The production of antipersonnel landmines has dropped sharply, and exports have fallen virtually to zero, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Human Rights Watch said in a reportLandmine Monitor Report: Toward a Mine-Free World .
However, the 1,100-page study also said that at least three governments have used landmines even after signing the global treaty to ban their use. The three are Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal.
The study also charged that antipersonnel mines are being used for the first time in thirteen conflicts around the world, including in Yugoslavia, Turkey, Burma, Israel, and Sri Lanka.
The study, "Landmine Monitor Report 1999," was edited and produced by Human Rights Watch, a founding member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997. The release of the report coincides with the first meeting of the states that have signed the treaty so far, opening today in Maputo, Mozambique.
"Landmine Monitor 1999" contains country-by-country information about mine use, production, trade, stockpiling, humanitarian demining and mine survivor assistance. A 49-page Executive Summary is also available. More than eighty researchers gathered information for the Landmine Monitor, in more than 100 countries. In addition to country reports, the book also includes updates from major actors in the mine ban movement, such as key governments, United Nations agencies and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Although the latest fighting in Yugoslavia and Kosovo began after the Landmine Monitor went to print, there have been numerous credible reports of extensive mine laying by Yugoslav forces in the past month. Yugoslav forces used millions of mines during conflict with Bosnia and Croatia. Yugoslavia has been one of the world's biggest producers and exporters of antipersonnel mines.
Human Rights Watch is a privately-funded international monitoring group based in New York. It is the lead agency in a core group of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. The others are Handicap International, Kenya Coalition Against Landmines, Mines Action Canada, and Norwegian People's Aid.
Other findings of the report include:
The number of countries producing such mines has dropped from fifty-four to sixteen. Eight of the twelve biggest producers and exporters of mines over the past thirty years have signed the treaty and stopped production. Of the sixteen remaining producers, China is likely the biggest manufacturer today. Several have not made AP mines in recent years, including the United States and Singapore, but they reserve the right to resume production at any time. Russia in 1998 banned the production of "blast" mines, the most common type of mine. Landmine Monitor research did not uncover any evidence of new production by treaty signatories.
There is no evidence of significant export of antipersonnel mines by any country, signatory or non-signatory. Landmine Monitor identified thirty-four past exporters, but all, with the exception of Iraq, have at least made a formal statement that they are no longer exporting. Although the Mine Ban Treaty has been criticized for not including any major mine exporters, the fact is that there are no major mine exporters today, and most of the major exporters of the past have signed the treaty.
More than 250 million antipersonnel mines are stockpiled in at least 108 countries. The most common previous estimate was 100 million, but Landmine Monitor contains the most accurate and comprehensive information to date. China is estimated to have 110 million antipersonnel mines, Russia some 60-70 million, and Belarus possibly tens of millions. However, stockpiled mines are also being destroyed in significant numbers. More than thirty countries have destroyed more than 12 million antipersonnel mines. Twelve countries have completely destroyed their mine arsenals thus far.
Seventeen major donors spent approximately $640 million from 1993-1998 to help rid the world of landmines. While not a complete total, this figure comes closer than expected to the U.S. government's "2010 initiative," which calls for $1 billion per year in global mine funding.
The vast majority of these funds have gone to Afghanistan (more than $113 million), Mozambique (more than $90 million), and Cambodia (about $83 million), as well as Bosnia and Angola.
