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Syria has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty. While expressing concern about landmine victims in the world, officials from Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stand by their position that antipersonnel landmines are necessary defensive weapons, and until Israel relinquishes occupation of the Golan Heights and implements UN resolutions on Golan, Syria will be unable to join the treaty.[1] Syria was among 19 countries that abstained from the vote on UN General Assembly Resolution 56/24M in November 2001, as it has done on every similar pro-ban resolution since 1996.
Syria attended the Third Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty in Nicaragua in September 2001 an observer, but it did not send representatives to intersessional Standing Committee meetings held in January and May 2002. Syria did not attend the review conference of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) in December 2001.
On 3 December 2001, the fourth anniversary of the signing the Mine Ban Treaty and the International Day for the Disabled, a member of the Syrian Campaign to Ban Landmines called the Yarmouk Group campaigned on the risks of mines and circulated mine risk education materials in the Golan. Members of the Syrian campaign also visited the “Safe Gardens” program in the Syrian-controlled Golan and bordering areas. The campaigners circulated posters on landmines, produced by the Ministry of Health, at different public centers.
No new information on production, transfer, or stockpiling of antipersonnel mines was made available during the reporting period. Syria may have produced and exported antipersonnel mines at some point in the past, but it is not known if this activity took place in recent years. Syria has not taken any unilateral measures to prohibit future production or export of antipersonnel mines. Syria stockpiles antipersonnel mines, but the size and origin of the stockpile is not known.
The Golan is divided into three areas: Syrian-controlled, Israeli-controlled, and a buffer zone monitored by the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF). Each contains mined areas. The minefields in Syrian-controlled areas hinder the development of agriculture and tourism and are often unmarked and unmapped. UNDOF, in cooperation with Syrian authorities, began a program in 2000 to identify and mark minefields within its area of operations. However, some villagers or children take the fences and the markers for their own use. According to members of the local community, the Syrian army has had to re-fence and re-mark the minefields several times. Community members also state that at least one village close to Quneitra was cleared by the Syrian military in 2001.[2]
A mine risk education component is included in a project called “Safe Gardens,” which aims to create safe and attractive places for children to play in the Golan. The government, in partnership with the local community, maintains eight Safe Gardens as permanent tools to raise awareness among a targeted group of more than 3,000 school children. UNICEF and the British Embassy in Damascus have provided support for this program. UNICEF is proposing a follow-on $77,000 mine risk education program using the techniques and materials developed for the Safe Gardens program for the period March-December 2002.[3] While mine awareness education reaches many mine-affected areas in the Golan through programs like Safe Gardens and other programs at health centers, no evaluation of the effectiveness of mine awareness activities in the Golan has been conducted.[4]
The degree to which other parts of Syria are affected by mines is not clear. At least one of Syria’s neighbors, Jordan, deployed nearly 67,000 antipersonnel mines along its border with Syria prior to 1973. Turkey, as part of a bilateral agreement with Syria, began demining its border areas in 2001. It is not known if the Syrian side of the border is mined.
The Syrian Army is contributing a demining team of 16 officers and 146 soldiers with manual probing equipment and four mechanical rollers to assist with demining in Lebanon. They are working in the west Bekaa area, in Jezzine and Nabatieh.[5]
Mine casualty data is not systematically collected in Syria. There are no records on mine casualties at local health care centers and some victims go directly to Damascus hospitals (some 40-50 kilometer distance) to get emergency services. On 4 January 2002, two 10-year-old boys were killed by a landmine according to the Director of Health in the Bordering Areas (Golan).[6] There were no reports in the Syrian media of mine incidents in 2001, but on 19 March 2001, three Syrian workers were injured by a mine while working on a building site in Beirut, Lebanon.[7] The only known incident in the Golan occurred on 6 June 2001, in the area of Ain Al-Hamra, when a 73-year-old shepherd was killed by a mine.[8]
There have been few changes in the services for mine survivors in Syria during the reporting period.[9] People in the mine-affected Golan must travel to Damascus to receive specialized medical care, surgery, physical rehabilitation, prosthetics, wheelchairs, and special education. To remedy this lack of facilities, the government health program opened a new physiotherapy center in Khan Arnaba on 8 March 2002. Also a new 120-bed hospital will be opened in 2003 in Khan Arnaba.[10] There are no laws or decrees to aid landmine survivors or the disabled in Syria.
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[1] Meeting with the Director of the Foreign Ministry’s International Organizations and Conferences Department, Damascus, 24 January 2002.
[2] Interviews with local population during a visit to the Safe Garden project, 3 December 2001.
[3] UN Mine Action Service, “Portfolio of Mine-Related Projects,” February 2002, p. 120.
[4] Interview with the assistant director of Quneitra Health Directorate, 7 February 2002.
[5] National Demining Office of Lebanon, Presentation to Parliament, 21 January 2002.
[6] Meeting with health officials in Khan Arnaba Health Center, 10 February 2002.
[7] “Mine wounds three Syrian workers in Beirut,” Reuters (Beirut), 19 March 2001.
[8] Al-Haq, Press Release 92, 7 June 2001.
[9] For details of the situation, see Landmine Monitor Report 2001, pp. 1043-1044.
[10] Interview with the assistant director of Quneitra Health Directorate, 7 February 2002.
