DISARMAMENT: Thai Landmine Ban Should Spur Others

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 15 1998 (IPS) - The U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Tuesday hailed the decision by Thailand to be the first Southeast Asian nation to ratify the treaty banning anti-personnel landmines in a region devastated by the deadly weapons.

“We urge other nations in the region to follow Thailand’s example,” said UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy.

Bellamy said that at least three other members of the nine- nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) – Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines – already had signalled their intention to ratify the treaty.

The other five ASEAN members were Brunei, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore and Vietnam. Cambodia, which shortly was expected to join ASEAN as a full-fledged member, also had indicated its interest in ratifying the treaty, Bellamy said.

“Thailand’s leadership on banning anti-personnel landmines is good news for the children and women who continue to be innocent victims of these hidden killers,” she said.

During a recent meeting with UNICEF officials, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen gave assurances that ratification of the treaty would be among the first pieces of legislation to be introduced in the country’s new National Assembly.

Last week, the U.N. Credentials Committee recognised the right of the new Cambodian government to a seat in the 185-member General Assembly. Cambodia’s membership in ASEAN , meanwhile, was expected to figure prominently this week at a summit meeting of the regional organisation in Vietnam.

“It is important that each of the region’s nations, whether formal members of ASEAN or not, join the anti-landmine effort because Southeast Asia is one of the world’s heavily mined regions,” Bellamy said.

Between 1979 and 1997, in Cambodia alone, landmines killed 15,000 people and injured more than 25,000 others, according to UNICEF. Additionally, thousands of square kilometres of the country’s most fertile land cannot be farmed due to the continued presence of four to six million landmines.

UNICEF said that Vietnam, Laos and Thailand had significant numbers of landmines or unexploded ordnance, much of it dating back to the Vietnam war in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and other related conflicts.

Apart from Thailand, in the wider Asia-Pacific region only Japan and the Pacific Island nations of Fiji, Niue and Samoa have ratified the treaty.

Thailand was the 55th country to ratify the treaty, which prohibits the use, production, development, acquisition, sale, stockpiling and transfer of anti-personnel landmines. The ban is scheduled to come into force in March 1999, as spelled out on the treaty, six month’s after the 40th ratification.

Hundreds and thousands of children have been killed or maimed by landmines and UNICEF has taken the lead in lobbying governments to ratify the convention. In 1995, UNICEF decided not to do business with any companies involved either in the manufacture or the sale of landmines, or their components.

“The world community must ensure that the landmine treaty comes into force as quickly as possible to help bring the day when these weapons are remembered as a menace of the past,” Bellamy said.

Major countries that have refused to go along with the treaty included the United States, South and North Korea, Turkey, Greece, India, Pakistan and Israel.

Bellamy said that although the agreement to abolish these “horrific weapons” was being achieved with “remarkable swiftness and resolve,” yet the threat of landmines still persisted. She said that that not only were there tens of millions of mines laid in some 70 countries but more mines were being laid even now.

UNICEF says that reports from countries such as Angola, Burundi and Sierra Leone indicated that landmines were being used in ongoing conflicts in these countries. In Angola, for example, landmines were repoerted to have reappeared in areas which had been cleared.

“Wherever mining occurs, it is part of a shameful, growing tendency to make children and women the principal targets of violence in conflict situations,” Bellamy said.

UNICEF was designated the lead agency within the U.N. system for landmine awareness and victim assistance programmes. The New York-based agency also was working closely with other U.N. bodies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), specifically the International Campaign against Landmines which won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize last year.