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08-Apr-2003

Italy urged to condemn landmine use and promote mine ban

by: Tuva Ravn Eggan/ Liz Bernstein

Rome: On the 7 April The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) called on Italy to use its powerful position as incoming president of the European Union (EU) to condemn antipersonnel mine use and actively promote the prohibition of the weapon.
Wednesday, 8 April marked the opening of the ICBL’s annual three-day Global Landmine Monitor Researchers’ Meeting in Rome, bringing together over 130 landmine specialists from 75 countries.

“The EU presidency presents a great opportunity for Italy to speak out against antipersonnel mine use by Iraq and others and to convince hold-out governments to renounce this indiscriminate weapon now,” said Liz Bernstein, Coordinator of the ICBL. “We condemn any mine use and urge all those who have banned the weapon to speak out publicly and privately against any use of antipersonnel mines,” she added. Italy will assume the six-month term EU presidency on 1 July 2003.

Last week deminers from the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) removed and destroyed hundreds of live Italian Valmara-69 antipersonnel mines stored by Iraqi government forces in a mosque in Kadir Karam in northern Iraq. Iraqi forces have been documented planting mines before the current conflict and have continued laying them in a number of areas.
Italy manufactured and exported millions of antipersonnel mines to Iraq in the 1980s before renouncing the weapon in 1994. Italy completed destruction of its 7.1 million stockpiled antipersonnel mines in November 2002, and in 2001 spent approximately 5.6 million Euros on mine action activities.

All but two current EU member-states are party to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, which prohibits the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of antipersonnel mines, and requires mine clearance and assistance to mine victims. Greece is in the final stages of joining, while Finland has set a target date of 2006.

Neither Iraq nor the US has joined the Mine Ban Treaty. While there is no evidence that the US has used antipersonnel mines in the Iraqi a conflict, it has been using cluster sub munitions, as has Britain.
The ICBL has supported efforts to address the humanitarian impact of cluster sub- munitions, which act as landmines if they fail to detonate on impact as intended. It has joined other organisations in calling for a moratorium on these weapons until the humanitarian concerns are addressed.

Recipients of Italian mine action funding in 2003 include Angola, Azerbaijan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Central America, Croatia, Iraq and Yemen. According to Landmine Monitor, in 2001, new landmine casualties were reported in 73 of the world’s 90 mine-affected countries.

For more information on the ICBL and Landmine Monitor; http://www.icbl.org or email media@icbl.org