Split over best way to ban land-mines

Date: 19/06/1997

By Mark Turner

THE leading proponents of a global convention to end the use, transfer and manufacture of land-mines hope to attract widespread support for their campaign when they meet in Brussels next week.

Despite international recognition of the devastating effect which anti-personnel mines (APLs) have upon civilian populations long after wars have finished, the United Nations estimates that approximately 2 million more of them are laid every year, adding to the 100 million already in place. Mine clearance, in comparison, is extremely slow and difficult.

Campaigners point out that someone dies or is injured by a land-mine every 15 minutes. The issue has captured headlines all over the world because of the support for demands for a ban from Diana, Princess of Wales.

Organisations like the International Committee of the Red Cross and the European Commission are pushing strongly for a political commitment from leading nations against land-mines by the end of the year in the hope this will later act as a 'magnet' to major manufacturers and exporters such as Russia and China.

This route, known as the 'Ottawa process', is opposed by other nations which favour slower but more inclusive negotiations in the UN Conference on Disarmament.

But Ottawa supporters argue that the UN conference is unlikely to achieve any results in the short term, and is too easily held hostage over other disarmament issues such as nuclear weapons.

This split is making it difficult for the EU to display a united face at next week's four-day 'Brussels conference'. Although a majority of member states favour the Ottawa process, Finland and Greece argue that banning land-mines is a military, rather than humanitarian, issue and should be settled within the UN. France and Spain also have their doubts.

This disagreement has not, however, stopped the Union from becoming the world's biggest contributor to practical measures against APLs: two-thirds of a special UN voluntary trust fund for 'mine actions' comes from the EU and its member states, with Japan the second largest donor and the US in a poor third place.

In 1996/97, the EU spent around 60 million ecu on mine clearance, assistance to victims, research into detection and educating people about the damage mines can cause - and this figure did not include bilateral aid money from individual member states.

On a more political front, the Union committed itself last year to a total export ban, and warned its aid recipients that it would stop funding countries which persisted in using land-mines.

A new push by the UK, alongside France and Germany, may also lead to a EU-wide ban on the manufacture of land-mines and to the destruction of stockpiles.

The rest of the world, however, is a long way from abandoning the industry, and Ottawa supporters face an uphill struggle.

Although Russia, China and other producers such as India and Brazil have not excluded themselves from the talks, there remains a fundamental difference of approach to the weapon, which precludes a quick ban. Russia, for example, is believed to be still protecting its power stations with APLs.

Pragmatists, including the Commis- sion, therefore support phased-in and partial bans to ease the process. Russia's temporary export ban on 'dumb mines' (which do not self-destruct or self-neutralise) could be made permanent, they say, as a first step.

Opponents of this approach fear that half measures will mean that, in practice, land-mines will continue to be used for far longer.

The wording of the proposed ban treaty will be negotiated in detail in Oslo this September, with the aim of holding a signing ceremony in Canada in December.