that it is prohibited under Islam. UJC members are thought to have made only limited use of antipersonnel mines in the past. In recent years, most non-state armed groups, particularly Hizbul Mujahideen and Laskar-e-Toiba, have used command-detonated improvised explosive devices (IEDs), some of which have caused civilian deaths and injuries.

The UJC said it may continue to use command-detonated IEDs against military targets, but banned use, production or trade of victim-activated mines as prohibited under the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty.

Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan, Landmine Monitor

**Reports from the two ICBL missions to Kashmir and the full text of the UCJ’s pledge are available on http://www.icbl.org/news_on_front/kashmiroct2007**