Govt to clear last landmine stocks, minister says

The government of Tanzania is due to destroy its last remaining 3,177 anti-personnel landmines by 29 July, Defence Minister Philemon Sarungi announced on Wednesday. "Tanzania will thereby enter the small group of countries in the world with no further stockpiles of anti-personnel landmines," Sarungi said in a statement. Tanzania signed the Ottawa Landmine Elimination Convention in 1997 and ratified it in 2002. It came into force in the country on 1 May 2001. The convention prohibits the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines. It commits signatory nations to destroy stocks within four years and clear all mines from their territories in 10 years. Under the convention, the government had pledged to destroy 22,841 mines, out of 23,987, in four phases. So far, it has destroyed 19,664 landmines. Sarungi said the government would retain 1,146 landmines for use during military training. In March 2003, army engineers destroyed 9,837 anti-personnel landmines at Msata in Bagamoyo District, about 110 km northwest of Dar es Salaam. The destruction was the first of three phases to eliminate the country's stockpile of landmines. The other phases for the destruction of the landmines had been scheduled for Arusha and Tabora, in the north and central part of Tanzania, respectively.