Annan salutes countries eliminating landmines

If every anti-personnel landmine was cleared from the planet, the need for assistance to the victims would still remain, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told a major conference on landmines held in Geneva this week. In a message delivered on his behalf to the Fourth Meeting of States Parties to the 1997 Ottawa Convention, also known as the Mine Ban Treaty, he saluted countries which had remained focused on eliminating landmines. He said the Convention now had 122 parties and three more countries had submitted their ratification instruments. This included Angola, the Southern African country worst-affected by landmines. Annan said that under the Convention's auspices, "millions of mines had been destroyed - each one potentially saving an innocent life". He said new partnerships had been built and innovative ways of working had been developed. "Despite these achievements, serious challenges lie ahead. Many countries have not joined the Convention. Others that have joined will face serious difficulties in meeting their four-year deadline for stockpile destruction or their mine-clearance commitments," Annan said. At the conference, Mozambique's Defence Minister Tobias Dai, appealed for funds to help the country clear mines left over from the country's 16 years of civil war. All 10 provinces and 123 out of 128 districts in Mozambique are littered with landmines. Radio Mozambique reported that he told the meeting that in compliance with the convention, the country had already destroyed about 18,000 landmines in stock in the country. Complete destruction of government stocks should be completed by March 2003, he said. That was slightly less than half the stockpiled mines reported, according to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). The organisation said in its "Landmine Monitor 2002" report that 13 donors reported contributing US $15.1 million to Mozambique last year for mine clearance. Mozambique signed the Mine Ban Treaty in December 1997, and co-sponsored and voted in favour of the unanimously adopted UN General Assembly Resolution 56/24M in support of the treaty last November. The country aims to be "Mine Impact Free" within 10 years, according to a plan released last year. That should include site clearance, and the establishment of long-term survivor and victim assistance programmes. This week's conference comes five years after the adoption of the treaty in Norway. Stephen Goose, head of the ICBL delegation, said in his opening address that three-quarters of the world's nations had formally committed to the treaty, and many others were poised to join. "Since that day, some 30 million stockpiled anti-personnel mines have been destroyed. Since that day, not a single nation has openly traded anti-personnel mines, and it appears that fewer than a dozen countries have produced anti-personnel mines," Goose said. More details: http://www.icbl.org/ http://www.gichd.ch/mbc/msp/4msp/