Landmine Stockpile Destroyed in Jordan
AMMAN - The Jordanian army Wednesday destroyed the final segment of its 92,000 antipersonnel landmines in accordance with the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. Under King Abdullah’s auspices, the Royal Mechanical Division destroyed the last 5,790 of its stockpiles at the Zarka region. Jerry White, co-founder and executive director of the Landmine Survivors Network (LSN), said Jordan had already destroyed one third of 300,000 mines it had planted across the Jordan Valley on the border with Israel. Both countries sealed a peace treaty in October 1994, ending five decades of belligerence. Landmines buried in countries from Morocco to Afghanistan numbered tens of millions, White told Deutsche Presse-Agentur, dpa. A human being was blown up every 22 minutes by a land mine somewhere in the world, he said. One of the sites cleared from mines was the baptism site on the River Jordan, visited by Pope John Paul in 2000. A military zone planted with mines before 1996, this site has attracted thousands of pilgrims. LSN also planned to move into Iraq, which had
nearly 10 million mines strewn across the country during three wars
in recent decades, he said. Amman's branch was the second set up by LSN, which first started work in Bosnia. The organization now operates in seven countries, according to White. Jordan was the only country in the region to join the land ban treaty in 1998, when Queen Noor also took over as chairperson of the Washington-based charity following the death of Princess Diana in 1997. Between 1998-2000, Jordan has received $9 million in aid for the destruction of land mines from Germany, Britain, Canada, Norway and the US. © Copyright 2003 Haaretz |
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For more on the Mine Ban Treaty, go to www.icbl.org |