ELEVEN Years into the Anti-personnel Landmine Ban Treaty, and Zambia, a country affected moderately by landmines as a relic of the political liberation movements hosted on her soil, has cause to rejoice and celebrate.
Zambia has cleared all known antipersonnel mined areas thus being article 5 compliant well ahead of her 2011 mandated deadline.
Under the directorship of Sheila Mweemba and her team at the Zambia Anti-Personnel Mine Action Centre, success has been achieved through hard work and a helping hand from cooperating partners such as the American government, Norwegian People Aid of Norway; United Children's Fund, among them.
The policy directions given to ZMAC by the National Committee Against Landmines chaired by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been invaluable in this attainment.
What is more, the Zambian Campaign to Ban Landmines, a member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines has been vigilant and resolute along the years to ensure that Zambia remained steadfast in ensuring that her obligations under the Ottawa Process of Mine Ban Treaty were fully and comprehensively met.
The Zambian Campaign to Ban Landmines believes that Zambia will continue showing her leadership too on the Cluster Munitions Convention, which Zambia ratified in August 2009.
The said convention will enter in force internationally come August 1, 2010.
With eleven years under the belt, fewer new victims of Anti-personnel mines, land released for agriculture and other developmental use, Zambia is safer today than 11 years ago from the scourge of landmines that has claimed lives and limbs of some of her unfortunate citizens.
It was heartening thus to see that at the Cartagena Summit on Anti-Personnel Mines held in Colombia in December 2009, an expected yet welcome guest in the name of the United States was present and formally participating as an observer. This is indeed a breath of fresh air given that the US, an important force in the world, has hitherto been outside this treaty. One hopes that soon and very soon, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Egypt will, in a single file, join the community of nations in acceding to the Mine Ban Treaty as well as the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Across the globe a clarion call is thus going out with the message that it is time for US to join the Mine Ban Treaty fully and without delay.
America announced last November that it had initiated a review of its landmine policy. Members of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) are visiting dozens of American embassies worldwide this month which marks the 11th anniversary of the MBT to urge America to decide to join the Mine Ban Treaty without further delay.
"We are glad that America has decided to take a fresh look at its stance on banning antipersonnel mines," said Sylvie Brigot, Executive Director of the ICBL.
"During the policy review process, it is crucial that decision-makers listen to the voices of landmine survivors and mine-affected communities."
America has not used antipersonnel mines since 1991, has had an export ban in place since 1992, and has not produced since 1997.
"The human cost of landmines far outweighs their military utility.
"An overwhelming majority of states have formally recognised this," said Zach Hudson, coordinator of the American Campaign to Ban Landmines.
"The national security argument does not stand.
Surely if we have been able to defend our country for the last 19 years without using landmines, we have already found alternative solutions."
America participated in an official Mine Ban Treaty meeting as an observer for the first time at the Cartagena Summit on a Mine-Free World, in December 2009.
It is the world's largest individual contributor for mine action and victim assistance programmes, and it should match its financial commitment with a political commitment to end the threat of the use of landmines.
"The urgent need for increased assistance to landmine survivors was among the highlights of the Cartagena Summit," explained Firoz Ali Alizada, ICBL Treaty Implementation Officer and a landmine survivor himself.
"Given the magnitude of the challenges ahead on victim assistance, we need all states, including America, to commit formally to the Mine Ban Treaty.
By doing so they will strengthen the ban on this weapon as the only acceptable norm, and help ensuring landmine survivors see their rights respected and receive full assistance."
Adopted in 1997, the Mine Ban Treaty entered into force on 1 March 1999, just 15 months after it was negotiated in the shortest time ever for a modern international treaty.
The treaty comprehensively bans all antipersonnel mines, requires destruction of stockpiled mines within four years, requires destruction of mines already in the ground within 10 years, and urges extensive programs to assist the victims of landmines.
The Zambian Campaign to Ban Landmines will be seeking to have audience with the US Embassy in Lusaka firstly to thank America for the help rendered to Zambia in achieving her success in being mine-free and more urgently to urge the US to lead as she should in joining the MBT as well as the Cluster Munitions Conventions as soon as possible.
(The author is an Advisory Board Member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and convener of the Zambian Campaign to Ban Landmines)
