DISARMAMENT: Ratification of Landmine Treaty Welcomed

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 17 1998 (IPS) - U.N. members praised Burkino Faso Thursday for becoming the 40th nation to ratify the Convention on the Prohibition of Landmines, ensuring that a ban on the deadly weapons can enter into force in 1999.

Canadian Ambassador Robert Fowler declared the task now was to prod all the nations (more than 130) that had signed the convention to ratify it, so that as many countries as possible enforce the ban when it takes effect. He added that it was important that the 40th and crucial ratification had come from Africa, “which has suffered so much” from mines.

Burkino Faso’s ratification of the convention, which was opened for signature nine months ago in Ottawa, Canada, meant the landmines treaty could be in effect by 1 Mar. 1999. On that date, all those who ratified the treaty will be compelled to ban the production, export and deployment of landmines.

“This is no time to bask in our success,” said Carol Bellamy, executive director of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). “While this treaty is a hard-won victory, countries that have not yet added their names to the treaty must move swiftly to do so.”

Many diplomats here were eager to see the ban take effect. “We will closely watch implementation of the ban, expose the culprits for the laying of new mines – like right now in Kosovo and Angola – and assist those suffering under the mines,” said Wolfgang Shussel, foreign minister of Austria. “Our moral obligation has become a legal one.”

Fowler noted that the treaty was not binding on countries that had failed to ratify it. Because the United States – which strongly opposed the treaty during negotiations last year and sought unsuccessfully to exclude U.S.-made mines on the Korean peninsula from its ban – has not signed it, he added, its policies would not be affected.

“U.S. Secretary of State (Madeleine) Albright has said that by 2006, the Americans will sign” after devising alternatives to landmines in several conflict zones, Fowler said.

However, the entry into force of the treaty could well prod the U.S. and other recalcitrant governments to speed up their own pace in complying with a landmines ban, some diplomats believed. Ernst Sucharipa, Austria’s U.N. ambassador, voiced the hope that “this major groundswell against landmines … will somehow also influence politically the leaders in (the United States).”

The U.S. administration had been embarrassed when, after trying to stake out a tough position against anti-personnel mines, it faced opposition to the treaty from the Pentagon. U.S. military officials wanted exemptions for mines which could de-activate themselves over time and for the mines along the border between the two Koreas – neither of which was accepted.

Sucharipa said the rapid pace of ratifications should send a message about how much people worldwide want a landmines ban. Many groups – including the International Committee to Ban Landmines (ICBL), which received last year’s Nobel Peace Prize – have cited popular support as the main factor for the progress of the anti- landmine effort over the past few years.

In London, ICBL chief Jody Williams, said that the fast pace of ratifications “underscores the urgency of dealing with the global landmine crisis and the strength of the new international standard against this insidious weapon.”

The negotiations for the landmines convention, held in September 1997 in Norway, had been led by South Africa, and the foreign ministers of the two countries were quick to welcome the ratification.

South Africa’s Alfred Nzo declared: “For Africa, suffering from the effects of landmines more than any other continent, this is an important step towards the aim of getting rid of these terrible weapons. The convention will mean increased efforts in mine clearing and help to landmines victims, and thus contribute to the African awakening we are working for.”

Norwegian Foreign Minister Knut Vollebaeck sais: “Governments and civil society must now increase the efforts to transform the intentions of the treaty into lasting results for the millions of landmines victims around the world.”

The convention was signed in December 1997 in Ottawa. Canada’s Foreign minister, Lloyd Axworthy, called its ratification “an important step towards a world free of anti- personnel mines”. He added: “The Ottawa convention is now more than a piece of paper. It has become a permanent part of international law.”

But the ICBL also expressed concern about reports that mines were still being laid in some countries that have signed but not ratified the treaty, such as Angola, Cambodia, Senegal and Sudan.

The ICBL said it was also concerned that some signatory countries where the U.S. has mines stockpiled – Greece, Japan, Italy and Spain – have not ratified. It said it believed it would be a violation of the treaty to permit the U.S. to maintain those mines indefinitely.

In addition to the United States, nations that have not signed the treaty include Cuba, Egypt, India, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, China, Iraq and Libya.

Anti-landmines campaigners welcomed the fact that the treaty would now enter into force but were disappointed that major powers like the U.S., China and Russia were yet to ratify it.

“We find it hard that the U.S. have not done what so many other countries have already done,” said David Hillman of the U.K. Working Group on Landmines, a London-based nongovernmental organisation. “A secret Pentagon report has recently detailed that of the 66,000 U.S. troops who were killed or aimed by landmines in Vietnam, 90 percent were victims of U.S.-made landmines.”

The revelation was “an awful testament to the indiscriminate nature of landmines and makes us wonder what more evidence the U.S. actually needs before it signs the treaty.” he said

After governments have carried out audits, they have to submit their reports at a regular signatories’ meeting in Ottawa. “There is an ever-growing fund of money to tackle the problems, but quite a lot of it will not be spent until after countries have come back having audited their problem,” Hillman said.

Canada launched a 64-million-Canadian dollar landmine fund at the December 1997 meeting. Of that amount, 16 million dollars are to be spent over five years on a landmines research centre.

Britain has already destroyed half its stockpile of landmines and aims to complete the process by Jan. 1, 2000. In May 1997, it also announced a unilateral moratorium on its use of landmines.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan observed, however, “a total ban on landmines will mark the end of only one aspect of our fight against landmines. No less important is the removal of millions of mines which have already been laid.”

The United Nations estimates that about 100 million uncleared landmines remain in at least 70 countries in the world and kill more than 26,000 people every year.