‘THE ROAD TO A MINE-FREE WORLD IS LONG, BUT AN END IS IN SIGHT,’

SAYS SECRETARY-GENERAL ON 10^th ANNIVERSARY OF MINE-BAN CONVENTION

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s message to a 3 December commemoration in Ottawa marking the tenth anniversary of the opening for signature of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction:

Ten years ago, the landmark Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction opened for signature in Ottawa.

Since the Convention’s inception, the international community -- through a partnership uniting civil society, Governments, and the United Nations -- has come a long way in its quest to achieve a mine-free world.  Legal trade in anti-personnel landmines has stopped, and no State party to the Convention still uses these horrendous devices.  Tens of millions of stockpiled landmines have been destroyed.  Land has been cleared and returned to communities for safe and productive use.  Survivors and their families are increasingly recognized as having rights to social and economic reintegration into their communities.  One hundred fifty-six countries have joined the Convention.  No major multilateral disarmament treaty in history became law as quickly as this one.

The ambitions of the Convention are great, and its scope is vast.  But ultimately, the Convention and the actions to implement it are all about the individual -- clearing the path for a woman in Sudan who collects water from a community well; allowing a child in Cambodia to walk safely to school; helping a refugee in Ethiopia learn new skills after having lost a limb to a landmine.

Long before the Convention came into being, the United Nations began helping many countries clear landmines and educate people in how to deal with the risk mines pose.  In 1989, the United Nations started its first mine action programme, in Afghanistan.  Also before the Convention, the United Nations and its main governing bodies had advocated for a ban on these weapons.  Former United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said in 1996 that “only a total ban can stop the continual escalation of the number of mines and of the terrible suffering they cause”.

The road to a mine-free world is long, but an end is in sight.  But even after all the mines are out of the ground, a major challenge will remain:  to provide the hundreds of thousands of people who have survived landmine accidents with all the support they need to become and remain active and productive members of the communities.

Today, many refer to this milestone in multilateralism as the “Ottawa Convention”.  This term rightly pays tribute to one of the key States that championed the cause from the start.  But we must always remember to give credit to all the countries, non-governmental organizations and individuals -- many of them survivors of landmine accidents -- that played a role.

The Convention is a reality because people and Governments all around the world agreed that anti-personnel landmines have no place in our world.  On this anniversary, let us recommit ourselves to their elimination.

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For information media • not an official record