U.S. Urges Agreement To Restrict Deadly Anti-Vehicle Mine Use
07 November 2006
Review conference offers delegations chance to finalize effective restrictions
Washington -- Mines designed to explode when a vehicle passes over them continue to maim and kill innocents around the world long after conflicts have ended, and they pose a particular problem for international relief organizations.
No existing international treaty satisfactorily addresses either the long-lived nature of these hidden anti-vehicle killers or detection measures for them, since they contain little metal. These types of mines can pose just as much of a threat to civilians as anti-personnel land mines (APL). The anti-vehicle mines also are not covered by the 1997 Ottawa Convention banning APL.
For this reason, the United States and other supportive nations in 2001 proposed negotiating a protocol agreement tied to the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, also known as the CCW. It is designed to regulate the use of conventional weapons that indiscriminately harm civilians. (See related article.)
The United States has been working with other nations for the past year in an attempt to achieve consensus on a text for an anti-vehicle mines protocol that could be endorsed during the November Review Conference on the CCW in Geneva, Switzerland. A State Department fact sheet, issued November 3, said the document under negotiation would complement an existing 1996 CCW Amended Mines Protocol regulating the use of land mines, booby-traps and other similar devices.
ANTI-VEHICLE MINES DISRUPT PEACEKEEPING, HUMANITARIAN RELIEF
The purpose of the effort is to reduce the impact of these mines, which are sometimes referred to as “mines other than anti-personnel mines,” or MOTAPM. The curse of these devices is that they can obstruct the delivery of medical care and humanitarian relief, restrict access to potable water or food, interrupt peacekeeping activities or thwart post-conflict rebuilding efforts.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says anti-vehicle land mines pose a serious humanitarian problem, especially for nongovernmental organizations involved in post-conflict delivery assistance and reconstruction efforts.
As an example, Doctors Without Borders reduced its presence in Angola in 2002 after one of its vehicles carrying patients to a hospital drove over an anti-vehicle mine, killing seven and injuring six. The same year, another anti-vehicle mine exploded in Angola, killing the driver, who was trying to deliver wheelchairs, crutches, clothing, shoes and notebooks. The humanitarian supplies had been collected by the Congregational Evangelical Church and the ICRC for those injured in the Angolan civil war, as well as for local elementary schoolchildren.
In his August 2005 statement to the 11th session of the CCW Group of Governmental Experts, the head of the U.S. delegation, Edward Cummings, said: “Detectability is crucial in any MOTAPM protocol.”
The U.S. military has banned using any nondetectable mines, anti-vehicle or anti-personnel mines -- regardless of whether they are self-destructing/self-deactivating or long-lived in the ground -- since January 2005.
The United States plans to send a delegation to the November 7-17 conference and hopes that all the delegations will be able to “seize the opportunity to adopt the protocol” on explosive remnants of war, according to a State Department media note issued in advance of the meeting.
Besides considering new restrictions on anti-vehicle mines, the conference will review existing CCW protocols on nondetectable fragments, land mines and booby-traps, incendiary weapons and blinding lasers and endorse a new protocol on the explosive remnants of war (Protocol V).
The newest protocol enters into force on November 12, and the United States is urging all nations to adhere to it.
President Bush sent Protocol V to the Senate for its advice and consent in June 2006.
Protocol V, applied in combination with the Geneva and Hague Conventions and existing laws of war, is expected to mitigate the harmful effects on civilians from the explosive remnants of war (ERW), including cluster munitions, according to the State Department spokesman’s office.
The United States remains committed to high standards for handling, transporting and storing munitions, according to a State Department media statement.
The United States also adheres to stringent military rules of engagement and targeting methods to decrease the threat from leftover munitions after conflict ends -- including sharing data with humanitarian organizations that might protect them from unexploded munitions, the media statement said.
The United States is calling on countries to focus on full implementation of Protocol V and relevant rules on the law of war, rather than trying to negotiate new rules on cluster munitions or other ERW.
The text of the fact sheet is available on the State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs Web site, and the media note is posted on the Bureau of Public Affairs Web site.
For more information, see Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.
(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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