June 1999 [No.2 1999]

Maputo FMSP - Who said what?

Louise Frechette, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, paid tribute to the partnership between governments and civil society as the driving force behind the convention.

Salim Salim, Secretary-General of the Organization of African Unity said that the OAU intends to play an advocacy role in promoting the goals of the convention noting that "as long as some important countries remain outside the convention, the risk and temptation of employing antipersonnel mines will always be there."

A message from HM Queen Noor of Jordan said, "I applaud the selfless courage of those implementing the treaty on the ground doing the demining and providing victim assistance." Noor also said she would spare no effort to help universalize the treaty.

Jody Williams, 1997 Nobel Peace Prize Co-Laureate and ICBL Ambassador, introduced the ICBL’s Landmine Monitor Report 1999: Toward a Mine-Free World. It was handed over to President Chissano by ICBL Ambassador and Cambodian landmine survivor Tun Channareth and 16-year old Song Kosal, a Cambodian landmine survivor and founder of the Kids Against War campaign. A copy of the 1,100 page report was then given to each delegation. A 49-page Executive Summary is available on the Internet at the website address: www.icbl.org.

South Africa’s head of delegation Ambassador Selebi, who chaired the September 1997 Oslo treaty negotiations, noted that "The fact that we meet here today is a tribute to the victims of landmines that their suffering has not been in vain. This is their victory, they have ensured that multilateral diplomacy will never be able to ignore the plight of the innocent. "

Delegates to the meeting noted the decrease in numbers of new landmine victims, the steadily increasing area of land being cleared and returned for use by local communities, and the increased efforts being put into care and rehabilitation of victims. Stockpiles are being destroyed, and the manufacture and export of mines has been markedly decreased. Almost all of those countries still manufacturing have voluntary export moratoria in place.

The NZ delegation leader, High Commissioner to South Africa René Wilson, spoke of New Zealand's continuing support of the world-wide move to ban landmines and announced a further contribution of NZ$100,000 through UNDP to support the continuing work of the Mozambique Accelerated Demining Programme. He mentioned the valuable research in mine location being done at the University of Auckland, and paid tribute to the work of New Zealand CALM.

The meeting closed on Friday 7 May with a Final Declaration which urged non-signatory countries to move as quickly as possible to accede to the Treaty, and urged all countries to put renewed efforts into mine clearance and to victim support and rehabilitation.

Some further thoughts on the meeting

The first appearance at such a meeting of a delegation from China was most welcome. The Ambassador's statement accepting the need for "international humanitarian efforts" and that "balanced consideration should be given to both the humanitarian concerns as well as the legitimate defence requirements of sovereign states", seem to indicate a welcome change in stance.

It was noted that of the 80 countries to Ratify to date, only 14 had domestic legislation to give strength to the Treaty within their own country. Conversely, NZ's APM Prohibition Act drew some ill-informed criticism to its clause granting legal protection under specific circumstances to NZ military working on combined operations with the military of non-signatory countries who chose to use landmines. It was suggested quite seriously that the Pentagon claimed that by this clause the New Zealand legislation allowed them (the USA) to use landmines!

No suggestions were offered on alternative methods of achieving the appropriate outcome, apart from the dubious one of including a statement of foreign policy in what is actually domestic legislation.

The ICRC presented a draft outline of suitable domestic legislation to provide support for ratification. But this draft made no mention of combined operations with non-signatory States.

This topic is of considerable interest at the moment because of the perceived threat of the use of landmines by the USA in Kosovo. All NATO countries, other than USA and Turkey, are signatories of the Ottawa Treaty and would be affected.

Considerable effort and finance of mine clearance and victim support has come from the USA, but their continued refusal to accede to the Treaty conveys a strong and negative message, especially to other non-signatory countries. A statement from President Clinton, re-iterating his "sign by 2006 if we have replacement weapons," when read out at the Conference, was received in stony silence by delegates.

Personal notes

A feature of the campaign, referred to by many of the delegates in their presentations, was the excellent rapport and co-operation between NGOs, Governments and international organisations. This has certainly been the case in New Zealand all through the campaign. On behalf of CALM and its constituent NGOs and individual members I would like to acknowledge this and to express our gratitude to government members and Ministry staff for their unfailing courtesy and co-operation.

My special thanks to Mr René Wilson and Mr Andrew Begg from MFAT for their ready and willing acceptance of me as part of the NZ Government delegation.

Landmine Monitor Report

A special feature of the FMSP was the presentation by Jody Williams for the ICBL, of the first edition of the Landmine Monitor Report 1999. This document of nearly 1,100 pages provides a detailed country by country report on all aspects of compliance with the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty regardless of whether or not they have signed the treaty. It was produced in what must be the record time of five months, by a team of volunteers working in the many NGOs and country campaign groups that make up the ICBL. Data was collected from many sources - government, military, commercial and individual.

A surprise finding was the fact that world-wide stocks of landmines are far greater than they were ever previously expected to be - some 250 million rather than about 100 million.

More than 12 million mines have been destroyed from the stockpiles of more than 30 nations-- mines that will never claim a civilian victim. At least 38 nations have stopped production of antipersonnel mines, while just 16 producers remain. There is no evidence of significant exports of antipersonnel mines by any nation in recent years and Iraq is the only known past exporter that has not at least publicly declared a halt to mine shipments.

Eight of the twelve biggest producers and exporters of the past 30 years are treaty signatories, counter to the oft-heard criticism that the Mine Ban Treaty does not include major producers and exporters.

United Nations landmines booklet available

John Head still has some of the UN Mine Action News journals (fourth quarter 1998) available to interested members. Please contact John at the address noted on the final page of this newsletter.

ICBL at the FMSP

In its formal submission to the Plenary Session of the FMSP the ICBL called for governments to provide up to $3 billion over the next ten years to support effective survivor assistance programs in mine-affected countries.

More resources are needed not just for medical care and physical rehabilitation, but also to promote peer support, psychological care, income-generating projects, literacy and vocational training, apprenticeships and job referrals. Survivor assistance programs must build local capacities so rehabilitation needs are met "in country" over the long term.

Capacity building should emphasise training and employment of local workers and mine survivors to be responsible for all aspects of project design, implementation, and management.

The ICBL repeated its concern that anti-vehicle mines with anti-handling devices which explode from an innocent, unintentional act, are to be considered antipersonnel mines, and therefore banned.

Concern was expressed over the matter of treaty states parties and signatories potentially engaging in joint military operations with a non-signatory that may use antipersonnel mines.

The ICBL called on treaty signatories to insist that any non-signatories do not use antipersonnel mines in joint operations and remove mine stocks from their countries.

The ICBL remains concerned about the related issues of US antipersonnel mines stockpiled in at least seven nations which have signed the treaty, and the permissibility of the US or other non-signatories transiting mines through the national territory of treaty signatories. The ICBL believes that all US mines must be removed from those nations, and that the transit of mines for the purpose of war fighting would constitute a treaty violation.

The ICBL General Meeting

The General Meeting of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines was held in Maputo, Mozambique on 8 and 9 May 1999, immediately following the FMSP. It was attended by 120 participants representing 70 of the 80 country campaigns of the ICBL, and representatives of international organisations.

The meeting decided to target its campaigning efforts on the states of the former Soviet Union, the Middle East/North Africa and the United States, in addition to continued pressure on all non-signatories. A raft of specific measures was proposed to help bring this about. It was noted that now that the Treaty has entered into force, nations can no longer sign the treaty but instead must accede to it (signing and ratifying at the same time).

The ICBL will liaise with the government-level inter-sessional work of the Mine Ban Treaty through the Working Groups, each of which will maintain liaison with specific Inter-Sessional Committees. The overall process will be monitored by an ICBL Inter-sessional Advisory Group which will also assist the ICBL to prepare for the second Meeting of States Parties in Geneva from 11 to 15 September 2000.

The work of each of the ICBL Working Groups was considered - Mine Action, Mine Victim Assistance, and Non-State Actors (rebel and guerilla groups). The Legal and Moral Issues Working Group was discontinued and a new Ad Hoc Ethics and Justice Working Group was set up, with co-chairs from the Italian and Nicaraguan Campaigns.

This is to be reviewed in one year's time. A particular issue to be looked at is the cultural appropriateness of mine awareness programmes - the Superman comic strip was specifically mentioned.

Three of the previous Co-ordinating Committee (CC) members stood down: Mines Advisory Group, Medico International and Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. Their work as founding members of ICBL is appreciated, as is their continuing commitment to the ban on landmines. The Inter-African Union for Human Rights has not been able to fulfil its obligations in the CC and did not express a wish to renew their CC membership.

The Meeting accepted the continuation of the twelve remaining members: Afghan Campaign to Ban Landmines, Association to Aid Refugees-Japan, Cambodian Campaign to ban Landmines, Colombian Campaign Against Landmines, Landmine Survivors Network, Lutheran World Federation, Norwegian People's Aid, Physicians for Human Rights and the South African Campaign to Ban Landmines. Two new members were invited; Mines Action Canada (subject to approval from their membership) and the Italian Campaign to Ban Landmines.

The Mine Action Working Group will be chaired by either Norwegian People's Aid or by Handicap International. The Non-State Actors Ad Hoc Group of the ICBL is now a full Working Group, chaired by Philippine Campaign and Mines Action Canada.

The next ICBL General Meeting is due to be held before May 2001 at the latest. The date and arrangements are to be determined by the CC.

Visiting a live minefield

One of the highlights in Mozambique was a visit to a live minefield a couple of hours’ drive north of Maputo. This minefield blocks access between a local village and their water supply, forcing a detour of some 20km.

The terrain is open, covered with knee-high grass with scattered scrubby trees. The soil is light alluvial and rather uneven. Hazards found there include unexploded mortar bombs, trip-wire operated bounding mines which have a lethal radius of 50 metres, and pressure-operated PMN mines. Complicating the work is the million or so pieces of metal of all sizes that litter the field. Each one has to be found with the aid of a sensitive metal detector, identified for what it is, and removed. It might just be a scrap of shrapnel, or it might be the detonator of a plastic-bodied mine! A similar, nearby minefield to this one produced a total of some 38 assorted mines and UXO and 1.9 million pieces of metal. Needless to say, the work is slow, painstaking, dangerous and usually most uncomfortable, especially in the hot season.

We were shown the preparations and back-up support at the minefield, including the para-medic on full-time standby. Impressively, the team very nearly achieved an accident-free year last year, which speaks strongly for the training and safety-conscious attitudes.

Elsewhere sniffer dogs may be used to help define the limits of minefields before meticulous inch by inch searching and clearance takes place. Mines located are destroyed where they are by remote-triggered detonation. Some mechanical clearance is carried out where the terrain and the type of mines expected are suitable for this.

The over-riding principle behind the clearance work is that the vital yardstick is not the number of mines cleared but the amount of useful land restored to a local community. This may involve the destruction of lots of mines or of only a few mines, or may just be confirmation that a piece of suspect land is in fact mine-free.

I was impressed by the support structure and facilities that had been set up in Maputo. The complete mechanical, electrical and electronic repair and maintenance for all the UNDAP local demining teams is dealt with by a dedicated workshop team, mostly of local people. Logistic support, database support and mapping, are all provided by the team of locals and military from NZ, Australia and Canada.

An impressive comment came from the Mozambican manager who made it clear that they considered the problem as theirs and they were going to solve it, rather than sit and wait on the sideline while someone else sorted it all out.

The visit was specially arranged for a group of us who were escorted by Lt Col John Armstrong of the NZ Army who is on secondment to the UN Accelerated Demining Programme in Mozambique (UNDAP).

My thanks to him and the team for their introduction to the UNDAP facilities and to practical demining.

What now for CALM? Where to from here?

There are several important tasks that New Zealand can undertake, at both government and NGO level. The first is to continue advocacy of the Treaty with those Pacific Island States who have yet to sign or ratify it. Specifically these include:

Signed but yet to ratify: Cook Islands, Marshall Islands, Vanuatu.

Yet to sign: Kiribati, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Tuvalu.

It is believed that Papua New Guinea is close to achieving accession with only routine procedures yet to be completed.

CALM Members who have contacts in any of these locations are invited to contact Convenor Neil Mander or Spokesman John Head with a view to planning a co-ordinated approach.

A second and vital task is to increase the funding for clearance of minefields. The "adopt a minefield" scheme appears to be highly effective and could well be worth introducing to potential fund providers in New Zealand.

Rehabilitation of victims is also needed. Bearing in mind that landmines and mined land are a result of deeper trouble and not a primary cause, rebuilding of communities is also an important and challenging task.

At the ICBL General Meeting Sister Patricia Pak Poy of the Australian Campaign was invited to be the Asia-Pacific Regional Campaign Co-ordinator. She will have the task of assisting Campaign groups in the region, with particular emphasis on those in countries which have made little progress towards ratification. The task will be a challenging one and CALM looks forward to being able to make a useful contribution.