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Southern Africa: Landmines
Southern Africa: Landmines
Date distributed (ymd): 970920
Document reposted by APIC
This posting contains a press statement from the South African Campaign
to Ban Landmines, and announcement of a new publication on landmines in
Southern Africa from Human Rights Watch.
PRESS STATEMENT
South African Campaign To Ban Landmines, P.O. Box 32882, Braamfontein,
South Africa 2017
(Tel: 27-11-403-4204; Fax: 27-11-4722380; E-mail: [email protected]).
AFRICAN CAMPAIGNS URGE GOVERNMENTS TO BAN LANDMINES, CLEAR
THEM, HELP SURVIVORS, SIGN BAN TREATY
Conference Towards a Landmine-Free Africa: The OAU and the Legacy of
Landmines,
19 - 21 May, World Trade Centre, Johannesburg
Johannesburg, 16 May, 1997
As the first comprehensive government-sponsored conference on landmines
in Africa kicks off on 19 May in Johannesburg, African activists are calling
on their governments to show moral leadership by taking unilateral steps
to ban antipersonnel landmines and by pledging publicly to participate
in the negotiations leading to the signing of an international ban treaty
in Ottawa in December this year.
Campaigners from 20 countries will attend the conference to advocate
for a ban and the destruction of all stockpiles of antipersonnel mines
by the year 2000, and to mobilise resources for mine clearance and assistance
to survivors and victim's families. Africa is the most mined continent
in the world, littered with 50 million of these coward's weapons. And the
movement for a ban is rapidly gaining ground. Already 50 African governments
have stated their support for the goal of a total ban. "Now is the
time for these governments to turn their words into action," said
Julio Mapote of the Mozambican Campaign Against Landmines. Campaigns welcome
the recent bans of Mozambique and South Africa announced in February and
urge other governments to follow suit. The Zimbabwe Campaign to Ban Landmines
welcomes the May 15 government policy statement by the Zimbabwean Minister
of Defence, ME Mahachi. Noel Stott of the South African Campaign to Ban
Landmines (SACBL) said, "we appreciate this first step but hope that
Zimbabwe will take further measures for a total ban and commit to signing
the Ottawa treaty."
Coalitions of NGOs and concerned individuals struggling to ban landmines
have mushroomed all over the continent as part of an international movement
of over 1000 organisations in over 50 countries working for an immediate
and total ban. Representatives of national campaigns gathering in Johannesburg
from the SADC region will urge their governments to create a mine-free
zone in Southern Africa, the third in the world, before December. "Given
the dramatic momentum witnessed world-wide, and in our region, it is no
longer a dream to envision a mine-free Southern Africa, as an example for
the rest of the continent, and world," said Graca Machel. The South
Africa Campaign to Ban Landmines will use the conference to protest "double-dippers",
companies who formerly produced mines and now make profits from clearing
them. According to the South African Campaign To Ban Landmines' Penny McKenzie:
"it is completely immoral that companies make money out of clearing
up the mess that they made in the first place! We believe demining contracts
should go to humanitarian demining organisations. The profits from demining
should go into rehabilitation projects and not back into the arms industry."
CONFERENCE ACTIVITIES
- Monday 19 May, 14h00: inaugural speakers include Deputy-President Thabo
Mbeki, OAU sec-gen Dr Salim Salim, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Jody Williams
(coordinator of the International Campaign To Ban Landmines);
- landmine survivors action: at opening ceremony;
- Tuesday 20 May, 13h00: book launch, Still Killing - Landmines in Southern
Africa, by Alex Vines of Human Rights Watch;
- Wednesday 21 May, early morning: "Big Bang" - destruction
of 25% of SA mine stocks; * 13h00: NGO press conference;
- 16:30: closing ceremony; with Minister of Defence, Joe Modise;
- international and African survivors, deminers, campaigners and legal
experts available for interviews.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT
SACBL'S SUE WIXLEY At + 11 339 2560/81 (w) or +11 486 0168 (H) or 083
302 7670 (CELL).
Ban Landmines * Clear Landmines * Help Survivors * Sign the
Ban Treaty
Human Rights Watch 485 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10017-6104
TEL: 212/972-8400 FAX: 212/972-0905 E-mail: [email protected]
1522 K Street, N.W. Washington D.C. 20005
TEL: 202/371-6592 FAX: 202/371-0124 E-mail: [email protected]
Website Address: http://www.hrw.org
Gopher Address:
gopher://gopher.humanrights.org:5000/11/int/hrw
Listserv instructions: To subscribe to the general HRW e-mail list (to
receive press releases and public letters concerning all regions of the
world), send an e-mail message to [email protected]
with "subscribe hrw-news" in the body of the message (leave the
subject line blank). To subscribe to the sub-Saharan Africa-specific list
(to receive press releases and public letters only on sub-Saharan Africa),
send a message to [email protected]
with "subscribe hrw-news-africa" in the body of the message (leave
the subject line blank).
Human Rights Watch Calls for Mine Free Zone in Southern Africa
May 20, 1997
At a major landmines conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, Human
Rights Watch is calling for a region-wide ban on use, production, stockpiling
and trade in antipersonnel landmines. Still Killing: Landmines in Southern
Africa, released today, is the most comprehensive book ever on the impact
of landmines throughout southern Africa and the efforts to eliminate that
indiscriminate killer of civilians.
"The people of southern Africa live in the most heavily mined region
in the world, and suffer the most from this insidious weapon," said
Alex Vines, author of the 224-page report. While there is clear momentum
toward a ban in the region, now is the time for these governments to take
unilateral steps to prohibit use and destroy stockpiles of antipersonnel
mines," said Vines.
Many of the governments in southern Africa have publicly called for
a total ban on antipersonnel mines, including Angola, Malawi, Mozambique,
Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. However,
thus far, only South Africa and Mozambique have officially banned use.
Human Rights Watch is also calling on all governments in the region to
join the approximately sixty governments (including South Africa, Mozambique,
Malawi and Swaziland) that have already committed to signing a comprehensive
ban treaty in Canada in December 1997.
Human Rights Watch reveals that southern Africa is infested with some
twenty million mines, more than any other region in the world. Mines have
claimed over 250,000 victims since 1961. Only some 400,000 mines have been
removed since serious clearance operations began in 1991. Mines continue
to be laid in Angola and Mozambique by government and opposition forces,
as well as criminal elements, albeit in much smaller numbers than in the
past. In 1996 landmines were available in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and
Zambia in exchange for food or second-hand clothing. Mines can be bought
in South Africa for as little as U.S.$25.
Sixty-seven types of antipersonnel mines from twenty-one countries have
been found in southern Africa. These countries are: Austria; Belgium; China;
Cuba; former Czechoslovakia; France; former East Germany; former West Germany;
Hungary; Israel; Italy; Portugal; Romania; former Soviet Union; South Africa;
Spain; Sweden; United Kingdom; United States; former Yugoslavia; and Zimbabwe.
At least two countries in southern Africa have produced and exported
antipersonnel landmines--South Africa and Zimbabwe. In 1997 both nations
pledged no further production or export. Namibia may also have been a producer,
according to U.S. military assessments. A close look at southern Africa's
landmine legacy over the last thirty years reveals few, if any, examples
where antipersonnel mines have provided significant or lasting military
advantages. The use of antipersonnel mines has provided short-term military
advantages in some cases, but often at tremendous cost to civilians and
in contravention of humanitarian law.
Human Rights Watch urges all governments in the region to adopt national
policies, supported by legislation, to immediately prohibit the use, production,
import and export of antipersonnel mines. Plans should be formulated and
implemented to destroy existing stockpiles of antipersonnel mines as rapidly
as possible, but no later than the year 2000. Each state should commit
to destruction of emplaced mines as rapidly as possible, and to record,
mark, fence, and monitor existing minefields until destruction has taken
place. All mines removed from the ground must be destroyed, and not retained
for future use or re-sale. Each state should make public detailed information
about its antipersonnel mine stockpiles and minefields.
The governments of southern Africa should take the lead in implementing
the Organization of African Unity resolutions calling for a total ban on
antipersonnel mines in Africa. The governments of southern Africa should
actively support the diplomatic initiative known as the "Ottawa process,"
by participating in preparatory meetings in Belgium and Norway, and being
prepared to sign an international treaty banning antipersonnel mines in
Canada in December 1997.
Copies of the report are available from the Publications Department,
Human Rights Watch, 485 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10017 for $ 18.00 (domestic)
and $ 22.50 (overseas). Visa and MasterCard accepted.
Human Rights Watch Arms Project
Human Rights Watch is a nongovernmental organization established in
1978 to monitor and promote the observance of internationally recognized
human rights in Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East and among the
signatories of the Helsinki accords. Its Arms Project was established in
1992 to monitor and prevent arms transfers to governments or organizations
that commit gross violations of internationally recognized human rights
and the rules of war and promote freedom of information regarding arms
transfers worldwide. Joost R. Hiltermann is the director; Stephen D. Goose
is the program director; Zahabia Adalamy, Andrew Cooper, and Ernst Jan
Hogendoorn are research assistants; Rebecca Bell is the associate; William
M. Arkin, Kathi L. Austin, Ann Peters, Monica Schurtman, and Frank Smyth
are consultants.
This material is produced and distributed by the Africa Policy Information
Center (APIC), the educational affiliate of the Washington Office on Africa.
APIC's primary objective is to widen the policy debate in the United States
around African issues and the U.S. role in Africa, by providing accessible
policy-relevant information and analysis usable by a wide range of groups
and individuals.
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