Six more countries added to landmine-free list
8 December AFP
Six more countries have been added to the list of nations that have
eliminated “the scourge of landmines”, organisers of a conference on the
deadly weapons said Friday. Congo, Denmark, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau,
Jordan and Uganda have declared all mined areas in their territories
cleared, said organisers at the end of a five-day meeting aimed at
evaluating progress since the signing of the 1997 Ottawa Convention.
Gambia had been added to the list as late as Friday, after a country
representative unexpectedly announced its mine-free status to the
gathering, Laila Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the Geneva event, told
AFP. As for the perhaps most surprising name on the list of countries
not considered landmine-free until this year, Denmark in July finished
clearing minefields left over from World War II, when Nazis put about
1.4 million landmines along the Jutland peninsula to ward off an allied
invasion.
Following the new additions, 36 signatory countries to the Mine Ban
Treaty are still in the process of clearing mines, organisers said.
“Fifteen years after the opening of the Mine Ban treaty, we still see
a high level of commitment. . . aimed at ending for all time the scourge
of landmines,” said Stephen Goose, chair of the International Campaign
to Ban Landmines (ICBL), which oversees the implementation of the 1997
treaty.
Poland's announcement during the conference of its imminent
ratification of the treaty was also grounds for celebration, ICBL said,
pointing out that Polish participation will mean that all EU member
states will be part of the pact as the 161st signatory country.
That will leave the United States as the only NATO member that has
yet to ratify the treaty. A US delegation nonetheless took part in the
Geneva conference and announced that a domestic landmine policy review
launched in 2009 would “soon” be complete, which could potentially open
the way for a US ratification.
The Palestinians, who attended the conference for the first time, had
meanwhile told the gathering they wanted to take advantage of the
upgraded United Nations status they gained late last month to join the
Mine Ban Treaty.
Conference organisers lamented that three signatory countries --
Belarus, Greece and Ukraine -- were still in violation of the treaty
since they had missed deadlines for destroying their stockpiles. The
ICBL says that almost 4,300 people were killed by landmines worldwide
last year -- or nearly 12 deaths a day, compared with32 in 2001.
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