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Progress towards a
mine-free world
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 December
2004, over 1,400 delegates, including heads of state, government
ministers, Nobel Prize laureates and mine survivors, as well
as representatives of the United Nations, non-governmental organizations
and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, gathered
in Nairobi, Kenya to assess the achievements to date and the
challenges that remain on the road to a world free of anti-personnel
mines. Called the Nairobi Summit on a Mine-Free World —
the name given to the First Review Conference of the Convention
on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines — the event
took place seven years to the day after the Convention was first
signed in Ottawa, Canada, on 3 December 1997. The Ottawa Convention,
as it is called, marked the first time that states agreed to
ban completely a weapon that was already in widespread use,
on the basis of international humanitarian law. What has been
achieved since then, and will the Convention’s promises
be fulfilled?
Since the Ottawa Convention was adopted,
the worldwide production, sale and use of anti-personnel mines
have decreased dramatically, even by countries that have not
joined the treaty. Close to three-quarters of the world’s
states, or 144 countries, have joined the Ottawa Convention,
thereby agreeing never to use anti-personnel mines, and committing
to destroy all anti-personnel mines in stockpiles and in the
ground, assist mine victims and raise awareness in the civilian
population about the dangers of anti-personnel mines. States
party to the Convention have so far destroyed a total of over
37 million anti-personnel mines. Clearance of mined areas
is occurring in most of the 50 states party to the treaty
affected by mines and three of them — Costa Rica, Djibouti
and Honduras — have already declared themselves free
of anti-personnel mines, well before their Convention deadlines.
But most importantly, the ICRC has found that where the norms
and requirements of the Convention are being respected and
implemented, the annual number of new mine victims has fallen
significantly, in some cases by two-thirds or more.
While noting these impressive achievements,
the Nairobi Summit concluded that much more still needs to
be done to meet the humanitarian objectives of the Convention,
particularly in view of the Convention’s mine clearance
deadlines, which will begin to fall in 2009. In this connection,
states adopted a comprehensive action plan containing 70 concrete
commitments to be carried out over the next five years on
speeding up destruction of mine stockpiles, clearing mined
lands within the Convention’s deadlines and ensuring
long-term aid for mine survivors. The action plan also notes
the crucial role played by the Red Cross and Red Crescent
Movement in mine action, in particular in reducing the risks
to civilians posed by landmines and in providing assistance
to mine victims.
In his statement to the Summit, ICRC
President Jakob Kellenberger hailed the Ottawa Convention
as one of the “great success stories of the international
community in recent years in the humanitarian field”,
while stressing that far more action and resources are needed
to fulfil the Convention’s promises, in particular those
made to mine survivors that they will receive the long-term
care that they need.
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Najmuddin
Director of an orthopaedic centre, Kabul, Afghanistan
“I was 18 years old.
I borrowed a lorry to bring sand from the riverbed
to my house. I left the road to drive down the river’s
embankment and the next thing I knew I woke up in
hospital. I knew something was wrong with me, but
I didn’t know until an earthquake shook the
hospital and everyone was escaping and I couldn’t
— it was impossible for me to move, I had lost
both my legs. “
People in Afghanistan don’t
reject disabled amputees, but they sometimes think
they should be in a corner doing nothing. Many times
I feel that people are talking about me, I am an object
of curiosity. Unlike disabled men, disabled women
can’t get married. These are some of our biggest
problems. There has been a lot of talk [the Summit],
but how much happens on the practical level is very
difficult to say. In Afghanistan our disability is
compounded by a lack of income, but this is also the
case for those who aren’t disabled.”
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Dr Ahmed Hassan
President of the Somali Red Crescent Society.
Member of the Governing Board of the International
Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
“The International Federation
wants to participate in fulfilling the Convention’s
humanitarian objectives. At grass-roots level National
Societies can do a lot, we have an incredible network
right down to the community level. Through the millions
of volunteers we can make a difference in health care,
mine education awareness and physiotherapy.”
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Jakob Kellenberger
President of ICRC
“I think we will look at the
Nairobi action plan to continue what we have been doing in
recent years, continue the intensity on the ratification of
the Treaty, and to bring in the main players who have not
yet ratified.
“Until clearance of mined areas
is complete it will be essential to continue mine-risk education,
not just us but to train National Societies, it is a very
important action because I am worried that, at current rates
of clearance, many mine-affected states will have difficulties
in meeting their deadlines. We need to draw attention —
the whole work is not finished. Certain projects have had
to be closed because of underfunding. We must keep the momentum,
maintain the reminders and the promises made by political
leaders in Ottawa to get and keep the funding.”
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Pum Chantinie
First Deputy Secretary General of the Cambodian
Red Cross
In Cambodia, many people continue
to die, lose limbs and their eyesight to anti-personnel
mines. Despite this, it is harder to get funding for
mine-risk education and assistance to mine victims.
The Cambodian Red Cross is struggling to maintain
its mine-risk education project. If we fail to find
support, there is no doubt there will be more accidents,
deaths and injuries and people will forget the problem.
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