A ”summit for a mine-free world” opens this weekend in Nairobi to take stock of progress since the signing five years ago of an international treaty banning the deadly devices, and to chart the road ahead.
One-hundred-forty-three countries have ratified the 1997 Ottawa Convention on antipersonnel mines, which bans their use, production, stockpiling and transfer and calls for mined areas to be cleared within 10 years.
Between 1999 and 2003, more than four million antipersonnel mines were destroyed, according to the 2004 edition of the Landmine Monitor Report, compiled by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, the umbrella group behind the convention and the Nairobi summit.
Accordingly, there has been a significant fall in the number of landmine victims, from 26 000 a year in the 1990s to the current figure of 15 000 to 20 000.
”Raising awareness, marking out mined areas and demining have contributed to the decline in the number of wounded,” according to Richard Collodge of the United Nations’ Mine Action Service, or UNMas.
”We thought it could take decades to get rid of mines and we are seeing that it can take just a few years, even if the problem is not yet solved,” he added.
The summit will examine the challenges ahead, such as bringing on board the 44 states who have yet to ratify the convention, notably the United States, China and Russia.
At least four governments have used antipersonnel mines since 2003: Georgia, Burma (Myanmar), Nepal and Russia, according to the Monitor.
More than 100 countries will be represented at the Nairobi meeting. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, Kenya’s Mwai Kibaki and a United Nations (UN) under-secretary general, Louise Frechette, are also expected.
The first three days of the meeting will feature debates and discussions involving non-governmental organisations and landmine victims.
On December 2 and 3, states’ representatives will take the floor and a 70-point action plan for the next five years will be adopted. December 3 is also the international day of the disabled.
”Military people say antipersonnel mines make the best soldiers,” noted Takuto Kubo, who works for UNMas in Sudan.
”They can stay buried for five, 10, 15 years, even more. In Afghanistan, mines planted in 1979 are still causing victims. They kill indiscriminately. That is why they are disgusting,” he said.
Civilians make up 86% of those killed or wounded by mines. Many of them are children who take the devices for toys.
Mines also constitute a ”brake on economic development and on the delivery of humanitarian aid and post-war reconstruction,” explained Tarcisius Nitta of the World Food Programme. – Sapa-AFP