Mine ban policy overview

Policy

The Republic of Nepal has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty. In December 2010, Nepal stated that recommendations regarding accession to the Mine Ban Treaty would be completed “soon.”[1]

The November 2006 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) committed the government and the Unified Communist Party of Nepal/Maoist rebels to halt the use of mines, and required the parties to assist each other to mark and clear mines and booby-traps.[2]

In February 2010, the Minister of Peace and Reconstruction initiated a ministerial-level committee to study the responsibilities of and opportunities for becoming a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty.[3] As of 1 September 2012, the committee had not been able to compile a report due to the frequent change in personnel holding the position of minister in the Ministry of Home Affairs and Defense during the time period. The committee met again in March 2012.[4]

Nepal did not attend the Eleventh Meeting of States Parties in Phnom Penh in November–December 2011 or the intersessional Standing Committee meetings in May 2012. On 2 December 2011, Nepal abstained from voting on UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 66/29 calling for universalization of the Mine Ban Treaty. This was the fifth consecutive year that Nepal abstained on the annual resolution, after voting in favor of all previous pro-ban resolutions since 1996.[5]

In May and June 2011, the Nepal Campaign to Ban Landmines (NCBL) met with the prime minister, the foreign minister, the defense minister, and the minister for peace and reconstruction to encourage accession to the Treaty.[6] The NCBL organized an event in November 2011 to honor former Ministers for Peace and Reconstruction Ram Chandra Paudel and Rakam Chemjong for their efforts to bring about a ban on antipersonnel mines in Nepal. Madhav Kumar Nepal, a former prime minister and a senior Communist Party Nepal-UML leader, joined in the event, at which several political parties signed a commitment against landmines. Nepali Congress leader Ram Chandra Poudel said banning landmines was praiseworthy and added he had helped NGOs in this sector as a Minister for Peace and Reconstruction during his tenure.[7] As of 1 August 2012, 24 of Nepal’s political parties have signed the letter to seek Nepal’s accession.[8]

Production

In December 2009, the Minister for Peace and Reconstruction stated that Nepal does not produce antipersonnel mines.[9] On 21 June 2010, Nepal wrote to the Monitor that “Nepal does not produce any kind of antipersonnel landmines and the landmines that the Nepal Army is using have been produced abroad.”[10] Nepal repeated this in its remarks to States Parties in December 2010 at the Tenth Meeting of States Parties.[11] In light of these official, written declarations that Nepal does not produce antipersonnel mines, the Monitor removed Nepal from its list of producers. Previously, in 2003 and 2005, Nepali officials told the Monitor that Nepal produced antipersonnel mines.[12]

Use, transfer, and stockpiling

In December 2009, the Minister for Peace and Reconstruction stated that Nepal has not planted mines since the end of the insurgency in 2006.[13] He also said that Nepal does not “enable the transfer” of mines. Nepal is not known to have ever exported mines.

During the conflict, the Nepal Army used antipersonnel mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) assembled in-country around military installations, police posts, and infrastructure. The Nepal Army has stated that it started using mines in 2002 and estimates it deployed around 14,000 antipersonnel mines (including 11,000 PMD-6 mines and 3,000 POMZ-2 and M14 mines). It also estimates that it used about 25,000 command-detonated IEDs.[14] In June 2010, Nepal told the Monitor that it used mines in 53 locations and IEDs in 275 locations during the conflict.[15] In June 2011, Prime Minister Jhalnath Khanal detonated the final mine, ending clearance of the areas mined by the Nepal Army during the civil war. He stated, “Today is a historical day because Nepal has been liberated from all kinds of landmines.”[16]

Nepal wrote to the Monitor in June 2010 that it is now only using antipersonnel mines for training purposes. It stated, “Landmines needed for this purpose have been retained in minimum number,” noting that this is in line with Article 3 of the Mine Ban Treaty.[17] The Nepal Police, Armed Police Forces, and the Nepal Army also retain stocks of IEDs.[18]

A Nepal Army spokesperson said in 2007 that the army had a stockpile of about 3,000 antipersonnel and antivehicle mines, including POMZ-2 and PMD antipersonnel mines. Nepal imported its mines from China, India, and the former Soviet Union, mostly in the 1980s.[19]

Although the former rebel Communist Party of Nepal/Maoist (CPN/M) became a part of the interim government in April 2007, its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) still exists.[20] There have been no reports of new use of antipersonnel mines, victim-activated IEDs, or booby-traps by the PLA since the May 2006 cease-fire. In the past, the PLA was expert at the manufacture and use of a variety of IEDs, including victim-activated, time-delayed, and command-detonated types.[21] Other armed groups continue to operate within the country and to manufacture and use bombs. There is no evidence that any of them have used or possess antipersonnel mines.

The Republic of Nepal has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Nepal has never made a public statement on its policy on joining the convention. In December 2009, the Minister of Peace and Reconstruction told the CMC that there are no issues preventing the government from acceding to the convention.[1]

Nepal participated in two meetings of the Oslo Process that created the convention (Vienna in December 2007 and Wellington in February 2008), but did not participate in the Dublin negotiations in May 2008 or the Convention on Cluster Munitions Signing Conference in Oslo in December 2008, even as an observer.

Nepal has not participated in any meetings of the Convention on Cluster Munitions since 2008. It was invited to, but did not attend, the Second Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Beirut, Lebanon in September 2011.

Nepal is not a party to the Mine Ban Treaty.

Nepal is not a party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Nepal has confirmed that it does not possess cluster munitions and has never used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.[2]

Contamination and Impact

Nepal has been affected by antipersonnel mines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) as a result of a decade of conflict that ended with a peace agreement in November 2006. In 2011, it completed clearance of all known mined areas.

Mines

Mine contamination when the conflict ended consisted of 53 fields of antipersonnel mines laid by the Nepal Army around military posts. By the end of 2010, clearance had reduced contamination to 17 minefields covering some 80,000m².[1] In June 2011, Nepal and a senior UN official declared that the last known mined area had been cleared.[2]

Other explosive remnants of war

The decade of conflict also resulted in a problem of ERW, mainly abandoned explosive ordnance and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The Nepal Army, police, and Armed Police Force placed explosive devices, including command-detonated IEDs, as defensive perimeters around military installations. The police and armed police force have already cleared their IED fields. Of 273 IED fields laid by the Nepalese Army that remained at the end of the conflict, six had not been cleared at the end of 2011. These were due for completion in 2012.[3]

Continuing violence in the Terai region of southern Nepal has led to additional IED use and new victims. Humanitarian agencies reported 31 IED casualties in 2011 and estimated that half the casualties were from new devices as distinct from devices left behind by the earlier conflict.[4]

Nepal also has a continuing problem with “socket bombs” (improvised hand-grenades), produced in large quantities by Maoist supporters during the conflict and left over in people’s houses after the conflict ended. Socket bombs accounted for seven of 22 incidents in 2010; these incidents occurred in seven different locations. Other small improvised devices known as “Sutali bombs” and “tiffin box bombs” also cause casualties but there are no records of where they were used.[5]

Mine Action Program

Key institutions and operators

The Steering Committee for Mine Action and its Mine Action Technical Committee (MATC) serve as the National Mine Action Authority (NMAA). It created a mine action task force chaired by an Undersecretary at the Ministry of Peace & Reconstruction (MoPR) in October 2009 to make recommendations for future mine action. The MoPR issued a draft national mine action plan which received the approval of the MATC, but as of April 2012 it had not been adopted by the Steering Committee. An external evaluation of UN support for mine action in Nepal found that the Steering Committee appeared “moribund.”[6]

The MoPR, on the recommendation of the task force, set up a Mine Action Office in October 2009 to act as a mine action center and government focal point for mine action. The MoPR acts as a conduit for government financing of mine action but its ability to fulfill a wider role has been constrained by lack of capacity.[7] The Nepal Army Mine Action Coordination Center (NAMACC), set up in 2006, fulfills many of the functions of a mine action center, operating as a sub-unit command within the army and maintaining an Information Management System for Mine Action database recording contamination and mine action activities.[8]

Since August 2010, the MoPR has acted as chair of a Mine Action Joint Working Group (MAJWG) supporting operational coordination, especially of mine/ERW risk education (RE) and victim assistance.[9] It includes representatives of the government, security forces, UN agencies, and the ICRC. In April 2012, however, the government official fulfilling that role transferred to another ministry, creating a vacuum in government engagement with mine action.[10]

The UN Mine Action Team (UNMAT) coordinated mine action through MAJWG until August 2010 and later focused on quality assurance. UNMAT ended its activities in July 2011 after the completion of mine clearance.[11]

An evaluation of UN involvement in mine action in Nepal found the mine action activities undertaken by UNMAT and UNICEF were relevant and, in relation to destruction of ordnance stockpiles, “went very well.” It observed that UNMAS support to capacity development of the Nepal Army’s Engineering Brigade was “extremely successful.” It noted the effectiveness of the program was assisted by funding that was both adequate in scale and approved for an extended period. It also found, however, that the UN program had not achieved one of its main aims: the MoPR’s Mine Action Office had not developed into a fully fledged mine action center. It noted the concern of many stakeholders that MoPR had not been sufficiently active in coordinating mine action and might not continue to convene the MAJWG.[12]

Land Release

Nepal started 2011 with 17 minefields to clear covering approximately 80,000m.[13] Nepal Army engineers formally completed the task on 14 June 2011 when Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal  triggered a controlled detonation of the last mines and the UN declared Nepal mine free.[14] No landmine incidents or discoveries have been reported since then.[15]

Five-year summary of clearance[16]

N/R = Not reported

Risk Education

The Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS), the Nepal Campaign to Ban Landmines (NCBL), the Informal Service Sector Center (INSEC), and other national NGOs are active delivering RE to at-risk communities across the country with support from UNICEF. A network of some 430 people acting as focal points providing RE support coordinated by the MAJWG is active in 68 of Nepal’s 75 districts.[17]

The Department of Education, with funding from the Nepal Peace Trust Fund and UNICEF support, trained trainers to provide training for school teachers in the 20 most-affected districts in 2009−2010. This has enabled teachers to deliver a one-class RE session in each school class, reaching over 1,000 schools in 2011. There are plans to broaden the area of RE delivery to include schools in the 30 most-affected districts in 2011−2012 and the 50 most-affected districts in 2012−2013. In addition to this “systematic” RE, NRCS has conducted emergency RE after accidents or where explosive devices have been found; NRCS is working with MoPR on community-based RE programs undertaken by Local Peace Committees in 43 districts.[18]

Support for Mine Action

In 2011, Switzerland contributed CHF145,000 (US$163,620) to mine action in Nepal.[1] In June 2011, Nepal reported it had cleared all known mined areas.[2]

In 2007–2011, Australia, Canada, Denmark, the European Commission, France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US) contributed a total of US$4.7 million for mine action in Nepal.

Summary of international contributions in 2007–2011[3]