Countries Gather to Lighten the World's Burden of Landmines

NAIROBI, Kenya, December 2, 2004 (ENS) - A project to clear anti-personnel land mines from a wildlife sanctuary in southern Africa was introduced today at a global conference on land mines in an effort to give thousands of elephants and local residents fresh hope.

The initiative, backed by the California based organization Roots of Peace, demonstrates that land mines are an environmental as well as a humanitarian concern.

The US$1 million project initially aims to clear mines, sown during the Angolan civil war, to help restore an ancient elephant migration route linking Botswana with Zambia and Angola.

Deminer works in Angola. (Photo courtesy UNDP)

An estimated 120,000 elephants, whose numbers are growing at five percent annually would be able to move north into Angola and Zambia if the mines were cleared.

The Roots of Peace elephant project was announced during the Nairobi Summit for a Mine-Free World taking place at the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The Nairobi Summit is the first five year review of the 1997 Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel mines. At the Summit, the international community is expected to adopt a powerful action plan to address challenges that remain on the path towards a mine-free world.

Heads of state and ministers of foreign affairs from several countries are expected to address the Summit’s two day high level session that opens today.

At the Summit Ethiopia became the 144th state to accept the Ottawa Convention. The announcement came Monday on the first day of the Summit.

“I am ecstatic that on the first day of this historic event one of the world’s most mine-affected states has joined the effort to end the suffering caused by anti-personnel mines,” said Summit President Ambassador Wolfgang Petritsch of Austria.

Petritsch noted that Ethiopia will destroy its existing stockpiles of anti-personnel mines within four years, clear mined areas within 10 years, and cease any use, production or transfer of the weapons immediately.

Anti-personnel mine (Photo courtesy UN)

The official five year review document offers a hopeful outlook. Since it was adopted in Oslo on September 18, 1997, the Convention’s "unique spirit of cooperation has been sustained, ensuring the Convention’s rapid entry into force and over five successful years of implementation," the document states.

The review charts progress and points out considerable challenges that remain before the world will be free of mines.

Despite great progress towards universal adherence, 51 countries have not yet ratified or acceded to the Convention, including the United States.

"The U.S. will not sign the Ottawa Convention because of concern for the safety and security of our men and women in uniform, and because of our responsibilities around the world for the security of friends and allies," the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs said in a statement issued November 26.

"The Ottawa Convention would remove from U.S. forces munitions our commanders say they may need for these purposes, munitions that self-destruct or self-deactivate within hours or days of being used, and thus do not remain hazardous to innocent people after the military conflict has ended," the State Department said.

"The U.S. has ratified the Amended Mines Protocol to the Convention on Conventional Weapons, a separate international landmine treaty that establishes reasonable, transparent and verifiable standards for the use of landmines to minimize risks to civilians," said the State Department, which assured the global community that "at present, the United States maintains no minefields anywhere in the world, and has not exported anti-personnel landmines since 1992."

A mined riverbed en route to Farkhar village, Afghanistan, 2002. (Photo by David Jensen courtesy UNEP Post Conflict Assessment Unit)

The ICBL has estimated that six countries that are not Parties to the Ottawa Convention may hold a total of more than 180 million stockpiled antipersonnel mines. They are China, India, South Korea, Pakistan, the Russian Federation and the United States.

Together, the Parties have destroyed more than 37 million landmines since the Ottawa Convention took effect.

From a financial perspective, the five year review acknowledges that some States Parties, particularly developing countries, do not possess the financial means to destroy their stockpiles of antipersonnel mines given pressing needs in other areas.

"It should be recognized that while an investment of typically less than US$1 per mine will destroy a stockpile of mines, the costs to clear emplaced mines are hundreds or thousands of times higher," the review document says.

Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Kenyan Assistant Environment Minister Wangari Maathai (left), Shirin Ebadi of Iran (center), and Jody Williams of the United States, who won in 1997 for her work for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. The three Laureates led a panel in Nairobi on responses to war. (Photo courtesy ICBL)

From a technical perspective, the remaining main challenges include the destruction of a unique type of mine, the PFM1 mine, the review document explains.

This type of mine is tough to destroy because it cannot be disarmed once armed, and it contains a liquid explosive that gives off toxic fumes once detonated.

Belarus, which is a Party to the Convention, holds millions of PFM1 mines. In addition, some States that are not Parties including one signatory, Ukraine, have large stockpiles of them, the review says, pointing out that "the destruction of those stockpiles would be an important challenge should they join the Convention."

Another technical challenge relates to a lack of expertise by some Parties to develop and implement national stockpile destruction plans.

Mine detection efforts are getting more creative, although most mine clearance still depends on the mainstays - manual deminers, mine detection dogs and mechanical systems.

But new techniques are in development. Tests have been conducted on combined ground penetrating radar and metal detectors and on infrared detectors.

The use of creatures other than dogs to detect antipersonnel mines is being investigated, with certain types of rats, trained honey bees, and genetically modified plants showing some promising results.

Once areas have been demined, they can be converted - carefully - to peaceful uses.

Roots of Peace, which works with bodies including the UNEP, the United Nations Development Programme UNDP, the United Nations Mine Action Service and the UK based Mine Advisory Group, is developing agricultural projects in de-mined areas.

Tun Channareth of Cambodia. Landmine survivor, Ambassador for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. (Photo by Markku Sarubin courtesy La Trobe University)

"Together we have planted rice in Cambodia, grapes in Afghanistan, orchards in Croatia and wheat in Iraq converting swords into plough shares in war torn countries," said Heidi Kuhn, founder and president of Roots of Peace.

UNEP, which has a Post Conflict Assessment Unit (PCAU) based in Geneva, has carried out studies in several war-torn countries and regions including the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq.

It recently conducted a post conflict assessment of Liberia and has received similar requests from other African countries including Angola.

Henrik Slotte of the Unit said, " Mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO's) have been problem in many areas where UNEP-PCAU has been working such as Afghanistan, in Kosovo, in Serbia-Montenegro, in Bosnia-Hertzegovina and in Iraq."

"In addition to immediate risks for the local population and returning refugees after the conflicts, mines and UXO's are also posing a threat to the wildlife and to the use of nature protection areas such as National Parks and wildlife reserves," Slotte said.

Klaus Toepfer, UNEP's executive director, said, "Land mines are among the horrendous legacies of war that play their deadly role in perpetuating poverty. The direct threat to people from these seeds of misery must be our first concern but it is clear that the environment, upon which local people depend for items such as food, shelter and natural medicines suffers, too."

"Land mines effectively bar people from productive land forcing them to clear forests and other precious areas for agriculture with consequences for the fertility of soils, accelerated land degradation and loss of wildlife," said Toepfer. "We need more initiatives like this Roots of Peace and Conservation International project in Angola that not only remove these discarded weapons but replace them with the chance for local people to earn a sustainable livelihood."

Dr. Ken Rutherford and his fiancee Kim Schwers after he was maimed by a landmine near Lugh, Somalia, in 1993. They are now married with four children. In 1997, Rutherford started the Landmine Survivors Network. He serves as Landmine Studies Coordinator, Department of Political Science, Southwest Missouri State University. (Photo courtesy Journal of Mine Action)

In their Declaration, the survivors called upon Ottawa Convention States Parties to do many things including, "integrate landmine survivor assistance into national health and rehabilitation policies and development programs."

In addition, the survivors ask for recognition that "as a necessary condition of adequate victim assistance, landmine survivors must be treated on an equal basis with all other members of society and protected from discrimination on the basis of their disability in accordance with recognised civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights."

Read the Survivors Summit Declaration here.

View the Draft Five Year Review of the Ottawa Convention.