| U.S.
Campaign to Ban Landmines In this edition. . .
House votes to increase demining funding for FY 2007 The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously adopted an amendment on June 8, offered by Rep. Lynch (MA) which increased the amount of money the U.S. spends on demining by $5 million. The amendment, bringing humanitarian demining funding to a total of $65 million, was attached to the FY 2007 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill, which allocates annual U.S. foreign aide spending. A week earlier the House appropriations committee cut the demining budget to $60.6 million. The Lynch amendment restored those deleted funds. The USCBL thanks Rep. Lynch for his efforts to increase demining funding. To go to Rep. Lynch's press release on the amendment, go to: http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/ma09_lynch/LandminesAmendment.html . Demining gives Angolan poor stake in postwar future Reuters June 14, 2006 By Christopher Thompson HUAMBO, Angola, June 14 (Reuters) - At a minefield in central Angola, deminers display a map of the region that is littered with sinister red dots, the explosive legacy of the African country's 27-year civil war. "The road ... went through minefields, so that was our priority," head of operations Albertino Manuel said, standing in a thatched hut. The entrance to the hut is flanked by two white markers signalling mines that have been found and destroyed. The area at Canhama is just one out of 327 minefields in central Huambo province, Angola's former breadbasket. Small villages border minefields, while farms, water supplies and the local school straddle routes surrounded by "suspect areas". With Angola's first elections in 14 years now likely to be held next year, demining will allow people to register to vote this July -- giving previously isolated citizens a stake in the political process of this oil-rich country for the first time. Perhaps more importantly, demining also allows them to make a living. "People are not so concerned by either party; they want the freedom to work," said Waldemar Fernandes, who works for demining non-governmental organisation HALO Trust. "Now they will have more power over their own future." In the neighbouring province of Bie, roads have been cleared in and around 200 villages. U.S.-based mine watchdog Humpty Dumpty Institute (HDI) estimates that demining will allow an additional 200,000 people to vote. "Everything was destroyed by the war," said Fernandes. "Armies put mines, which is easy. Demining is difficult, especially since the army doesn't have records - so we have to find them all." To read the full article, go to: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L02769563.htm Tajikistan Wants Uzbek
Landmines Off Border Tajikistan complained that landmines planted along its border by Uzbekistan have killed 68 people since 1999, including 20 children, reopening a point of contention between the countries, which have quarreled since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Sections of the Tajik-Uzbek border have been mined by Uzbekistan since militants from Tajikistan carried out raids into Uzbek territory in 1999 and 2000. Uzbekistan has said they were necessary to deter the militants. Tajikistan, whose land is also littered with mines from its civil war in the mid-1990's, contends that the mines were not necessary, especially because most of the militants, who allied with the Taliban, were routed in the war in Afghanistan in 2001. To read the full article, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/13/world/asia/13briefs-005.html Mining for Change:
Local Filmmakers Take on Landmines Dignitaries and punk rockers rubbed elbows Wednesday night, packing the AFI Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring for the D.C. premiere of a documentary on landmines by local filmmakers Mary Wareham and Brian Liu. With a soundtrack by Fugazi's Brendan Canty and an art rock aesthetic, Wareham and Liu gave a complex and often alarming look at the global movement to end the use of landmines that was both informative and visually stunning. First used extensively in World War II, inter-personnel landmines became a standard feature of war in conflicts throughout the world during the latter half of the twentieth century. But while armies pack up and go home when the war ends, taking their weapons with them, landmines can remain for decades, wreaking havoc on villagers long after the conflict is over. Despite huge efforts to de-mine former war zones, 15,000 to 20,000 people still die worldwide each year and many more are injured, often losing limbs. In 1997, world leaders came together in Ottawa to propose a global ban on landmines. While 151 countries have signed the treaty since that time, 43 countries have yet to do so, including the United States, China, Iran, Pakistan and India. Using the Ottawa treaty as a starting point, Disarm explores the political and personal impacts of landmines, both in countries attempting to disarm and those where landmines are still actively used. Liu and Wareham attempt to give a comprehensive picture, interviewing everyone from diplomats to victims to disarmers. Traveling to a dozen countries, including Burma, Bosnia, Colombia and Afghanistan, Disarm presents landmines as a global issue, which despite cultural and geographical differences has the same devastating impacts everywhere. Backed by several NGOs, the film is part of a larger campaign to universalize the Ottawa treaty, but unlike other films of the now tired genre of advocacy documentary, Disarm is compelling without being vitriolic or emotionally manipulative. To read the full post, go to: http://www.dcist.com/archives/2006/06/02/mining_for_chan.php McCain embraces
land-mine removal "If there was ever such a thing as a worthy cause," said
U.S. Sen. John McCain, "this is it." Cindy McCain is a member of the board of the HALO Trust, a charity based in the United Kingdom that organizes land-mine removal work throughout the world that Freedom Fields supports. Land mines are the detritus of war, scattered throughout "the more chaotic parts of the world," the Arizona Republican senator said, including Southeast Asia, where he once served. "It resonates with anyone who served there," said McCain, a former Navy aviator who was shot down over North Vietnam during the Vietnam War and spent 5∏ years as a prisoner there. Long after the fighting stopped, civilians "trying to make a living" are having their arms and legs blown off by the mines, bombs and artillery shells planted, dropped, fired and forgotten, he said. Freedom Fields has been concentrating its work in Cambodia with the HALO Trust, and McCain said that country "went through one of the most traumatic experiences of the 20th Century," the genocidal rule of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, who exterminated the nation's intelligencia.\ To read the full article, go to: http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/14743389.htm Belarus to eliminate
anti-personnel mines before March 1, 2008 Belarus will be able to eliminate its anti-personnel mines stockpiles by the established deadline, provided there is proper international support, Belarussian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Gerasimenko said on Tuesday. "Belarus faces a difficult task. Under the Ottawa Convention it should eliminate the last anti-personnel mine in its territory before March 1, 2008," he told an international seminar on translating into life the Ottawa Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines. Gerasimenko on behalf of the Belarussian authorities expressed gratitude to foreign states and international organizations that help Belarus to implement this convention. Belarus inherited from the former Soviet Union an arsenal of four million mines ranking seventh largest in the world. Several months ago, Belarus and the NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency sealed a contract on eliminating TNT-mines. With western countries' support, Belarus plans to eliminate 300,000 TNT-mines in controlled explosions by the end of the year. The disposal of 3 million cluster mines PFM-1 with liquid explosives poses the worst technological and ecological problems. Ways of dealing them has now been cleared up. In early May, the Belarussian Defence Ministry agreed to accept the European Commission's technical assistance in eliminating PFM-1 mines. Belarus will announce the international tender to select a contractor that will undertake to scrap liquid explosives contianing mines by environment-friendly means by January 1, 2007. (c) 2006 ITAR-TASS For more information on the US Campaign to Ban Landmines, go to www.banminesusa.org U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines To make a donation to the US Campaign to Ban Landmines go to: www.banminesusa.org/support/body.html and click on Donate. |
| FREE EMAIL CAMPAIGN UPDATES |
|
| Please enter your email address and click "Go" | |
|
| SEARCH OUR SITE |
| For more information on the Mine
Ban Treaty and countries that have ratified it, contact the International
Campaign to Ban Landmines www.icbl.org
US Campaign to Ban Landmines |