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.

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.

Mine-free world comes at a price

Prime Minister Hun Sen and Helen Clark, administrator of the UN Development Programme, examine devices designed to repair bones damaged by landmines prior to the 11th annual Meeting of the States Parties in Phnom Penh yesterday. (Photo by: Pha Lina)

Monday, 28 November 2011
Kristin Lynch
The Phnom Penh Post

Prime Minister Hun Sen kicked off the Kingdom’s largest international conference to date yesterday by making an impassioned, albeit indirect, appeal for continued international aid in order to achieve Cambodia’s goal of becoming a mine-free country by the year 2020.

“In this era of economic difficulty and uncertainty…we cannot be deterred and our accomplishment should not be compromised by the financial turmoil,” the premier said during the Opening Ceremony of the 11th Meeting of the States Parties, a formal gathering in Phnom Penh of the 158 states that have signed the Anti-Personnel Mine-Ban Convention. Also known as the Ottawa Treaty, the treaty prohibits the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel landmines.

“Without intensifying the speed and efficiency of the way in which we address our respective problems, our ultimate goal of a mine-free world will remain at a distance,” he added. Hun Sen’s veiled appeal comes on the heels of last week’s release of the 2011 Landmine Monitor report, which indicated that international mine-action aid to Cambodia had fallen sharply – by nearly a third – to US$24.3 million between 2009 and 2010.

This drop in funding occurred despite a trend of increasing help globally for anti-landmine efforts, the report indicated. Worldwide aid from donor countries rose by 8 per cent in 2010 to US$480 million, according to the report.

No support for Thai accusations against Cambodia of planting mines

Thai soldiers clearing landmines in Cambodian territories near Preah Vihear temple on 20th July, 2008.

Everyday.com
27th November, 2008
Translated from Khmer by Khmerization

A Cambodian official said that there is no one country, among the signatories to the Ottawa Anti-mine Convention, that supports the Thai accusations that Cambodia had planted new mines along the borders.

Mr. Phay Siphan, Secretary of State and spokesman for the Council of Ministers, told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday that the Thai complaints to the annual meeting of the Ottawa Anti-mine Convention, which was held in Geneva of Switzerland on the 24th of November, that accused Cambodia of planting new mines has failed to get supports from the participating countries. Mr. Phay Siphan said that the Thai complaints had exposed the Thai lies to the world community. It can also expose the Thai aggression and invasion against Cambodian sovereignty to the world community.

Mr. Phay Siphan said: “We have nothing to hide. The complaints show that Thailand had stationed and deployed troops in violations of Cambodian territories which have already been littered with landmines.”

Cambodia's betrayal of the Ottawa Convention ... or Thailand's poor attempt to hide its invasion of Cambodia?

Betrayal at the border

Saturday October 25, 2008
Bangkok Post
EDITORIAL

When Thailand and Cambodia signed and later ratified the 1997 Ottawa Convention outlawing anti-personnel landmines, both countries joined 154 others in promising to destroy any stockpiles and do everything in their power to rid themselves of the deadly devices within a set deadline. Implicit in this was an understanding that none of the signatories would acquire or lay landmines ever again.

Both countries were believed to be honouring their commitments until, on Oct 6, something went horribly wrong. Two Thai paramilitary rangers from the Suranaree task force stepped on mines and their legs were blown off, while on a routine patrol deep inside Thai territory to the north of Phu Ma Khua in an area adjacent to the Preah Vihear temple in Si Sa Ket province. The explosion was so powerful that parts of the wounded soldiers were blown up to 5-6 metres into the air.

The Thai Mines Action Centre and other non-governmental organisations identified the culprits as Russian-made PMN2-type landmines which were retrieved and appeared to be new as no rust was found on them. They were also in an area marked as landmine-free and used regularly by villagers to get to their farms as well as by soldiers on patrol. These landmine-free areas were separated from those yet to be cleared by a barbed wire fence and both of the wounded soldiers were outside that fence.

Quite rightly, anger has flared on the diplomatic front. The Foreign Ministry noted that the new mines appeared to have been laid after a brief clash in the area on Oct 3 and called on Cambodian authorities to investigate whether any individual had violated legislation banning the use of anti-personnel landmines. It recalled that the Phnom Penh government had submitted a report to the United Nations secretary-general in 2002 noting that 240 PMN2-type landmines from a total of 3,405 were transferred from its Interior Ministry to the Cambodian Mine Action Centre for development and training. It asked the Cambodian government to verify where the remaining mines were and expressed disappointment and alarm as the mine blasts indicated a violation of the 1997 Ottawa Convention as well as a threat to international peace.

Not so, said Cambodian officials in Phnom Penh. The Hun Sen government denied it had recently planted landmines along the border and said any there "are the remnants of almost three decades of war."

Now a question mark and suspicion cloud the air. If, as Cambodia claims, the two mines in question were not new, why were they not detected in previous sweeps and clearing operations? And if the mine ban treaty is being flouted, what a dreadful omen this would be for mine-clearing operations in the future and joint demarcation of the border. We already have enough trouble with mines strewn along the Burma-Thai border and elephants, their mahouts and villagers being blown up with disturbing regularity. But Burma isn't a signatory of the Ottawa Convention; Cambodia is.

Any weakening of the Mine Ban Treaty increases the threat to the half a million Thais living in 27 provinces along the Cambodian, Lao and Burmese borders who are exposed on a daily basis to death, dismemberment or disability from uncleared mines. Aid agencies say from 30 to 100 people are maimed or killed in these mine-contaminated areas every year.

It would be a terrible betrayal of trust for anyone to lay more of these barbaric devices on our soil after pledging not to. Anti-personnel mines have no place in the civilised world.