Anti-personnel mine ban said gaining support
Date: 30-Aug-01
Country: SWITZERLAND
Author: Robert Evans
They told a news conference that a total of 118 countries had ratified the 1997 treaty, including most of those where the mines were being used in internal conflicts, and there had been no concrete violations by signatories in recent months.
"There has been a reduced use of anti-personnel mines and a dramatic drop in production, as well as a big decline in trade," said Susan Walker of the United States, a senior official of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL).
Since the treaty was concluded in Ottawa in 1997, it has been signed by 140 states and countries producing the mines had decreased from 55 to 14, declared Walker, whose organisation won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for its work.
Campaigners say tens of thousands of people are still killed and maimed annually by mines, many laid years ago, and that efforts and funding have to be increased to detect those remaining - mainly in rural areas of poor countries.
"More and more countries are coming to recognise that they have to observe the pact, even if they haven't signed it," Norwegian diplomat Steffen Kongstad told the news conference.
"It is clearly becoming politically unacceptable not to stick to the international norms."
MEETING IN MANAGUA
Government representatives, campaigners, demining organisations and survivors of landmine explosions gather in the Nicaraguan capital of Managua from September 18-21 for the third annual meeting of the treaty's signatory states.
Walker said the ICBL would be issuing its latest comprehensive report on landmine production and use around the world during the conference.
Last year's report, a massive 1,100-page survey, said at least one government that had signed the treaty, Angola, continued to use mines and two other signatories, Sudan and Burundi, had probably used them in 1999-2000.
Walker said evidence gathered over the past year showed that mines were still being used in 24 conflicts, by up to 15 governments and 30 rebel groups. But she declined to reveal details until the Managua conference.
Kongstad, who chaired last year's annual meeting in Geneva, said non-signatories "are to a large extent conforming with the international norms."
The United States - which still stands aloof from the pact together with Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Cuba - has declared a moratorium on the export of the weapons and China has announced that it is no longer selling them to other countries.
But Kongstad said getting the non-signatories on board "is going to take a long time."
Campaigners say they hope that some of the resistance to joining the pact, which went into effect on March 1999, will be overcome by the first review conference set for 2004.