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UNICEF welcomes support for landmine treaty

Friday, 17 October 1997: UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy today welcomed the move by the Russian Federation and Japan towards backing a global treaty outlawing anti-personnel landmines throughout the world.

However, the optimism from such support was offset this week, said Ms. Bellamy, by the Khmer Rouge's assertion that the laying of landmines is "the inalienable right of all Cambodians". "Those words are a blood-chilling reminder of how crucial it is for every country to sign and ratify the landmines treaty," she said. "Only a universal pact, agreed by all civilized people, can guarantee that these horrific weapons will be rendered extinct."

If all governments ratify the treaty, which not only prohibits the use of anti-personnel landmines but also their production, development, acquisition, sale, stockpiling and transfer, then rebel groups such as the Khmer Rouge and Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army will also lose their access to these cheap and deadly weapons.

"Children, especially, need the protection of a universal pledge to rid the planet of every last trace of landmines," said Ms. Bellamy. "The 91 countries already committed to the Ottawa Process have dissociated themselves once and for all from these tools of random mayhem and maiming. I strongly urge all other Governments to come on board now."

The so-called Ottawa Process began in the Canadian capital in October 1996 with an international meeting dedicated to bringing about a global ban. The treaty envisioned at that time now has wide support around the world, thanks in large part to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, whose mobilizing efforts won the consortium and its coordinator, Jody Williams, this year's Nobel Prize for Peace. Governments will return to Ottawa on 3 December, when the treaty officially opens for signature.

Governments already fully committed to sign the treaty include major anti-personnel landmine producers, such as Belgium, France, Hungary, Italy and the United Kingdom; and key users such as Angola, Cambodia and Mozambique.

However, some prominent governments have yet to agree to sign. With the Russian Federation on board, the United States and China would be the only permanent members of the United Nations Security Council on the list of countries that are still resisting the global ban.

Only two European Union countries -- Finland and Greece -- remain on that list. Other countries that have yet to support the initiative include Bulgaria, India, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Republic of Korea and Turkey. Poland and Australia have said that the treaty is under consideration.

Ms. Bellamy has committed UNICEF to work "tirelessly" with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines to bring about the treaty's universal endorsement. UNICEF will begin by helping to persuade at least 40 national legislatures to ratify -- enough to make the treaty an instrument of binding international law.

A directive from UNICEF headquarters in New York to its offices in 161 developing countries and its National Committees in 37industrial countries will instruct the organization's representatives to urge their government partners to sign and then to ratify the treaty.

"It is imperative that all countries commit themselves to making this treaty fully effective. It is an opportunity to rid the world of the scourge of landmines. We must grasp it."