Landmine problem hasn’t gone away
Posted, October 19, 2009 @ 00:00
Ten years after the Ottawa Treaty to ban anti-personnel landmines (APL) and on the eve of the Second Review Conference, the European Parliament has been holding a workshop to review progress.
156 states have now acceded to the Treaty; large areas have been cleared of mines; there are fewer mine victims. But since 1997, the international community has spent $4 billion on mine action around the world; casualties still run at over 5,000 a year; more than a dozen states still produce APL; and terrorists and insurgents continue to be the main users of this banned weapon.
Geoffrey Van Orden MEP, Conservative Defence Spokesman and with a record of involvement on the APL issue going back to the Ottawa Treaty preparations, was one of the keynote speakers at the Workshop. Mr Van Orden commented:
“Overcoming the scourge of APL was supposed to be a finite problem but, a decade on; we are still engaged on it.
“We need to focus on the real culprits which are not the democracies or our armed forces. Countries that are still producing and exporting APLs, like Iran, and the so-called “Non- State Armed Groups” - terrorists and insurgents in normal speak - such as the LTTE in Sri Lanka; the Taliban; and FARC in Colombia are the worst abusers.
“Resources have been wasted ‘clearing’ areas of perceived hazard where no mines exist (less than 3% of land that has been ‘cleared’ actually contained explosives) or where they do no harm (such as the Falklands)
“More use should be made of the state’s military personnel for mine clearance in afflicted countries such as Bosnia.
“The European Commission and other major donors need to organise their activities more precisely and also give more attention to mine victims."