DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS MINE CLEARANCE WILL REMAIN UN PEACEKEEPING PRIORITY, ON OCCASION OF FORTIETH RATIFICATION OF MINE BAN TREATY

1 October 1998

Press Release
DSG/SM/18

DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS MINE CLEARANCE WILL REMAIN UN PEACEKEEPING PRIORITY, ON OCCASION OF FORTIETH RATIFICATION OF MINE BAN TREATY

19981001 CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY Louise Fréchette Says United Nations Draws Inspiration from Civil Society and NGOs in Landmine Crusade

It is a special pleasure for me to join you today in marking the forty-fifth ratification of the Ottawa Convention. We mark today not only a victory for the United Nations, but for the peoples of the United Nations; a victory not only for the present, but for the future; a victory won not in the field of battle, but by the force of civic conscience. It is a victory of which we all can be deeply proud.

With the fortieth ratification, the Ottawa Convention has now acquired the force of binding international law. Today, as a matter not only of morality, but of legal obligation, the use, production and stockpiling of anti-personnel mines are now banned. And all this has happened with historic speed propelled by a historic alliance.

Only 26 months ago, Minister Axworthy called on the international community to endorse a treaty banning landmines. Only 12 months ago, the Secretary-General addressed the Oslo Conference which drafted the treaty, and told them then that their work held out the promise to millions of a life free from fear. Only six months ago, the Secretary-General joined you in Ottawa to celebrate the signing of the Convention, calling it a "landmark step in the history of disarmament".

The historic alliance that brought this Convention into being was one of unique cooperation between the United Nations, national governments, civil society and humanitarian organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and, of course, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which so richly deserved its reward of a Nobel Peace Prize.

I would like, therefore, to express my special gratitude to the Governments of Belgium, Norway, South Africa and Canada for leading the intergovernmental process to its successful conclusion.

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But, as you who have gathered here know as well as anyone, we have just begun. We have won only the first battle in a long struggle, and we know where the next two battles will be fought: namely, in the effort to remove the millions of landmines that continue to kill, maim and sow terror among the weakest and most vulnerable of our world; and in the effort to universalize the treaty, and bring every nation and every people into compliance with this Convention of conscience.

In all our operational peacekeeping and peacemaking work, we at the United Nations will continue to make mine clearance a priority. In all our advocacy work, we will continue to urge Member States to ratify the Convention.

We will, above all, continue to draw inspiration from this peoples' crusade and to look to civil society and non-governmental organizations for the energy and initiative to complete this challenge and truly rid the earth of anti-personnel mines.

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