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ELEVENTH INTERNATIONAL MEETING OF MINE ACTION PROGRAMME DIRECTORS AND UNITED NATIONS ADVISERS

CROATIA'S LANDMINE CASUALTY RATE AT LOWEST LEVEL SINCE 1991, VICE PRIME MINISTER SAYS AT WORLD'S LARGEST ANNUAL GATHERING OF EXPERTS ON LANDMINES AND EXPLOSIVE REMNANTS OF WAR

SIBENIK, CROATIA, April 16, 2008—Mine-clearance and mine risk education services have contributed to a decline in the number of new casualties, with five injuries and three fatalities reported in 2007, the lowest level since 1991, Croatian Vice Prime Minister Ðurde Adlešic said here today at the world's largest gathering of experts on landmines and explosive remnants of war.

"The Croatian Government is still determined to continue speeding up the process of solving the mine problem in the Republic of Croatia and it is putting maximum efforts into ensuring organizational and financial preconditions for it," Adlešic said.

According to Oto Jungwirth, director of the Croatian Mine Action Centre, the amount of land suspected of being hazardous in the country is 997 square kilometres, or one-thirteenth of estimates in the early 1990s. He attributes the reduction not only to mine-clearance efforts, but also to "precise and clearly defined" methods for surveying areas thought to be contaminated by landmines or explosive remnants of war.

"The Croatian Mine Action Centre…has accomplished many key objectives, one of the most important of which is the return of 250 square kilometres of demined areas to the community," Jungwirth said.

Croatia is among the 156 countries that have ratified the anti-personnel mine-ban treaty. The Croatian Mine Action Centre was established in 1998. Mine action services had been initially provided by the United Nations through the peacekeeping mission in the country.

The gathering here of more than 250 representatives from four United Nations organizations and dozens of national mine action authorities, donor governments, commercial demining companies and nongovernmental organizations, is cosponsored by the Croatian Mine Action Centre, the International Trust Fund for Demining and Mines Victims Assistance, and the United Nations. The event in Sibenik is the second half of a two-city event, which began in Ljubljana, Slovenia on April 14.

In Ljubljana, the meeting began with calls for accelerating the return of safe land to communities. After conflict, countries affected by landmines and explosive remnants of war are obliged to assess the extent of contamination to produce cost-effective plans, warn populations and treaty obligations, according to the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD), whose representatives are participating in event. "General assessments and landmine impact surveys often overestimate the extent of land actually affected by landmines and explosive remnants of war," a report by the GICHD says. "If countries are to be successful in reaching their mine action objectives, a drastic change in approach must be developed," the report adds, calling for the use of analytical methods that allow for the release of affected land through actions other than mine clearance.

Using current practices, it is common for deminers to meticulously comb over all land suspected of being hazardous with detectors, even when there is no credible evidence of landmines in the area. New procedures would allow landmine experts to look at a variety of indicators before making the decision to either send deminers into a suspected hazardous area to look for mines or to declare the area safe. Research found that in many countries, "much of the land being cleared using expensive and resource-intensive assets did not, in the end, contain hazardous items." Mine action professionals should consider other options for "releasing land in a non-technical manner."

According to John Flanagan, Officer-in-Charge of the United Nations Mine Action Service in the Department of Peacekeeping's Office or Rule of Law and Security Institutions, a review of standard procedures for identifying hazardous areas would allow limited mine clearance assets to be focused on areas that actually do contain mines and explosive hazards. "We're looking for ways to confirm that land is safe without necessarily going over every inch of it with a mine detector," Flanagan said. "Where there is a genuine threat, however, we will make sure all landmines and explosive remnants of war are removed before we tell a community that land is safe for their use."

Also in Ljubljana, officials from the United Nations, a nongovernmental organization and the Government of Slovenia's Ministry of Health called for more comprehensive assistance to survivors of accidents with landmines and explosive remnants of war and said services should be integrated into broader national programs to assist people with disabilities. Assistance to victims should no longer be based on a model of charity and need, according to Ramiz Becirovic of the Landmine Survivors Network. Instead, assistance should be based on human rights and aim to rehabilitate, reintegrate and empower individuals.

While the meeting is addressing issues of victim assistance and mine clearance procedures, it is also highlighting the importance for mine-affected countries to assume full responsibility for the management and implementation of mine action programs. "The transition to national ownership of mine action programs is the cornerstone of the United Nations inter-agency mine action strategy for 2006 to 2010," wrote Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Marie Guéhenno in a message he sent to the opening of the meeting in Ljubljana. "The United Nations will continue to work with national authorities and others to reduce the humanitarian and socio-economic threats of landmines and explosive remnants of war until mine-affected countries have the technical, financial and human resources to address the problem on their own."

Landmines and explosive remnants of war kill or maim 6,000 people a year, and three of every four casualties are civilians. New casualties within the past year were been reported in 68 countries. Fourteen different United Nations entities manage or support mine action programs in 42 countries and territories.

For more information, contact: Miljenko Vahtaric at the Croatian Mine Action Centre, tel. +385 44554128, e-mail: mvahtaric@hcr.hr; Richard Kollodge, United Nations Mine Action Service, Tel. +1-646 339-2701, e-mail: kollodge@un.org; or Ida Mahecic Bajovic, United Nations Development Programme, Zagreb, tel. +385 1 23 61 625, e-mail: ida.mahecic@undp.org