Clearing way to ban land mines worldwide

By Brahma Chellaney

NEW DELHI (JP): A crucial meeting opens in Oslo today to determine the shape of a proposed international agreement to outlaw antipersonnel landmines (APL). The meeting, outside the UN framework and running through Sept. 19, is part of the Ottawa process aimed at achieving a voluntary APL ban by year-end.

The idea behind this fast-track process is that an accord -- negotiated by a core group now numbering about 18 states -- would build a powerful international antilandmine movement, shame the hold-out states to join in, and facilitate the conclusion of a more formal, binding and verifiable treaty by the Conference on Disarmament (CD) based in Geneva.

The success of the Ottawa process could serve as a model for similarly negotiating an informal fissile material production ban ("fissban") outside the CD framework with the intent of pressuring the UN body to conclude a formal treaty. A fissban and APL ban have been the key demands of the Western bloc at the CD.

But the UN forum's work has remained paralyzed throughout this year over the refusal of the West and Russia to accept negotiations on total nuclear disarmament, and the consequent resistance by nonnuclear states outside security alliances to allow discussions on just the fissban and APL ban. The CD has now appointed four special coordinators, including one on landmines, but the standoff is unlikely to end this year.

The Oslo meeting follows up the recent Brussels Declaration signed by some 100 nations willing to eliminate landmine stockpiles within a specific time frame. The limitation of the Ottawa process, however, is evident from the lack of support from countries that make up half of the world's population and landmine production.

Many nations, including China, India, Pakistan and Russia, have legitimate security concerns about a land mine ban. For countries with long, disputed land borders and unpredictable security environment, antipersonnel mines remain an indispensable, cost-effective tool of national defense. Such mines -- also employed to shield antitank mines on the outermost defense line -- are seen by them as purely defensive weapons.

The most ardent proponents of an APL ban are nations with peaceful, undisputed land frontiers. But even the United States insists on keeping landmines in the border area of the Korean peninsula "because of the great danger posed by an active and high-alert status army of the North Koreans", according to the State Department.

The global landmine tragedy has resulted not from lawful defense activity, but from use of mines to wage deliberate and unlawful warfare against civilians. The blame falls squarely on the great powers and their surrogates.

Some of them now wish to atone for their reckless exports, covert transfers and mine-laying overseas. Except for former Yugoslavia, all landmine catastrophe zones have resulted from such practices. Most of the landmines emplaced in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia and Mozambique are "dumb" mines, which remain lethal forever.

During the proxy wars waged in the Third World during the Cold War era, millions of non-detectable plastic mines were scattered by helicopter, airplane and long-range artillery. One such remotely-delivered mine was the Soviet "butterfly", resembling a palm-sized plastic toy, which is still killing children and other civilians in the Afghan countryside.

The 10-month-old Ottawa process is a response to the weak outcome of last year's first review conference of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW). The review shied away from a political approach to the mine problem and concentrated on finding a technical solution in the form of new limits on APL use, production and transfer.

The revised CCW landmine protocol, which will come into force next year and provides for a nine-year transition period for making all mines detectable, has gaping loopholes. It contains modifying language such as "when circumstances permit", "when feasible" and where "enemy military action makes it impossible to comply".

The most controversial aspect of the new protocol is that it labels some mines as "good" and others "bad" by encouraging state-parties to move from "dumb" mines to "smart" mines, which are programmed to self-destruct or self-deactivate after a few days or weeks. This was a victory for the United States.

The problem is that "smart" mines are not so smart, often failing to self-destruct and self-deactivate, and functioning as dumbly as the "dumb" mines. The new protocol, however, incorporates no specific prohibition on the "bad" mines as long as certain deployment rules are observed, although it has no verification provision.

The United States is now taking its campaign in favor of "smart" mines to the Ottawa process, which it has belatedly joined to influence the emerging agreement and safeguard its interests. At the Oslo meeting, Washington will press for exclusion of specific categories of high-tech landmines with an ancillary antipersonnel element. A full prohibition cannot emerge unless the United States abandons its current policy to use dual- role "smart" mines in all circumstances and "dumb" mines on the Korean Peninsula.

With China and Russia not participating, the United States seeking exceptions and France linking its commitments to an "effective treaty" taking hold, the Ottawa process faces an arduous challenge to fashion an internationally marketable accord. Present trends suggest the accord may mirror key CCW protocol- type loopholes.

The Austrian draft, which will serve as the starting point in Oslo, defines an antipersonnel landmine as excluding "mines designed to be detonated by the presence, proximity or contact of a vehicle as opposed to a person, that are equipped with anti- handling devices..." This will permit states to produce antitank mines with antihandling devices so sensitive as to make them function like antipersonnel mines.

New unique hybrid designs could come into use, as indicated by American insistence on excluding mines with secondary anti- personnel characteristics. The draft provision in the Austrian text permitting an unlimited retention or transfer of APL stocks for "the development and teaching of" mine detection and clearance can also be abused.

While Canada needs to be commended for its initiative, the Ottawa process has raised some concern over its high-pressure, cabal-like approach to disarmament outside the framework of the UN and international law. It is a reminder of the way discriminatory technology-control cartels, such as the London Club of nuclear suppliers, the Missile Technology Control Regime and the new Wassenaar Arrangement, have been established without UN sanction.

With the international spotlight now on a landmine ban, the importance of expanding humanitarian de-mining efforts is not receiving the same attention. More than 100 million landmines remain buried in former and current battle areas, and clear-up operations have been severely hampered by paucity of funds.

Mine-clearance operations are supported by the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund. Such operations also need to be carried out through regional programs, with the European Union providing a good model. While a target of US$38 million has been set for 1997 contributions for Bosnia mine clearance, similar target collections need to be set for de-mining each former battlefield in the Third World.

International pressure also needs to be put on states that supplied or laid mines to bear the major responsibility for clearing them, an issue not on the Ottawa process agenda.

The writer is professor of security studies at the Center for Policy Research, a private think tank in New Delhi.

Window: The global landmine tragedy has resulted not from lawful defense activity, but from use of mines to wage deliberate and unlawful warfare against civilians. The blame falls squarely on the great powers and their surrogates.