Mine action centre launched

A centre for mine action opened in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, last week with the ultimate goal of clearing the estimated 16,000 mines thought to remain scattered throughout the republic. "Some parts of the republic still need to be cleared from mines left as a legacy of the civil war," Jonmahmad Rajabov, the head of the new Tajik Mine Action Centre (TMAC), told IRIN in Dushanbe. Tajik authorities simply did not have the resources for such a comprehensive mine-clearance operation, so the government had applied to the international community for assistance, he added. Several states had shown interest and were eager to assist Tajikistan, and the centre had been established with financial assistance from the British government, Rajabov said. The TMAC would deal with all mine-related issues in Tajikistan, acting as a coordination centre for state bodies, international organisations and NGOs working towards solving the problem. Peter Isaacs, the UN Development Programme's chief technical adviser to the TMAC, told IRIN in Dushanbe that the centre would have a central planning and coordinating capability. "The actual operations in Tajikistan are going to be carried out by the army, but they are being equipped, trained and supervised by a Swiss NGO, Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (FSD)," he said. Thousands of antipersonnel and anti-vehicle mines were laid by both sides, as well as by regional peacekeeping forces, during the 1992-97 civil war. An unspecified number of mines has also been laid by Uzbek forces along what the Uzbek government says was its border with Tajikistan to keep out insurgents from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). As a result, at least 35 people have died and more than 200 injured in landmine incidents over the last two years in Tajikistan, the victims having been mainly women and children gathering food or tending cattle. Initial mine-clearance activities, Rajabov said, would focus on the central parts of the country, which were once battlefields during the civil war, particularly the Rasht valley (formerly Garm valley). Referring to the issue of landmines laid by Uzbekistan, Rajabov told IRIN that the primary task would be to resolve the long-standing border delineation problems. "We need to clearly identify the state border between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan," he said, pointing out that whereas some of those mines had been laid on Uzbek territory, others were on Tajik territory. He cited the lack of a definitive border as the primary cause of local people in border regions falling victim to mines. "We have to conduct negotiations with them [Uzbek officials] so that they show us where they have laid those mines, and we could [then] conduct de-mining activities," Rajabov said. In an effort to reduce deaths and injuries on the border, for the last 18 months the Red Crescent Society and International Committee of Red Cross have been carrying out mine education in the region, designed to raise public awareness of the dangers until clearance can be undertaken. Meanwhile, the duration of the TMAC project currently stands at 10 months, and Rajabov urged international organisations and donor countries to contribute funds and expertise to it. He said such support for mine-clearance teams would be very useful, adding that if sufficient funds proved to be forthcoming, the centre would be able to prolong the duration of its operations. Following the opening of the TMAC, the government carried out the destruction of its antipersonnel-mine stockpile, in accordance with its obligations under the Ottawa Treaty - the international convention banning the manufacture and use of landmines.