LANDMINE MONITOR REPORT SET FOR RELEASE - MONDAY 3 MAY 1999 IN MAPUTO, MOZAMBIQUE

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines will release the first report of Landmine Monitor -- Landmine Monitor Report 1999: Toward a Mine-Free World -- in Maputo, Mozambique on Monday 3 May 1999 to the First Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty.

Landmine Monitor is an unprecedented initiative by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), 1997 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. It is the first time that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are coming together in a coordinated, systematic and sustained way to monitor a disarmament or humanitarian law treaty, in this case the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, and to assess more generally the efforts of the international community to resolve the global landmine crisis which sees thousands of innocent people maimed or killed every year.

Researchers in more than eighty nations gathered information to produce this 1,100-page book, which contains reports on the landmines situation in every country of the world. It has the most complete and accurate information available. It highlights new information such as:

• who's still using antipersonnel mines -- identifying several governments using mines after signing the ban treaty;
• who's still producing antipersonnel mines -- naming the 16 remaining manufacturing countries;
• who's got the world's biggest stockpiles of antipersonnel mines -- giving the first realistic estimate of the number of mines stockpiled globally;
• who's destroying their mine stockpiles, and how many have been eliminated worldwide, as required by the treaty;
• what progress is being made in getting mines out of the ground, and in helping victims;
• who are the major donors and what is the trend in funding for mine action programs;
• what countries haven't signed the treaty and why;
• what countries have signed, but not ratified, and why.

Landmine Monitor is not a technical verification system or a formal inspection regime but it is an effort by civil society to hold governments accountable to the obligations that they have taken on with regard to antipersonnel mines. Landmine Monitor is coordinated by a “Core Group” of NGOs already active in the ICBL - Human Rights Watch, Handicap International, Kenya Coalition Against Landmines, Mines Action Canada, and Norwegian People’s Aid. Landmine Monitor Report 1999 also includes appendices with reports from major actors in the mine ban movement, such as key governments, regional organizations, UN agencies and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

For more information or to receive a copy of the report, please contact:

• Landmine Monitor, http://www.icbl.org/lm/ - lm-at-icbl-org
• Mary Wareham, (wareham-at-hrw-org) Human Rights Watch at MEDIA CELL PHONE or +1-202-612-4321 (USA)
• Anne Capelle, Handicap International at Handicap International (Moz. HI Tel or +32-2-286-50- 54.)