Mine ban policy overview

Policy

The Republic of Tunisia signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 4 December 1997 and ratified on 9 July 1999, becoming a State Party on 1 January 2000.

Tunisia has listed 10 laws that it considers implementation measures for the Mine Ban Treaty.[1]

Tunisia submitted its fourteenth Article 7 transparency report in April 2014, covering the period from April 2013 to April 2014.[2]

Tunisia attended the Mine Ban Treaty’s Thirteenth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in December 2013 and intersessional meetings in April 2014, but did not participate in the Third Review Conference in Maputo, Mozambique in June 2014.

Production, transfer, stockpile destruction, and retention

Tunisia has never produced or exported antipersonnel mines, but imported them in the past.[3] Tunisia completed the destruction of 18,259 stockpiled antipersonnel mines in September 2003.[4]

In its initial declaration in July 2000, Tunisia reported retaining 5,000 antipersonnel mines (4,000 PMA-3 and 1,000 PROM-1) for purposes permitted under Article 3 of the Mine Ban Treaty.[5] In its Article 7 report submitted in 2014, Tunisia reported that it retains 4,770 mines for training and that 70 mines were used for training purposes during the April 2013 to April 2014 reporting period.[6] Tunisia has not specified the type of retained mines that it has destroyed, nor has it reported in detail on the intended purposes and actual uses of retained mines, as agreed by States Parties in 2004.

Use

Since April 2013, new use of improvised explosive devices has been reported during the Tunisian Armed Forces’ ongoing operations against Islamist rebel forces in the region of Jebel Al-Cha’anby in Qsrein Wilaya/Kasserine governorate near the Algerian border.[7]

During the first nine months of 2014, the following incidents were recorded in Jebel Al-Cha’anby:

·         On 18 April, a government soldier was killed when his vehicle hit a mine;[8]

·         On 23 May, a government soldier was killed and five injured by a landmine;[9]

·         On 1 July, four government soldiers and two national guardsmen were injured by a mine, while four more soldiers were killed the next day by a landmine in the same area.[10]

In the second half of 2013, several mine incidents were reported in Jebel Al-Cha’anby:

·         On 17 November, a woman gathering wood was injured by a landmine;[11]

·         In November, there were also reports of sheep detonating mines while grazing in the area;[12]

·         On 2 December, a government soldier was killed and another injured by a landmine.[13]

In May 2013, the Ministry of Defense stated that the mines laid at Jebel Al-Cha’anby were homemade mines constructed from plastic with a chemical initiator, making detection difficult.[14] A spokesperson said, “the mines that exploded were made of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and flammable materials that can easily explode when exposed to heat.”[15] All incidents reviewed by the Monitor in 2014 involved attacks on military vehicles, but it is unclear how the explosive devices were initiated.[16]

In May 2013, a police officer told Human Rights Watch (HRW) that the late April casualties were caused by “artisanal” (or homemade) antipersonnel mines that exploded horizontally, and from this description, the mines would appear to be homemade tripwire-initiated explosive devices similar to Claymore mines.[17]

Policy

The Republic of Tunisia signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 12 January 2009, ratified on 28 September 2010, and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 March 2011.

In April 2011, Tunisia informed the Monitor that it adheres to the convention under the terms of its ratification law enacted in February 2010.

As of 27 June 2014, Tunisia still had not submitted its initial Article 7 report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions, originally due by 28 August 2011.

Tunisia participated in one regional meeting of the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions (Livingstone, Zambia in March 2008) and was the first country to sign the convention after it was opened for signature in Oslo in December 2008.[1]

Tunisia has continued to engage in the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It attended the convention’s Meetings of States Parties in 2011 and 2012, but was absent from the Fourth Meeting of States Parties in Lusaka, Zambia in September 2013. Tunisia participated in the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva in 2012 and April 2014, but did not make any statements.

Tunisia has voted in favor of UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions condemning the Syrian government’s use of cluster munitions, including Resolution 68/182 on 18 December 2013, which expressed “outrage” at Syria’s “continued widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights…including those involving the use of…cluster munitions.”[2]

Tunisia is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. Tunisia is also party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Tunisia informed the Monitor in April 2011 that it has never used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.[3]

Tunisia is reported to possess the Hydra-70 air-to-surface unguided rocket system, but it is not known if the ammunition types available to it include the M261 Multi-Purpose Submunition rocket.[4]

Contamination and Impact

Mines

The Republic of Tunisia reported completing clearance of all known mined areas by the end of March 2009; notably of nine minefields it laid in 1976 and 1980 in the south and southeast of the country along the border with Libya and at Bordj El Khadhra, where the borders of Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya meet.[1] Tunisia, however, continues to report a residual mine threat from World War II in the south (El Hamma, Mareth, and Matmata regions); the center (Faïedh and Kasserine regions); the north (Cap-Bon); and the northwest (Medjez El Bab) of the country.[2]

Cluster munition remnants and other explosive remnants of war

There is also a significant problem of explosive remnants of war (ERW) remaining from World War II.[3] There is no evidence that ERW include cluster munition remnants. Tunisia’s initial report in accordance with Article 7 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions was due on 28 August 2011, but had not been received by the UN as of 1 August 2012.

Mine Action Program

Key institutions and operators

There is no national body in charge of management, coordination, and planning of mine action in Tunisia, although the National Implementation Committee for the Mine Ban Treaty has been responsible for overseeing the fulfillment of Mine Ban Treaty Article 5 obligations. The army is the only body authorized to undertake activities related to mines or ERW.

Land Release

Tunisia completed clearance of known mined areas in 2009 but has continued to clear ERW. Tunisia has reported that of the 5,750 antipersonnel mines it had recorded as having been laid in 1976 and 1980, it had removed and destroyed 5,667 from a total area of 0.5km² by April 2010.[4] It had also cleared 1,938 antivehicle mines recovered from the minefields, out of a total of 1,958 recorded. It believes that the remaining mines were destroyed by animals.[5]

Compliance with Article 5 of the Mine Ban Treaty

Under Article 5 of the Mine Ban Treaty, Tunisia was required to destroy all antipersonnel mines in mined areas under its jurisdiction or control as soon as possible, but not later than 1 January 2010. In May 2009, Tunisia announced at the intersessional Standing Committee meetings that it had successfully completed its Article 5 obligations.[6] At the Second Review Conference in December 2009, Tunisia referred to its achievement as a significant challenge given the relative low level of its resources and the difficulty in identifying mines in soil and moving sand.[7]

Casualties

Casualties Overview

In 2013, the Monitor identified 28 casualties from landmines and victim-activated improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the Republic of Tunisia.[1] This is the highest annual casualty total recorded in Tunisia since monitoring began in 1999. The vast majority of casualties in 2013 were military (22 of 28); there were six civilian casualties of which five were women. All incidents occurred in or near the area of military operations at Al-Cha’ambi Mountain in Kasserine governorate.[2]

The 2013 casualty total of 28 represented a dramatic increase compared to the 10 mine/ERW casualties recorded in Tunisia for a period of more than 20 years, from 1991–2012. This increase was attributed, at least in part, to the suspected use of homemade mines, something that had not been reported in Tunisia prior to 2013.[3]

In 2006, a man was injured by ERW in northern Tunisia. The last reported mine incident occurred in January 2002.[4] In its Article 7 report and its statement to the Standing Committee on Mine Clearance, Mine Risk Education, and Mine Action Technologies in June 2008, Tunisia stated that the rare incidents reported in recent years were due to ERW.[5]

The Monitor identified a Tunisian officer injured during a training accident with a hand grenade in Djibouti in January 2008; a French officer was killed in the same incident.[6]

The cumulative number of mine/ERW casualties remains unknown. Since 1991, the Monitor has recorded 38 mine/ERW casualties.