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Cape Verde’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Amilcar Spencer Lopes, signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 4 December 1997 and in a statement to the signing ceremony, he said, “Cape Verde, a small country which doesn’t produce, use, or import antipersonnel mines, launches an appeal to all states, particularly those who are not participating in this Conference, to rally to the objective of the Ottawa Convention, which is the total elimination of these crippling devices.”[1] Cape Verde has not yet ratified. According to the government the ratification papers are at the National Assembly waiting approval.[2] Cape Verde endorsed the Brussels Declaration and attended the Oslo negotiations. Cape Verde also supported all the key UN General Assembly resolutions in support of banning landmines.
According to a government official Cape Verde maintains no stockpile of anti-personnel landmines.[3] Cape Verde is a former Portuguese colony four hundred miles off the coast of Senegal. Although many Cape Verdians took part in the armed struggle against the Portuguese, most of the fighting was in Guinea-Bissau so there are no stockpiles of landmines on the islands.
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[1]Amilcar Spencer Lopes, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cape Verde, Statement to Signing Ceremony, Ottawa, 4 December 1997. Unofficial translation from French by LM Researcher.
[2]Telephone interview with Jorge Silva, Desk of Bilateral Accords in the Secretariat of International Cooperation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Praia, 25 March 1999.
[3]Telephone interview, Luís Dupret, the Director of International Cooperation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Praia, 25 March 1999.
