Mine-clearance project under way

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and a Swiss NGO signed an agreement on Thursday to initiate a nationwide project next month to clear thousands of mines laid during the five-year civil war in Tajikistan, which ended in 1997. "It is significant, because it's the first internationally assisted mine-clearance project in Tajikistan," Salla Kayhko, OSCE's political and media officer, told IRIN from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, on Friday. "Some 2,500 square kilometres of the country’s territory is mine-contaminated, and over the past year more than 30 people died in land-mine incidents," she said. Torbjorn Bjorvatn, an economist with OSCE in Tajikistan, told IRIN that mine clearance was a priority for the country's government. Tajik authorities have signed up to the Landmine Ban Convention signed in Ottawa in September 1997. The new project aims to help the country comply with its commitments under the convention, which calls for the removal and destruction of all the landmines on its territory over the next few years. Although the Tajik government has completed some mine clearance, lack of resources has inhibited its ability to conduct a general mine action assessment. "The Tajik government approached us for help last year and we are responding to that now," Bjorvatn said. Following the agreement between the OSCE and the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (Federation Suisse de Deminage), the project would begin with the recruitment, training and deployment to the field of landmine survey teams, whose task would be to identify and mark the exact location of minefields. Mines and other unexploded ordnance (UXO) are a legacy of the country's civil war, when the they were laid by both government forces and rebels. The problem was compounded three years ago when neighbouring Uzbekistan laid its own mines along its border with Tajikistan. Other areas affected by landmines are the central Tavildara region, the Garm Valley, Khalaikhum, the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast and the border with Afghanistan. According to the Tajik authorities, around 16,000 live mines continue to threaten the lives of thousands of people. They also represent a major obstruction to the country’s fledgling, predominantly rural economy by preventing people from tilling fields, and posing a danger to their livestock. Until now, Dushanbe lacked the funds and expertise needed to clear its territory of mines and other UXO, which have claimed dozens of lives. But this project might offer much-needed relief. Bjorvatn maintained that although the mine-contaminated areas amounted to only two percent of Tajik territory, in a country that is 93 percent mountainous, all available arable land is vital. Following recommendations by the Tajik government, initial work on mine clearance will begin in the Tavildara District and adjacent territories. With the help of the UN Development Programme and the Geneva-based International Centre for Humanitarian Demining, the project will eventually set up a national mine-action centre in Dushanbe. The centre will be responsible for the coordination of information collected by the survey teams. During the first stage, survey equipment for two teams of 11 locals and one international expert could be purchased with the initiative being funded by the OSCE, the Canadian government and the Canton of Geneva in Switzerland. "We hope that other countries will give further contributions to this project later this year", Ambassador Marc Gilbert, the head of the OSCE office in Tajikistan, said. "This additional funding could then be used to permit the mine-clearance teams to be deployed to areas where concentrations of mines have been identified," he added.