Statement of Ambassador  Lange Schermerhorn 

Head, United States Delegation

Your Excellency

Members of the Diplomatic Corps, Heads of Delegations, Distinguished Guests;

Ladies and Gentlemen:

On behalf of the U.S. delegation, I would like to thank the Government of Djibouti for hosting this conference. I would also like to thank The Institute for Practical Research and Training (IPR) for its vision and efforts to organize and structure this gathering, which gives us the opportunity to highlight and focus international attention on the grave problem of landmines in the region and around the world. Even though there are policy differences among nations in the international community, and the United States is the focal point of some of these differences, we all share a common interest: the elimination of a threat to life and to the socio-economic fabric of a nation represented by the dreadful scourge of landmines.

We are the heirs to an unfortunate legacy of death, destruction, and mayhem in some 90 countries around the world caused by landmines planted during conflicts and left in

place. These instruments of war continue to kill innocent civilians, prevent the productive use and resettlement of lands, and generally stifle economic development and reconstruction. No one knows the number of landmines still buried in the ground, and estimates vary widely. We do know that the havoc wrought by these extremely effective hidden killers has been devastating and must be stopped.

The international community’s response to this challenge has been varied, comprehensive, and over time, increasingly effective. But we must continue to strengthen, reinforce, and expand our efforts until every country with a landmine problem has been declared mine safe under United Nations standards of quality assurance. This is our goal, and we welcome this opportunity to discuss and engage with all of the participants in this conference to develop a strategy to more effectively address this threat.

The United States government has provided more than $400 million to humanitarian mine action in 37 countries over the past seven years, and we will provide another $100 million this year. But no single government, international agency, or private group has the capacity on its own to make more than a small dent on the problem. We must work together.

In addition to our efforts to remove or destroy landmines and to assist landmine victims, an important part of our strategy must be to encourage strict adherence to the international legal instruments that restrict or prohibit the use of landmines. I refer primarily to the Amended Mines Protocol annexed to the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons which deals with restrictions and prohibitions on anti-personnel and anti-vehicle landmines. The Convention on Conventional Weapons has been ratified by 60 nations, including the United States in 1999. I also refer, of course, to the Ottawa

Treaty which prohibits the production, stockpiling, transfer and use of anti-personnel landmines (APL). As most of you know well, the United States has not yet signed the Ottawa Treaty. What is not as well known is that we intend to do so as soon as we succeed in identifying and fielding suitable alternatives to our systems, which we use to protect our troops in Korea. We will end all APL use outside of Korea by 2003 and seek to have APL alternatives ready for Korea by 2006. The United States has already destroyed 3.3 million non-self destructing APL and instituted a unilateral export ban on all APL in January 1997. Additionally, we are seeking an anti-personnel landmine export/transfer ban within the Conference on Disarmament, which includes key states which are not part of the Ottawa Convention such as Russia, China, India and Pakistan.

I would also like to point out that, in terms of the critical task of demining, we view both the Amended Mines Protocol and the Ottawa Treaty as useful instruments in the global campaign to remove landmines from the earth. They are both valuable contributions to the body of international humanitarian law, and they are complementary, not mutually exclusive.

For the United States, the landmine focus is on getting rid of mines that threaten innocents and hamper socio-economic progress. The problem is intractable. Even as countries and regions strive to rid themselves of landmines; new, or the resumption of old, conflicts in many parts of Africa such as Angola, Sierra Leone, Eritrea, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Sudan are leading to the planting of new minefields, especially by insurgency movements. Thus, we believe that our approaches must involve a comprehensive menu of international cooperative actions that can be tailored to the needs of each mine-affected country and to each region in conflict.

The regional nature of these conflicts creates new opportunities for regional cooperation to remove and destroy landmines even between countries which have been in

conflict with each other. In one current example, deminers from Armenia and Azerbaijan, two countries which fought a border war only a few years ago, are today cooperating in landmine training in Tblisi. On the morning of the first day of training, antagonisms between representatives of the two countries were so high that neither side would enter the cafeteria until the other side had left. By evening, both teams of deminers had come together to play soccer. It is remarkable how mutual interests can begin to heal ancient and historic wounds.

I would be delighted if this conference could lay the foundation for a similar cooperative effort in this region in which Eritrean and Ethiopian deminers, for example, could come together in a regional demining initiative to remove and destroy landmines, and also to demonstrate to the region and to the world that cooperation, rather than conflict, is in the best interests of all concerned. The United States would be pleased to support such an initiative.

Mr. Minister allow me to thank you again for hosting this conference. The United States delegation offers its full cooperation to ensure the successful accomplishment of its goals and objectives in the important area of land mine removal and destruction.