UNICEF hails UK push against landmines

Information
Newsline

Home | UNICEF in Action | Highlights | Information Resources | Donations, Greeting Cards & Gifts | Press Centre | Voices of Youth | About UNICEF

UNICEF hails UK push against landmines

The announcement by the United Kingdom that it will destroy its stocks of anti-personnel mines by a fixed date and press more vigorously for a worldwide ban lends tremendous impetus to the Canadian-led initiative to outlaw these unspeakable weapons, UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said today.

"The steps announced by the Government in London constitute a major breakthrough that can only help the Ottawa negotiations," Ms. Bellamy said. "But we should not let it blur the fact that the world continues to lose ground to these devices, which kill or maim 6,000 to 8,000 children a year, shatter families, destroy livelihoods and subvert the best efforts of struggling people to better their lives."

For every mine removed worldwide, 20 new ones are planted, she noted. Despite the growing international outcry over the carnage -- 800 casualties a month, a million since 1975, 30 per cent of them under the age of 15 -- more than 115 million unexploded mines remain concealed in the earth worldwide, a number that is growing by two million annually. Most of the mines are in some 70 developing countries, 18 of them in Africa.

The countries with the most horrific landmine problems include Egypt, with 23 million unexploded mines; Iran, with 16 million; Angola, 15 million; Afghanistan, Cambodia, China and Iraq, 10 million each; Bosnia-Herzogovina, 6 million; Viet Nam, 3.5 million; Croatia and Mozambique, 3 million each; remaining countries, 6 million.

"Dangerous, costly and painstakingly slow de-mining operations, including mine clearing supported by the United Nations, have made only the tiniest difference in nations like Angola, Cambodia and Mozambique," Ms. Bellamy said. Angola has managed to remove only 80,000 unexploded mines, leaving 15 million, while 62,000 have been removed in Cambodia, leaving 10 million. In Mozambique, 17,000 mines have been cleared, leaving three million. A mine can cost as little as $3 to $10 to produce but up to $1,000 to remove.

The new Labour Government in Britain said yesterday that it intended to destroy its stock of landmines within eight years, a stance it said would allow Britain to speak with more authority at the negotiating table. The previous Conservative Government had resisted setting a deadline for the destruction of landmine stocks, although Britain has observed a de facto ban on the production and sale of anti-personnel weapons since the mid-1980s. The new policy makes it a matter of law.

In February, UNICEF expressed strong support for the Ottawa process, an initiative in that Canadian city that began in October 1996 with the first international strategy meeting of governments committed to a global landmine ban. Seventy-one countries have so far expressed support for the Ottawa process, which UNICEF believes will produce a treaty quickly. The United Nations General Assembly has called for a global landmine ban as soon as possible.

Ms. Bellamy said UNICEF strongly supports an initiative by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to bring as many African Governments as possible into the campaign for a global ban, beginning with a drive to make the continent of Africa a mine-free zone. The need for increased awareness and discussion of the landmine situation was the focus of the First Continental Conference of African Experts on Landmines, a four-day OAU-sponsored meeting in Johannesburg. The Conference ended today.

The Johannesburg meeting, Ms. Bellamy said, was another important opportunity for UNICEF to reiterate its case for a total halt in the production, use, sale and transfer of anti-personnel mines, a policy that grows out of UNICEF's role as an advocate for the protection and care of children affected by armed conflict

Within the United Nations system, UNICEF plays a lead role in efforts to limit the effects of landmines on women and children, including mine-awareness programmes, physical and psychological rehabilitation of victims, and public advocacy worldwide.