*EPF203 11/02/2004
U.S. Welcomes Colombia's Destruction of Nearly 7,000 Landmines
(State Department says it hopes additional Colombian mines will be destroyed) (1120)

By Eric Green
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The United States welcomes Colombia's recent destruction of nearly 7,000 "persistent" landmines from its stockpile of such explosive devices, the State Department announced.

In a November 1 statement, the department's Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement said it applauded Colombia's "destruction of a batch of its stockpiled landmines that were not needed for its defense."

A statement from that office, directed by Richard Kidd, expressed the hope that security conditions in Colombia will continue to improve so that more of the persistent landmines from the country's stockpile can be destroyed. Improved security conditions in Colombia, read the statement, will enable the United States "to increase its mine action assistance" to the Colombians so that "they may join others" in the Western Hemisphere -- Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Honduras -- "who also benefited from U.S. mine action assistance, in becoming safe from the humanitarian impact of the persistent landmines that infest their soil."

The State Department defines persistent landmines as munitions that remain lethal indefinitely, affecting civilians long after the cessation of military conflict.

Colombia blew up 6,800 stockpiled landmines October 24 in an action the Colombian government said was aimed at showing the country's commitment to destroying such mines.

The United States currently supports mine-risk education and landmine survivors' assistance coordination in Colombia through a $75,000 donation to the Organization of American States.

The State Department has called on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the left-wing group engaged in a long-running civil war against the Colombian government, to also destroy its accumulated landmines, booby traps, and improvised explosive devices (IED). IED refers to an explosive device that is constructed in an improvised manner designed to kill and maim people, or destroy property.

In a separate October 29 statement, the State Department welcomed the Honduran government's recent declaration that Honduras is now "mine-free." Since 1995, the United States has provided about $1 million to Honduras for mine clearance, mine survivors' assistance, a mine-detecting dog program, and operational and logistical support for mine-removal training conducted by U.S. and multinational teams, according to the statement.

The State Department says it is standard U.S. practice to help landmine-affected countries become "mine-safe," a term that indicates that the most pressing humanitarian problems posed by landmines have been addressed, without asserting the "impossible guarantee" that each and every landmine has been removed.

The department says that a major emphasis of U.S. humanitarian action aid to some 46 countries since late 1988 has been to help clear persistent landmines left from past conflicts. The term "mine action" encompasses mine clearance, survivors' assistance, and mine-risk education.

In Colombia, landmines have had a "devastating" effect on the citizens of that country, said U.S. Ambassador William Wood in October 5 remarks in Bogota. Wood said that armed illegal groups in Colombia, such as the FARC, use landmines to protect their areas of influence and block the country's roads to public authorities.

Wood said that statistics regarding the wounded and dead from landmines are particularly alarming in Colombia. Since 1990, 253 civilians have been killed and 887 people wounded because of landmine explosions, Wood said, adding that in 2004 alone, 30 civilians and 88 police officers have been killed because of such mines.

The ambassador said that minefields have been detected in 31 of Colombia's 32 departments, but that the number of anti-personnel mines in the country is very difficult to determine. Nevertheless, he said, the Colombian army calculates that illegal armed groups in the country have planted at least 80,000 mines in rural zones, an amount that increases daily.

Even though landmines represent a "brutal chapter" in Colombia's more than 40-year civil war, "it's not late to begin freeing" the country "from such an atrocious threat," said Wood.

Under its new landmine policy announced in February, the United States said it was committed to abandoning use of persistent landmines after 2010. According to the policy, the U.S. military will only employ landmines that self-destruct or self-deactivate within a given timeframe -- usually within four hours, but in no case longer than 90 days of deployment.

Also under the new policy, the United States, starting in 2005, will only use landmines that can be detected by mine detectors. In addition, the Bush administration will seek to increase the budget for the State Department's mine action programs by 50 percent to a total of $70 million.

The State Department said it will solicit international support for a worldwide ban on the sale or export of not only persistent anti-personnel landmines, but also persistent anti-vehicle landmines, which are not covered in a 1997 international treaty on landmines called the Ottawa Convention.

Responding to confusion, misunderstanding and outright criticism of the U.S. decision not to sign the Ottawa Convention, the State Department said the United States believes it still needs landmines for the "defensive capabilities they alone can provide," and thus, it did not sign the convention because it would take away from U.S. defensive capabilities and put U.S. armed forces personnel at risk.

The department said the new U.S. landmine policy -- which focuses on persistent landmines that can remain a threat for decades -- addresses the security concerns of U.S. military without increasing the humanitarian landmine problem because it requires U.S. armed forces to employ landmines that self-destruct or self-deactivate when they have served their tactical purpose.

The department emphasized that the United States is a signatory to an earlier international landmine treaty -- the Amended Mines Protocol to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, which the United States ratified in 1999. The department said this protocol bans nondetectable anti-personnel landmines and places restrictions on the use of all landmines as well as on booby-traps and other devices that are not addressed by the Ottawa Convention.

The department also said that even though the United States is not a party to the Ottawa Convention, the United States has been formally invited to attend the upcoming November 29-December 3 summit in Nairobi, Kenya, on that convention. The United States has expressed a willingness to send a representative to Nairobi, "if such a presence is welcomed by others, can serve to advance progress in areas of mutual interest, and does not become a source of division or confrontation."

More information about U.S. landmine policy is available on the State Department Web site at: http://www.state.gov/t/pm/wra/.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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