Hon. Minister,
Distinguished leaders of delegation,
Landmines Campaigners,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is an honor to have this opportunity to address you
at the onset of this historic conference on landmines in the IGAD
sub-region. I am both impressed and encouraged by your serious response
and interest on the landmines issues and willingness to work with the NGO
community to which many of us here belong.
I courageously speak for the NGO community having
participated fully in the now famous process of the Road to Ottawa. My
voice and those of many others from the civil community made it happen,
that is to have the world embrace the Mine Ban Treaty in 1997.
I am also encouraged by the presence, here of many
countries from the Horn of Africa/Gulf of Aden and Great Lakes Region
countries, neighboring countries as well as observer and donor nations in
this Djibouti conference. It is gratifying to note that the countries
present here have remained focused on the landmines issue since the
signing of the Ottawa Treaty in December 1997 despite many obstacles.
The compelling reasons are that this Sub-region is the
most mine affected, that there is reported continued use of landmines,
that there is spirited denial of use of this weapon by governments and
other users. We believe that the presence of landmines in the Sub-region
remains a problem to the civil society in particular and a threat to peace
in general, impacting negatively on the development of the whole region.
Large populations have been denied access to amenities
and natural resources that are god-given. Victims of this silent killer
continue to be traumatized and go unsupported. In some cases development
has been halted.
The founding principles of the sub-regional network,
the Greater Horn of Africa Mine Action Network, therefore, is borne on the
need to have an action-oriented approach in visiting issues related to
landmines. It is a homegrown initiative meant to assign responsibility and
ownership to individual organizations that recognize the menace wrought on
the population by the scourge of landmines.
The saying that it is the wearer who knows where the
shoe pinches, obtains in this basic mission of eradicating the scourge of
landmines. It would be hypocritical for the GHAMAN members to pretend that
because the Mine Ban treaty has been signed and ratified by many
governments, the problem of landmines will while away. The network
concluded after careful observation of the international landmines arena,
that local landmines issues could only be solved through local
initiatives. There was urgent need to internalize the landmines landscape.
Landmines issues are party of the bigger issue of peace in the sub region.
That being the case, among other reasons, the presence
of landmines contribute in the existence of conflicts that bestraddle the
borders of the countries in the sub region. They are a military issue as
well as a humanitarian issue. They are a strategic weapon, as believed by
some conventional military school of thought`, but they are at the same
time a human rights issue. Landmines are unremorseful and are analogous to
human serial killers, who need urgent intervention measures to prevent
them from wreaking further havoc in society.
Ladies and Gentlemen, blue prints for addressing the
landmines issues in the sub region and implementation of the strategies
need conscious, deliberate and concerted efforts by all the stakeholders
in the sub-region. The governments, the inter-governmental agencies, the
UN agencies, other IOs, NGOs, ought to interface closely and harmoniously
with and among one another. Stand-alone approaches have a short lifespan.
In this respect the full support of all the governments in the sub region,
donors, all players already mentioned, has to be refocused on the
landmines problem.
What then, are the highlights of the specific issues on
the landmines that affect each of the twelve countries in the GHAMAN sub
region, as documented in the Landmine Monitor report 2000, and which
GHAMAN will be trying to address? Generally, the sub region has continued,
since March 1999, to experience the USE of landmines. In most of these
incidences the use emanates from internal conflicts involving states and
non-state actors. GHAMAN views the following as some areas of urgent
concern.
Destruction of stockpiles; use of anti-personnel mines
by non state actors; general lack of legislation and implementation of the
Mine Ban treaty; illicit transfers of APMs; weak infrastructures for mine
clearance; lack of surveys and assessments; low priority for mine
victims/survivor assistance programmes; issue of refugees and IDPs;
environmental pollution by landmines and other UXOs; continuation of use
of landmines despite signing of peace agreements among conflicting
parties.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
These highlights, no doubt present a cross section of
classical issues facing the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. Compliance with the
stipulates of the treaty seems to be a major constraint to governments in
the sub region. Converting the MBT into tangible national laws has not
taken effect. However, the circumstances facing the sub region call for
faster implementation of the treaty.
Governments need to very urgently criminalize
landmines. Banning the weapon has made the weapon even cheaper, making it
easier for criminals to get hold of it and use. We know for a fact that
landmines have been used for poaching in some countries. It needs very
little imagination to visualize what these criminals can do in using
landmines during their banditry forays either within a country or across
border as a pursuit deterrent measure.
The above also show how vulnerable the sub region is to
conflicts, resulting in high morbidity and mortality levels due to
landmines and other munitions in general. In some of these countries the
conflicts have gone on for so long that it does not make sense to await
the end of the conflicts in order to start clearing the landmines and
other munitions littering the fields of these countries.
Peace should never be a precondition for effecting
demining. Taking top priority position should be the saving of human
lives. Delivery of mine action services must continue despite the on going
conflict situations. As much as they are willing to provide food and carry
out immunization exercises in conflict prone areas, UN agencies and other
interested parties ought also to simultaneously provide mine action
services in the same areas.
Allow me, this distinguished gathering, to raise a few
issues with the governments of the twelve countries in the GHAMAN sub
region through their representatives present here today. You may have
observed from the foregoing highlights that signing a peace accord or a
treaty per se cannot guarantee strict adherence to the stipulates of the
peace instrument. The governments need to be committed to complying with
the treaty they have enjoined themselves to. This commitment needs to be
tangibly illustrated. The commitment needs to be translated into reality.
Political goodwill is a prerequisite. This should be illustrated in
signing, ratification of or accession to the Mine Ban treaty; legislation
of the same, and where applicable, reflected in joint military training or
collaboration. Of course, the mine awareness and risk reduction education
ought also to be extended to the legislators and politicians, that is, for
general informed decision-making regarding use of landmines.
The issue of use or not of landmines is leveraged
heavily on political goodwill. A well-informed executive as well as the
legislative arm of the government will be hard pressed to sanction the use
of landmines under any circumstances. They will know that landmines are
often brought about by situations of conflict and insecurity. They will be
aware of the domino effect of landmines use: - a tottering economy,
environmental pollution and human and animal casualties. They will be
aware that by discouraging the use of landmines, or by destroying the
mines in their stockpiles or on the ground, half of the problems caused by
conflict will have been removed. In this way, the governments or the
respective decisions or opinion leaders, will be helping to nurture the
philosophy of "creeping peace". Hopefully this philosophy would
spill over to the neighboring countries. Governments also need to build
enough trust among them in this initiative so that armies could cooperate
and work together to eliminate landmines and make this sub region a mine
free zone.
Let the spirit of the MBT be reflected in the
documentation and practices of the sub regional entities such as the East
African Community and IGAD. Let the governments, for example, internalize
the spirit of the MBT in the curricula of their military doctrine of only
training military miners by changing it into that of training deminers-
more specifically, humanitarian de miners. Right now in military jargon,
there is no such term as a de-miner, only a miner.
There is urgent need to introduce a mine awareness
intervention measure within the military ranks, to make a transition there
from the militaristic doctrinal approach to landmines, to the humanitarian
approach. One cannot remove landmines merely through a treaty without
first debriefing soldiers or military personnel of senior ranks out of
their conventional indoctrination regarding landmines.
If we do not wake up fast to the above philosophy of
"creeping peace", we will stand accused forever in the eyes of
our grandchildren, for we shall have left to them a legacy of suffering,
and a general denial brought about by the self precipitated conflicts in
our midst.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me now to focus on our
distinguished guests, the friends of IGAD, the EAC and OAU, representing
their governments, UN, IOs, NGOs. I have personally and the GHAMAN
membership been inspired by the interest and assistance some of you have
shown and extended to our membership. I most sincerely wish to thank you
and especially those that have stayed with us for the last two years as we
developed this idea of mine action at the sub region. Your wisdom,
insights, questions and doubts have left us better informed and energized
in renewing our commitment to eradicating landmines from the sub region.
I both appeal to and challenge all the governments and
friends gathered here to look inward and take stock of your resources and
conscientiously dedicate a fraction of the resources fro the realization
of the sub region’s and GHAMAN’s objectives. The sub region needs your
total goodwill to succeed.
The sub region has a sufficient supply of human
resources for mine action needs in the sub region. All it needs is pool
its resources and one ends with an impressed state a mine action
personnel, inter alia. For example, the demobilized military miners can
be, after a short period of debriefing, be turned into humanitarian
deminers, who still can be commissioned within and across borders in the
sub region and even beyond.
I know you did not come here merely to talk or to
listen. You came here because you are persons who want to make a
difference in our sub region. You are here because you heard the call of
the civil society to help eradicate landmines from Ethiopia, Eritrea,
Sudan, and Somalia as most affected and afflicted and the other countries
of the region.
I sincerely hope that our time together and meeting
with our government representatives will result in your being filled with
a new sense of urgency in appreciating the enormity of the landmines
problem in the sub region.
In thanking you, be assured that we have confidence
that the work you do, and can do, does make a big difference. I believe
our collective and cooperative efforts can truly shake the sub region.
I will reiterate here that landmines are first and
foremost a local problem. Therefore the problem must be owned and
acknowledged by those it affects most. Therefore international assistance
will only be effective once the sub region acknowledges its owns problems
and has political goodwill to call for outside support. I would then
propose that before this happens the regional and sub regional structures
are fully involved, that is OAU, IGAD, EAC, COMESA.
Ladies and Gentlemen: I appeal to you all to join hands
with the key organs in the sub region, e.g. IGAD which has been
underwriting peace initiatives in the Horn of Africa and the entire sub
region. These entities would be more than happy to make sure that the
humanitarian conflict is solved.
There is no doubt that communication of ideas, as we
reflect on the conference for the next two days will surely bear fruit.
Through this gathering I see more clearly the amazing potential of the NGO
community and international civil society, now on the threshold of
entering in a relationship of partnership with governments.
For the next two days we have a remarkable opportunity
to set the first agenda from the sub region for the OAU Mali Bamako
meeting of February 2001. Three years after the signing of the MBT, which
was achieved because of the unity of OAU members, the region will meet
once again to redefine its agenda in mine action and seek the strategy of
universalizing the treaty. If in December 1997 we did not recognize the
opportunity, let the Mali meeting not be a victim of missed opportunities.
At this time in the post MBT with over 107 countries having ratified, let
Africa begin to heal the wounds of conflict. Let the victims of landmines
live with dignity; let us leave behind a legacy that our grandchildren can
enjoy.
Let us continue to work together in the days ahead,
building bridges, forming networks and transforming the earth to a mine
free world. Let us determine the future of the region in this meeting.
Finally, I look forward to seeing you again in the near
future. In particular, I hope you will get involved in the Mali meeting
next year, where your expertise and support will be highly required.
