Rocky Road of Landmine Ban

December 6, 2011
By Luke Hunt
The Diplomat

Reaching an international consensus on banning landmines was a difficult road to travel. Along the way, it received a substantial boost from personalities like Diana, the late Princess of Wales, and the actress Angelina Jolie. But any deal was often held back by politicians, who were easily bullied by their militaries. But persistence and commonsense won out, and the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty was eventually signed 15 years ago.

Since then, though, doubts have arisen about its effectiveness.

The Arab Spring was a talking point last week at a major landmine convention in Cambodia, with representatives from 158 countries attending. The meet heard an international chorus of concern over the fresh use of landmines, and delegates left amid complaints that Israel, Libya and Syria had been deploying antipersonnel mines, along with Burma, a long-standing offender, while the United States continued to drag its feet on joining the movement.

Landmine Treaty: Progress in Phnom Penh

Cambodian deminers, with tools used for landmine detection and clearance, during a field visit in Phnom Penh on November 27, 2011. (Mary Wareham/Human Rights Watch)

US Should Conclude Policy Review and Join Mine Ban

December 2, 2011
Source: Human Rights Watch

"We’ve largely succeeded in stigmatizing this coward’s weapon, but antipersonnel mines continue to claim too many lives and limbs in Cambodia and elsewhere years after they were laid. It is very encouraging that more and more countries continue to embrace the movement to ban landmines, and that impressive progress is being made in landmine clearance and stockpile destruction." - Steve Goose, arms division director at Human Rights Watch

(Phnom Penh) – The international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines is making strong progress toward its objective of a mine-free world, Human Rights Watch said today, as a major meeting on landmines wrapped up in Phnom Penh. However, the United States’ review of its policy has regrettably entered its third year without conclusion, Human Rights Watch said.

“We’ve largely succeeded in stigmatizing this coward’s weapon, but antipersonnel mines continue to claim too many lives and limbs in Cambodia and elsewhere years after they were laid,” said Steve Goose, arms division director at Human Rights Watch. “It is very encouraging that more and more countries continue to embrace the movement to ban landmines, and that impressive progress is being made in landmine clearance and stockpile destruction.”

The Mine Ban Treaty comprehensively prohibits antipersonnel mines and requires their clearance and assistance to victims. A total of 158 nations are party to the treaty, which entered into force on March 1, 1999, and another two states have signed, but not yet ratified.

Mine Ban ‘Homecoming’ About More Than Nostalgia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvBOD8SVHKM

Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer | Washington, DC

"What they’ll be doing is assessing further progress in the effort to end the suffering caused by any personnel mines."

[Editor’s note: Cambodia is hosting the 11th gathering of 158 state parties who signed an international landmine ban in 1997. The convention, “on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction,” got its start, at least in part, in Cambodia, making this year’s gathering a homecoming for the idea of the landmine ban. Kerry Brinkert is the director for the Implementation Support Unit of the convention. He spoke to VOA Khmer as the conference got under way.]

What will this conference, the 11th of state parties, focus on and what do you expect from it?

What they’ll be doing is assessing further progress in the effort to end the suffering caused by any personnel mines. That’s assessed in the context of efforts to promote and reinforce the ban on anti-personnel mines, to see that existing stockpiles will be destroyed, that all areas containing any personnel mine will be cleared and that victims will be assisted.

Cambodia landmine summit sparks hopes for survivor

Song Kosal (Photo: AP)

Agence France-Presse

PHNOM PENH // Song Kosal was just five when she lost her right leg to a landmine. But the tragedy inspired her to become one of Cambodia's most outspoken anti-mine campaigners, and even take part in a beauty contest.

Now 27, Kosal will share her dream of a "mine-free world" when she gives the opening address to delegates from more than 100 countries at a conference in Phnom Penh this week taking stock of a global ban on the weapons.

"I have dreamed many times that I still have two legs, but then I wake up," Ms Kosal said. "I don't want to see other people, children especially, to be hurt by landmines like me."

Cambodia Seeks More Signatures on Landmine Ban

An unexploded land mine, right, lies in the field at a clearance site of land mines near the Cambodia-Thailand border, in Pailin province, once a Khmer Rouge stronghold in northwestern Cambodia, Sunday, Nov. 27, 2011. Cambodia on Sunday is hosting a six-day international conference on land mine clearance in Phnom Penh. (Photo: AP)

Monday, 28 November 2011
Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer | Phnom Penh

“I hope our other friends who are not yet members of the convention will join us in achieving this goal.”

Cambodia is seeking more signatories to an international landmine treaty, as it hosts a weeklong international conference with nearly 100 countries represented in Phnom Penh.

Cambodia was one of the original supporters of the Ottawa Convention, which has garnered 158 supporter nations since 1999.

“If we do not accelerate the speed and the efficiency of the resolution of problems, we will not reach our final goal for a world free of mines,” Prime Minister Hun Sen said at the opening of the conference Sunday.

Landmine survivor touched by local mine removal efforts

Song Kosal

By Ni Kuo-yen and Christie Chen

Kinmen, Aug. 23 (CNA) Song Kosal, a Cambodian anti-landmine youth ambassador who attended the peace bell ringing ceremony in Kinmen Tuesday, said she was touched by the Taiwanese military's efforts to remove mines from the island.

Kosal, a member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, was one of the more than 100 youths from 20 countries who gathered on Taiwan's outlying island of Kinmen for a bell ringing ceremony to pray for world peace.

Under the company of social welfare workers, Kosal, 26, toured several minefields after the ceremony to learn about local actions to clear mines and restore the land.

She touted Taiwan's accomplishments in removing mines and said her trip to Kinmen was an emotional one. Photos of war victims on display at the ceremony make one want to cry, said Kosal, who is a landmine survivor herself.

Cambodia landmine clearance pushed back 10 years

Landmine victims playing volleyball in Phnom Penh. Cambodia, one of the world's most heavily landmined countries, will not be clear of the devices until at least 2020, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Tuesday, adding another decade to demining efforts (AFP/File/Tang Chhin Sothy)

PHNOM PENH (AFP) - Cambodia, one of the world's most heavily landmined countries, will not be clear of the devices until at least 2020, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Tuesday, adding another decade to demining efforts.

Although the government expects to increase its mine-clearance budget, Hun Sen said projections made in 2000 that the country would be clear 10 years later were "over-optimistic".

"At the time, we said we'd be clear by 2010, but now Cambodia will take about 10 years more", he told an annual meeting on demining efforts, without explaining why.

Hundreds of people are killed or maimed every year by the millions of mines and other unexploded ordnance still littering the countryside after decades of conflict.

Several foreign demining groups have worked with the government's own ordnance agency since 1992 to clear the minefields. But the work is extremely slow, and roughly 2,900 square kilometres (1,119 square miles) of land remains covered with mines.

Earlier in the year Hun Sen said landmines were one of the biggest obstacles to the country's development, and on Tuesday urged the United States to sign the Ottawa Treaty, an international landmine ban.

The United States is responsible for a large proportion of unexploded bombs and other ordnance still being found in much of the countryside after its massive bombing campaigns in Cambodia during the early 1970s.

"It's true that the US has not signed lots of treaties, including the landmine ban... we appeal to the US to work on issues related to the safety of the world", Hun Sen said.