April 1999 [No.1 1999]

On 27 January 1999 New Zealand's Instrument of Ratification of the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty was lodged with the United Nations Secretariat in New York. This made New Zealand the 64th country to ratify.

In his Press Release announcing our ratification, Minister of Foreign Affairs Don McKinnon gave credit to the work of CALM and its support of New Zealanders working overseas towards achieving the ban.

He emphasised that New Zealand's commitment to the ban remains as strong as ever. He looked forward to NZ playing a constructive role at the First Conference of States Parties to the Convention in Maputo, Mozambique in May 1999. He also called for countries that have not yet signed the Ottawa Convention to do so as soon as possible.

CALM Convenor Neil Mander issued a Press Release on behalf of CALM, welcoming New Zealand's ratification. He acknowledged the contribution of New Zealanders, military and civilian, working overseas in mine clearance and victim support. Research work in NZ is leading towards better and safer ways of locating buried mines.

Further afield it is good to see the continuing progress towards world-wide acceptance of the Treaty. To date there have been 135 signatories and 75 ratifications.

1 March 1999 was a special day for all those involved in the mine ban campaign. It marked an event that many of you have worked and prayed for over many years, the entry into force of the Ottawa Treaty which is a major step towards the complete elimination of landmines.

To help mark the event New Zealand led off a Mexican Wave of bell ringing that swept around the world that day. Church and carillon bells the length of New Zealand, in communities large and small, helped mark the event. Hamilton has the most easterly set of bells in the world in St Peter's Anglican Cathedral, followed closely by the bells of St Matthew-in-the-City, Hobson Street, Auckland. Around Tauranga the electronic carillon at St Peter's Presbyterian Church, and also individual bells at churches in Mount Maunganui and Katikati joined in the world-wide celebration.

The 12 tonne Peace Bell, the biggest bell in the Southern Hemisphere, located in the War Memorial Carillon in Wellington, tolled to celebrate the coming-into-force of the Treaty and also to remember the victims of this insidious and indiscriminate weapon.

The bells of Christchurch Cathedral, in the square in the centre of Christchurch joined in the ringing as did the bells of First Church, Dunedin which were the most southerly bells in the world to participate. The community of Methven in Canterbury joined in enthusiastically with church bells and the local fire siren. Schools joined in with discussions on landmines and their effects.

Other countries around the world followed on from New Zealand. In Sri Lanka there was bell-ringing in temples and churches at 12 noon local time. Later there was bell-ringing from churches throughout France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, England and other countries in Europe. In Brazil there was bell-ringing throughout the country from Catholic and Protestant churches alike. In Canada bells were rung from town halls and churches and prayers for peace were broadcast from a mosque.

CALM continues its work for the Landmine Monitor System. Country reports were completed and forwarded to the LM Core Group, covering New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Singapore and a dozen Pacific Island States. Each of these reports set out to cover as many aspects as possible of the landmine situation in each country, ranging from acceptance and implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty, through manufacture, imports and exports, stockpiles, minefields, to humanitarian mine action in other countries.

As a direct outcome of Neil's attendance at Ottawa last December CALM was invited to prepare the country report on Singapore, and through a flurry of emails it was agreed that John Head would be able to work on this and to visit Singapore to gather further material

In a separate article in this Newsletter John Head, who undertook all the legwork on this, tells us of that and of his visit to the Oslo Conference in March to represent CALM and formally present all our research findings.

A little over six months ago the 40th country ratified the Ottawa Treaty. On 1st March, New Zealand and many countries around the world heralded its coming into force with the ringing of Church bells.

The Treaty is now accepted as International Law by the United Nations and by most of the countries of the world. But the hard work continues on three broad fronts; to clear the world of landmines, to support the landmine survivors, and on the political front to work to bring about a universal acceptance of the Treaty.

All three programmes are funded independently. CALM's current role is to encourage our members, affiliated organisations and our Government to give every support possible to the excellent work being done by the Cambodia Trust, World Vision, Oxfam, Rehab Craft in Cambodia and similar worth while organisations. We support the research such as that being done at Auckland University by Lawrence Carter to find reliable and speedy ways to locate and destroy landmines. We realise that once landmines become an obviously ineffective defensive weapon, the three major powers, USA, China and Russia will no longer require landmines to be part of their armoury and we support the efforts of our Army Engineers to train landmine clearing teams in several parts of the world.

But CALM's main thrust has been on the political front. Mary Wareham has been one of our leading New Zealand campaigners. She is now based with Human Rights Watch in Washington and has been the driving force for the establishment of an international Landmine Monitor. In this, funded by a number of Governments, campaigners worldwide have been researching every country's position on the Ottawa Treaty, whether landmines have been used, stocks of landmines, their programme for destruction, the past and present exporting of landmines, the treatment of landmine survivors and the potential danger of landmines in each country.

You will have realised from earlier newsletters that CALM has been given the responsibility of collecting information from the Pacific nations, Singapore and our own country. I have just returned from representing Australasia at the Oslo Conference where each report was tabled, discussed and analysed. Unexploded shells and bombs are a problem in a number of Pacific countries but even in Bougainville, landmines do not pose problems for the inhabitants.

Many at the Conference considered Singapore to be "one of the major antipersonnel landmine producers in the developing world" and were surprised at my report which recorded that Singapore has not produced landmines since 1991 and has not exported antipersonnel mines since May 1996.

The country reports were full of interesting information and will be consolidated, printed and tabled at an international meeting of Government representatives in Maputo, Mozambique in May. At the final plenary session there was a sustained round of applause for all the work that Mary had put into this ambitious programme.

My travel was funded by World Vision (NZ) and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

In brief, the Landmine Monitor reports produced by CALM made the following observations.

New Zealand declared a moratorium on the use of antipersonnel mines in 1996 and destroyed its entire stockpile at that stage. Since then it has been a strong supporter, at Government and NGO levels, of the landmine ban campaign and particularly of the Ottawa Process. It has provided demining and victim support in Afghanistan, Mozambique, Angola, Cambodia and Laos, and continues to do so in all but Afghanistan. It provides ongoing support to UN Headquarters in New York.

The country visit by John Head to Papua New Guinea cleared up a lot of doubts and rumours. It is now strongly believed that there is no landmine problem in Papua New Guinea, although there are areas containing UXO mostly left from WW2. It is expected that PNG will soon sign and ratify the Ottawa Treaty.

John Head's visit to Singapore revealed that they have not exported any antipersonnel mines since May 1996. On 5 February 1998 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the "Singapore Government has now decided, with immediate effect, to extend the moratorium to the export of all types of anti-personnel mines." Singapore has yet to sign the Ottawa Treaty and the two Landmines Protocols of the Conference on Conventional Weapons. Officials expressed interest in humanitarian mine clearance work.

Fiji, Niue, Samoa and the Solomon Islands have signed and ratified the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty. The Cook Islands and the Marshall Islands have signed but not yet ratified.

Those yet to sign the Treaty include: Kiribati, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Tonga and Tuvalu.

There is no suggestion that any of the Pacific Islands have any minefields, although those most heavily involved in World War 2 fighting still have areas of unexploded ordnance and wreckage left over from them. These include Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.

Because of its Compact of Free Association with the United States of America it would seem unlikely that Micronesia will take steps towards accession to the Treaty until the USA does.

John Head has received a quantity of the UN Mine Action News journals (fourth quarter 1998), and these are available to interested members. Please contact John at the address noted on the final page of this newsletter.

An expected 700 diplomats will gather in Maputo from 3 to 7 May for the First Meeting of States Parties (FMSP) to assess progress and problems with the implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty (MBT) perhaps better known as the Ottawa Treaty. There will also be more than 100 campaigners, deminers, landmine survivors and activists from around the world to co-ordinate future activities and to keep the diplomats "honest."

At the Maputo meeting, the ICBL will release the first Annual Report of the Landmine Monitor initiative in a formal presentation to governments. Landmine Monitor - a civil society-based system which monitors implementation of and compliance with the ban treaty, and overall international progress in dealing with the landmine crisis - is the first systematic, coordinated, global effort by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to monitor an arms control or humanitarian law treaty.

The FMSP Conference will be followed by the ICBL General Assembly at which Neil will represent CALM.

We cannot be other than dismayed by the unfolding disaster that is Kosovo at present.

Certainly the laying of landmines is bad news and we obviously deplore that. But it is just a small part of the greater tragedy of the forced expulsions of hundreds of thousands of people from their homelands and the killing of hundreds of innocent civilians. This is coupled with the destruction of buildings and infrastructure, the pollution of the environment and the ruinous waste of our planet's scarce resources.

Who, if anyone, are the winners? Certainly not the people of Kosovo, nor of Albania, nor of Macedonia.

Worries about antipersonnel mines in Angola have existed longer than this south-west African country has had independence. For more than three decades, mines have been a favourite tool of terror, as rival political groups first battled Portuguese colonialists and then turned on each other with the backing of the United States, the former Soviet Union and other Cold War adversaries. Now, after four years of internationally acclaimed progress in removing mines, both sides in Angola's re-ignited civil conflict are once again laying the devices with a vengeance after their peace agreement started to rapidly unravel.

Of the many tragedies surrounding the return to fighting here, perhaps none is more distressing than the reintroduction of the deadly booby traps, dispirited humanitarian aid workers say.

The Angolan government has signed, but not yet ratified, the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty.

- Neil Mander, Convenor

CALM (New Zealand Campaign Against Landmines)

Convenor: Neil Mander
38 Arundel St, Mt Roskill, Auckland 1004, New Zealand
Phone/Fax +64 9 625 9306. Email: neilman@clear.net.nz

Spokesperson: John Head
6 John Sims Drive, Broadmeadows, Wellington 6004, New Zealand.
Phone +64 4 478 1828, Fax +64 4 384 2112, Email: jhead@i4free.co.nz

Treasurer and resource officer: P O Box 17 195, Karori, Wellington, New Zealand