Landmines Campaign Condemns Recent Use of the Weapon
(Geneva: 13 September 1999) As key mine action experts of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) come to Geneva to participate in a series of government-sponsored meetings on mine clearance and mine victim assistance, ICBLīs leadership condemned Russiaīs recent use of antipersonnel mines in Dagestan, as well as recent unconfirmed allegations of use in the conflicts between Eritrea and Ethiopia, and between Pakistan and India. Continued use of antipersonnel mines reaffirms the necessity for rapid universalization and effective implementation of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty.
The ICBL continues to monitor progress and challenges in implementation of the ban treaty via the Landmine Monitor initiative and will continue to speak out and denounce countries which are not honoring their ban commitments, are violating letter or spirit of the treaty, or are not making sufficient progress.
The ICBL views the intersessional work program as key to ensure that the practical work that needs to be done to implement the Mine Ban Treaty occurs in a systematic, sustained, collective and measurable way. These meetings must spur and assess progress on implementation of the ban treaty which bans antipersonnel mines, requires destruction of stocks within four years, destruction of mines in the ground within the next ten years and continued and sustained assistance for mine victims.
One contentious issue has been funding of mine action programs for governments that violate or have not joined the treaty. The ICBL believes that civilian victims of landmines should not be further victimized because of a governmentīs use of mines or failure to join the treaty. In such cases, the ICBL supports continued funding of NGOs operating in mine affected areas, but not the governments.
The meetings this week are the first in the intersessional work program laid out by the First Meeting of States Parties to the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and On Their Destruction (Mine Ban Treaty) in Maputo in May 1999. This weekīs meetings will focus on mine clearance, mine awareness and victim assistance.
At the meeting on Mine Clearance (13 - 15 Sept.), co-chaired by the governments of Mozambique and the United Kingdom, ICBL representatives include the Chair of the ICBLīs Mine Action Working Group (Mine Clearance Planning Agency) and the ICBLīs member NGOs active in mine clearance (Handicap International, Mines Advisory Group, medico international, Norwegian Peopleīs Aid and Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation). The ICBLīs Landmine Monitor initiative will distribute a Fact Sheet detailing mine action. The ICBL hopes the deliberations will enhance and complement practical mine action coordinating structures and mechanisms, including those in the field, and will focus and advance mine action efforts within the framework of the ban treaty by identifying gaps, resources and needs, measuring progress, addressing problems and making resources available.
ICBL participants at the meeting on Victim Assistance, Socio- Economic Reintegration and Mine Awareness (15 - 17 Sept.), co- chaired by the governments of Mexico and Switzerland, include the Chair of the ICBL Working Group on Victim Assistance (Landmine Survivors Network) and experts including landmine survivors from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodia, Nicaragua and key rehabilitation and development specialists from NGOs including Handicap International, Jesuit Refugee Service, Physicians for Human Rights and Save the Children. The ICBL expects the governments to examine concrete ways to implement the victim assistance elements of the ban treaty, which calls on governments to assist in the care and rehabilitation and social and economic reintegration of mine victims. The ICBL will present a portfolio of projects detailing a range of victim assistance projects underway or possible in mine- affected countries.
For more information or for an interview, please contact:
a.. Sayed Aqa , Mine Clearance Planning Agency, Chair of the ICBLīs Mine Action Working Group: (+41-22) 732-0840 x 76
b.. Susan B. Walker , ICBLīs Government Relations Liason: +41- (0)-79-470-1931 (mobile phone)
c.. Jerry White , Landmine Survivors Network, ICBLīs VAWG Chair: (+41-22) 732-0840 x 40
