PRESS BRIEFING BY MINE ACTION SERVICE

PRESS BRIEFING BY MINE ACTION SERVICE

“We can consign the anti-personnel landmine to the dustbin of history”, Martin Barber, Director, United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS), told correspondents this afternoon at Headquarters during a briefing on the status of the Mine-Ban Convention and the “Summit for a Mine-Free World”.

[The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction (Ottawa Convention) has been ratified by 141 States since it opened for signature in Ottawa, Canada, in 1997.  The Summit for a Mine-Free World, the first review conference of States parties to the Convention, will convene in Nairobi, Kenya, from 20 November to 3 December.]

Encouraging correspondents to take a renewed and active interest in the landmine question between now and November, highlighting success stories and the way to move forward, Mr. Barber said tremendous progress had already been made in dealing with the problem, but a lot of work remained to be done. 

Among the progress made, he mentioned that today there were between 15,000 and 20,000 new victims of landmines yearly, compared to an average of 26,000 victims seven years ago.  Before the Convention, 34 nations were thought to be trading in anti-personnel mines.  Now, there was, apart from some illicit action, virtually no trading going on.  Currently, there were 15 nations thought to have the capacity to produce mines –- of which many were not producing –- in contrast to 54 nations recorded as having produced them in the past.  Seven years ago, mines were used in 19 countries; now, probably in no more than five.  Over 30 million stockpiled anti-personnel mines had been destroyed.  Large areas had been cleared of mines and rendered productive again.

Mr. Barber stressed that the first review conference was not meant to rewrite the Convention, but to review progress made and chart the way forward for the next five years.  On 2 and 3 December, a high-level segment would offer governments the opportunity to lay out their plans and to renew commitments to clear mined areas and assist victims.  It would provide donor countries an opportunity to renew their financial and resource commitments.  He hoped the States parties would be able to adopt a “practical, measurable action plan for the coming five years”.  He also hoped that before the start of the conference, more countries would accede to the Convention.

There was a need to maintain and build momentum in the mine-ban movement and finish the job, he said, and for public interest and pressure on States parties to finish their obligations and no other States to accede.  The conference would be a success if it could adopt practical action plans and if each mine-affected State party came to the conference with its own national plan on how it was going to get rid of landmines in its territory within the required time-frame.

United Nations agencies, including UNMAS, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), would support and assist mine-affected governments in developing their national plans, he said.  On 13 April, during a meeting with Ambassador Wolfgang Petritsch of Austria, President-designate of the Review Conference, the Secretary-General had pledged the full support of the United Nations for the universalization of the Convention (see Press Release SG/SM/9255).

He said his agency’s work went beyond action on anti-personnel mines.  It also dealt with vehicle mines and unexploded ordnance and with “explosive remnants of war”.  Clearly, the civil society movement that had impelled governments towards the mine-ban treaty had provided a focus for all those efforts.

In answer to a correspondent’s question, Mr. Barber said he was reluctant to name the five countries still using mines and the 15 countries with the capacity to produce them, as estimates in that regard were based on information available to UNMAS.  He referred correspondents to the “Landmine Monitor”, the civil society’s standard document providing information about the use of landmines.

Mr. Barber is the focal point in the United Nations system for the substantive preparations for the Review, and Enrique Roman-Morei, Director, Geneva branch of the Department for Disarmament Affairs, is Executive Secretary of the Conference.  The UNMAS is the clearinghouse for public information.

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