ICBL Presentation at Kuala Lumpur seminar on Stockpile Destruction

(Thursday 09 August 2001 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) Intervention by ICBL delegate Yeshua Moser at the Regional Seminar on Stockpile Destruction of Anti-personnel Mines and other Munitions
Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, 8-9 August 2001

(Bell rung)
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines believes almost 50 people will be injured or killed in the neighboring countries in SE Asia during the course of this seminar. We believe 4000 ASEAN citizens will have become landmine victims by the end of this year, clustered mainly in Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, Laos and Thailand. This bell will be rung every 2 hours to remind us the reason we are here. We are here to undertake preventive action. Every mine destroyed before it is ever laid potentially prevents creating another landmine victim.

I'll be brief. The ICBL is not an expert on the destruction of anti-personnel mines, we simply know it must be done. The ICBL is grateful to Malaysia, now co-chair of the Standing Committee on Stockpile Destruction of the Intersessional Standing Committee of the Mine Ban Treaty, and to the government of Canada for bringing this meeting about. Personally I am pleased to be back here in Malaysia as a representative of the ICBL where I witnessed the final day of the total destruction of Malaysia's landmine stockpile earlier this year in January. We believe this action, together with a search made last year for remnants of mines laid during the Communist Party of Malaysia insurgency, that Malaysia is the first ASEAN state to be AP LANDMINE FREE since the Mine Ban Treaty came into force.

Stockpile destruction brings 3 benefits to nations who undertake them:

The first benefit is humanitarian. Every mine destroyed is a mine which can never be laid to produce a landmine victim. While laying is cheap, the cost to society of the loss, whether civilian or combatant, and the cost of care of survivors, is high.

The second benefit is security. The destruction of stocks is the key element which legitimizes a nations signature and ratification of the Convention. Until the mines have been declared, counted, certified and destroyed, a ratification is simply a good intention. Until it is disposed of, they say they won't use it but still have it. Do you trust them not to use it if they still have it? Once a nation publicly destroys its entire stock of this indiscriminant weapon it backs up its words with action. Bold action which inspire trust. Building trust enhances security. However, to inspire trust, this process must take place in an open and transparent way.
When I was in Malaysia earlier this year to observe the destruction of Malaysia's mine stockpile, anything I cared to investigate about the process was made available to me. The entire process from collection and counting and certification and destruction was fully explained by the engineers involved who were able to answer every question I asked. I am not a technical expert, but I am not uninformed. The transparency of the process inspired trust. The only fault I could find is that more of Malaysia's neighbors did not come to witness it.
Two months after I witnessed the stockpile destruction I had a meeting at the Ministry of Defense in Singapore. The key people in their policy department were not aware that Malaysia had destroyed its entire mine stockpile. I described the process by which Malaysia had gone about its destruction and the total number destroyed. After which they asked me, "Malaysia says they have destroyed their mines. Do you believe them?"

Do YOU believe them?

My answer to our Singapore friends was and is the Landmine Monitor.
The ICBL has supported the implementation of the MBT by States Parties, by undertaking an independent audit of states actions to develop trust in this process. They say one thing, and we report it. If their actions say another, we publish that too. Annually. The ICBL, at no small expense, has researchers working on 192 country reports investigating treaty compliance, mine victim assistance and mine action around the planet, in party and non-party states. We have developed and ongoing upgrading of skills for the researchers of this volume and incorporate as rigorous fact checking as we can to provide the nations of the world with a state of the world and the landmine crisis yearly report. We wish to inspire trust in the process by providing transparency on the issue. Stockpile destruction is the key to developing this trust in the process, but it must be done not only in a transparent way, but a way which actually brings in the public and surrounding countries. There is a 3rd benefit which comes with the destruction of mine stocks. It is subtle and rarely taken into account by policy makers: peace of mind.
When I was interviewing the chief EOD officer of the Malaysian Army at the final day of the stockpile destruction at a military firing range in Malacca, and asked him his feelings about this process, he said to me, "It is difficult for me as a military engineer to describe my feeling in destroying these weapons. Here is an object that I have been taught throughout my career was for my defence and I was trained to attend and care for. Yet when we destroyed the first batch of them we all clapped. No one gave us the order to do so. It just happened."