Mine ban policy overview

Policy

The Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty.[1]

Sri Lanka has not made any formal statements regarding the Mine Ban Treaty since 2009 when it said that it “fully subscribes to the humanitarian objectives of the treaty.”[2] However, in a July 2012 meeting with the diplomatic community in Colombo, Secretary to the Ministry of Defence Gotabhaya Rajapaksa reportedly stated that the Defence Ministry was ready for Sri Lanka to sign the treaty.[3] In September 2010, the Ministry of Economic Development published a plan that would, “advocate for a ban of landmines and cluster munitions,” but as of 1 August 2012 it is not known to have done so.[4]

Sri Lanka did not attend the Eleventh Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty in November-December 2011 in Phnom Penh or the intersessional Standing Committee meetings in May 2012 in Geneva. While it submitted a voluntary Article 7 report in 2005, Sri Lanka has not updated it to include information on its stockpile since then. It voted in favor of UN General Assembly Resolution 66/29 on 2 December 2011 calling for universalization of the Mine Ban Treaty, as it has for every annual pro-ban General Assembly resolution since 1996.

Sri Lanka is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons and its Amended Protocol II on landmines, but has never submitted an annual Article 13 report and did not attend the annual meeting on Amended Protocol II in November 2011. It has not joined Protocol V on explosive remnants of war.

The Sri Lankan Campaign to Ban Landmines (SLCBL) continued to advocate for the government of Sri Lanka to accede to the Mine Ban Treaty.[5] In November 2011, SLCBL organized “Towards a Sri Lanka free from the threat of Landmines and Explosive Remnants of War” in Colombo with the participation of National Mine Action Centre of Ministry of Economic Development, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Social Services and Ministry of Health. The chief guest, former Vice-President of the International Court of Justice Christopher Gregory Weeramantry, addressed the meeting on the importance of the ban, of non-use and of accession to Mine Ban Treaty, where he stated, “Sri Lanka is in progress towards banning landmines in the country and its commitment to acceding to the Mine Ban Treaty. This will guarantee that landmines will not be possessed or used in future in Sri Lanka.”[6]

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Since the end of armed conflict in May 2009, the Monitor has not received any reports of new use of antipersonnel mines by any entity.

There is no evidence that the government of Sri Lanka has ever produced or exported antipersonnel mines. It has a stockpile, but its current size and composition are not known.

In April 2009, Brigadier Lasantha Wickramasuriya of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) acknowledged that the army had used antipersonnel mines in the past, but stressed that such use was only in the past. He said the army had used non-detectable Belgian, Chinese, and Italian mines, as well as bounding and fragmentation mines of Pakistani, Portuguese, and United States (US) manufacture.[7] The Monitor had previously reported that Sri Lanka acquired antipersonnel mines from China, Italy (or Singapore), Pakistan, Portugal, and perhaps Belgium, the US, and others.[8]

Subsequently in October 2009, Army Commander Lieutenant General Jayasuriya said that, “the use of mines by the Sri Lankan military is strictly limited and restricted to defensive purposes only…to demarcate and defend military installations...” and are “marked accordingly and relevant records systematically maintained….”[9]

Prior to the end of armed conflict, in particular in 2008 and 2009, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) laid large numbers of mines throughout the north. In October 2009, the SLA’s commander stated, “With the end of conflict in Sri Lanka, large quantities of mines laid by the LTTE in the former LTTE dominated areas have been recovered and are continuing to be recovered by the Army during the past five months.”[10] Throughout 2010 and into 2011, the SLA was reported to continue finding numerous caches of LTTE antipersonnel mines, including a cache containing 18,000–20,000 antipersonnel mines.[11]

Prior to its demise, the LTTE was considered an expert in making explosive weapons. It was known to produce several types of antipersonnel mines: Jony 95 (a small wooden box mine), Rangan 99 or Jony 99 (a copy of the P4MK1 Pakistani mine), SN 96 (a Claymore-type mine), fragmentation antipersonnel mines from mortars, and variants of some of these antipersonnel mines, including some with antihandling features (including Rangan 99 antipersonnel mines with a motion sensor),[12] as well as Amman 2000, MK1, and MK2 antivehicle mines.[13]

Contamination and Impact

Sri Lanka is extensively contaminated by mines and explosive remnants of war (ERW), including abandoned explosive ordnance (AXO). Most of the contamination is in the north, the focus of three decades of armed conflict between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which ended in May 2009. Contamination posed a major obstacle to the resettlement of nearly 300,000 people who were left displaced at the end of the conflict and also to the economic and social rehabilitation of the north.

Sri Lankan estimates of contamination fell sharply from 506km² at the end of 2010 to 255km² in July 2011 and to almost 125km² in February 2012. By the end of June 2012, the National Mine Action Center (NMAC) said Sri Lanka’s remaining confirmed hazardous areas (CHAs) totaled 118km².[1] The breakdown by district of the extent of CHAs in February 2012 is set out in the table below.

Remaining confirmed hazardous area (km²)[2]

Mines

Both sides in the conflict made extensive use of landmines, including belts of Pakistani-made P4 MK1 mines laid by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and long defensive lines using a mixture of mines and booby-traps laid by the LTTE defending approaches to the northern town of Kilinochchi. The LTTE also left extensive nuisance mining in many northern districts, particularly in areas of intense fighting and often emplaced as its fighters retreated in the face of army offensives.[3]

Operators have encountered a wide range of LTTE devices, including antipersonnel mines with antitilt and antilift mechanisms, and often containing a larger explosive charge (up to 140g) than Pakistani-made P4 MK1 mines (30g). They also encountered tripwire-activated Claymore-type mines, and to a lesser extent antivehicle mines.[4]

Cluster munition remnants

The National Strategy for Mine Action in Sri Lanka says cluster munitions were not used in Sri Lanka at any time in the conflict (see Mine Action Program section below).[5] A UN expert, however, concluded that unexploded submunitions were present in an area (Puthukudiyiruppu) where a boy was killed and a girl was injured as they tampered with a device collected for sale as scrap metal. Media quoted an email from the UN technical advisor in Sri Lanka in which he affirmed that “after reviewing additional photographs from the investigation teams, I have determined that there are cluster submunitions in the area where the children were collecting scrap metal and in the house where the accident occurred. This is the first time that there have been confirmed unexploded submunitions found in Sri Lanka.” A military spokesman denied the report.[6] A UN spokesman alleged the Sri Lankan military used cluster munitions in an attack on Puthukudiyiruppu Hospital in 2009 but the government rejected the report and the UN later retracted the statement.[7] The extent of any residual cluster munition contamination is not known.

Other explosive remnants of war

Extensive UXO contamination resulted from the final years of the civil war in 2006−2009, particularly in the northern Vanni region, as a result of government use of air- and ground-delivered ordnance and LTTE artillery attacks. Operators also reported encountering mortars, grenades, air-delivered rockets, rocket-propelled grenades, and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) or booby-traps, including mortar shells rigged with trip-wires and sometimes linked to mines. Both the SLA and operators have also reported finding caches of mines and AXO.[8]

Mine Action Program

Key institutions and operators

 The Ministry of Economic Development (until mid-2010 the Ministry of Nation Building and Estate Infrastructure Development) under Minister Basil Rajapakse (also a special advisor to the president) is the lead agency for mine action as the chair of the National Steering Committee for Mine Action (NSCMA), providing policy oversight to the sector. The NSCMA is made up of government ministries and departments with a stake in mine action, including the ministries and departments dealing with agriculture, disaster relief, resettlement, education, social affairs, and foreign affairs; the NSCMA is designed to “manage linkages within the government, mine action community and donors.”[9]

The NSCMA is not a permanent body. Its policies and decisions are implemented by the NMAC, set up in 2010[10] with responsibility for liaising with government ministries and development partners to determine mine action priorities, preparing a strategic plan and setting annual work plans to put it into effect. The NMAC, with eight full time staff in Colombo at the end of 2011, is also responsible for accrediting mine action operators, setting national standards, and acting as the secretariat of the NSCMA.[11] Clearance operations in the field are coordinated, tasked, and quality managed by Regional Mine Action Offices (RMAO), working in consultation with District Steering Committees for Mine Action. These committees are chaired by the government officials who direct district authorities.[12]

In 2012, the NMAC started working on a plan to transfer mine action to the Ministry of Defense by the end of 2013.[13]

UNDP supports Sri Lanka’s mine action through the two main activities of strengthening capacity at the NMAC to manage and coordinate the program (paying particular attention to data management) and through technical assistance to field operations. UNDP provides an international technical advisor to the NMAC, supporting preparation of mine action standards and the drafting of the mine action strategy. UNDP also provided funding and, until the second half of 2011, two international technical advisors to the two RMAOs in Jaffna and Vavuniya. In September 2010, UNDP set up two regional sub-offices at the government’s request in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu in addition to the sub-office already operating in Mannar, which closed at the end of 2011.[14]

In January 2011, the government approved a National Strategy for Mine Action in Sri Lanka, which sets out a vision of Sri Lanka “free from the threat” of mines and ERW. It provides for a mission to establish a “sustainable national mine action programme able to plan, coordinate, implement and monitor all aspects of mine action.”[15] The strategy gives top priority to clearance of land required for resettlement of the internally displaced; high priority to land used for livelihood activities, land giving access to schools, hospital or temples, as well as land with essential infrastructure or within 3km of villages or main roads; and medium priority to land required for developing new infrastructure, land around military installations and land 3–5km from villages.[16] NMAC Director Monty Ratanunga said that the government expected to complete demining operations by 2020 as a result of expansion in humanitarian demining.[17]

Land Release

The total area released in 2011 was less than one-sixth the result reported by NMAC in 2010, but the seemingly dramatic drop mainly reflected a lower level of the surface visual inspection conducted by the SLA in the initial emergency response after the end of the war against the LTTE, which was reported as full battle area clearance (BAC). The emphasis for some operators has also shifted from BAC to explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) call-outs.

Five-year summary of clearance

Survey in 2011

Operators reported conducting extensive non-technical survey (NTS) in the northern districts that are the main focus of current mine action operations. NTS by five community liaison teams from the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) resulted in the cancelation of 86.31km², while its mine action teams conducted technical survey and clearance of defined hazardous areas.[18] The Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (FSD) similarly said its NTS teams canceled 5.26km² in Vavuniya and 49.34km² in Mullaitivu.[19] HALO Trust teams worked both in its operations area in Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi and (at NMAC’s request) in parts of Ampara, Mannar, and Trincomalee, cancelling 539 tasks covering a total of 148km². It said it also identified 143 previously unrecorded mined areas through survey.[20]

Mine clearance in 2011

Clearance of mined areas by the Sri Lankan Army’s Humanitarian Demining Unit (SLA-HDU) and eight humanitarian demining organizations rose by more than 25% in 2011, according to data released by NMAC, although it contained some significant discrepancies in the details reported to the Monitor by operators. Most of the clearance (more than 80%) was concentrated in three districts of Mullaitivu, Vavuniya, and the rice producing area of Mannar.[21] An expected reduction in the number of operators and mine clearance capacity in 2012 looked set to result in lower clearance rates.

Mine clearance in 2011[22]

* HALO reported clearing 2.08km² and destroying 30,620 antipersonnel mines and antivehicle mines.[23]

With some 1,200 staff, the SLA-HDU is the biggest operator, although some of this staff is required to fulfill other duties in the course of a year and continued to account for about one-third of the total mined area cleared, operating in eastern districts of Ampara, Batticaloa, and Trincomalee as well as in the north. It also possessed a fleet of 29 flails, which expanded in 2011 when Russia donated four more flails along with other equipment reportedly worth a total of US$2.6 million.[24] The SLA-HDU said the government would provide funding of some 250 million rupees (approximately US$1.9 million) in 2012.[25]

Most international operators, however, faced worsening funding constraints. Danish Demining Group (DDG), which reported clearing 0.8km² and destroying 16,038 antipersonnel mines in 2011, laid off two manual demining teams and loaned one ground preparation machine to the NGO Delvon Assistance for Social Harmony (DASH) in the same year because of financial shortfalls. It brought the teams back into operation in November 2011 but laid off seven manual demining teams at the end of May 2012, reducing personnel numbers to 234 (about half its previous capacity). Without new donors, it said it might be forced to leave mine action in Sri Lanka.[26] Similarly, FSD started 2011 with a total of 418 staff, but Norwegian government funding (which had supported five of its 18 manual demining teams and a mechanical demining team) ceased at the end of September; Swiss Development Corporation funding for three well-clearance teams and two technical survey teams stopped at the end of March 2012.[27]

HALO was an exception to this trend in 2011, when additional funding available mid-year allowed it to raise capacity to a total of 1,039 staff, including 930 clearance personnel. HALO reported the mined area cleared by its teams more than doubled to 2.1km², focusing on high priority resettlement and livelihood tasks. It also reported clearing 30,620 antipersonnel mines, nearly 60% more than the number it reported destroying in 2010 and also 60% more than the number recorded by NMAC (see BAC table below). In 2012, HALO expected to work on the heavily-mined frontline between LTTE and SLA positions in the Nagarkovil area of Jaffna, on some 107 minefields around Kilinochchi, and on another frontline area in Muhamalai.[28]

MAG also received funding to expand capacity in 2011, adding two mine action teams and a front-end loader; it also added mine detection dog (MDD) teams that were deployed in February 2012. However, it said that many of its teams would be made unemployed by October 2012 if it did not receive additional funding. In 2011, MAG reported manually clearing 0.49km², less than half the figure cited by the NMAC, but destroying 4,651 antipersonnel mines and 23 antivehicle mines.[29]

Battle area clearance in 2011

The SLA-HDU accounted for more than 80% of the BAC undertaken in 2011. Other demining organizations said that after the BAC conducted in the initial post-conflict emergency phase of operations, the focus had shifted to clearing mined areas. HALO reported clearing a slightly less than 1km² of battle area, destroying in the process 1,796 antipersonnel mines and 25 antivehicle mines, found in caches, as well as 62 items of UXO. But it also conducted 1,008 call-out EOD tasks, destroying 1,690 antipersonnel mines and one antivehicle mine, together with 1,124 items of UXO and 1,743 items of AXO.[30] The NMAC said reports alerting authorities to the presence of suspicious objects had nearly quadrupled, from 672 in 2010 to 2,317 in 2011.[31]

Battle area clearance in 2011[32]

* HALO  reported destroying 2,226 items of UXO.[33]                                           

Quality management

Quality assurance (QA) inspection of demining sites is conducted by teams based in Regional Mine Action Offices. Operators have reported that task sites are visited regularly by these QA teams, which also conduct post-clearance checks before handover. The NMAC also re-accredited all operators in 2011−2012 for the first time since 2004.[34]

Safety of demining personnel

HALO reported four minefield accidents in 2011, three of them involving mine detonations but all causing only light injuries. In one, an armored front loader detonated an antivehicle mine, causing severe damage to the vehicle but minimal injuries to the operator.[35] Other demining operators are understood to have had injuries as a result of accidents, but these were not reported to Landmine Monitor.

Risk Education

Government bodies and NGOs coordinated and supported by UNICEF deliver mine/ERW risk education (RE) in schools and through direct community-based RE. The Ministry of Education approved the curriculum for mandatory RE classes for grades six to nine in January 2011 and was preparing for its introduction in 2011−2012.

UNICEF supported RE delivery in eight districts through partners Sarvodaya, Rural Development Foundation (RDF), EHED-Caritas, People Vision, SHADE and Social Organizations Networking for Development (SOND), who conducted community presentations, house-to-house visits and a range of other activities, including plays and dance. Internews, a US-based NGO supporting media in emergency situations, became involved in 2010, broadcasting reports and public service announcements on ERW hazards; a series of short educational films prepared by Young Asia Television became available for broadcasting in January 2011.[36] Mass media messaging conducted in 2010 stopped in 2011 when UNICEF concluded the emergency phase of RE programming had ended.[37]

The SLA-HDU, which set up six RE teams with a total of 64 people in 2010, continued to receive training by UNICEF in 2011 and 2012.[38] International demining NGOs also supported RE, often through local NGOs. HALO used funding from the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development to support two Sarvodaya RE teams in Kilinochchi district. DDG reported it has developed an impact-monitoring tool for interviewing people returning to resettlement areas which enables it to monitor the effect of RE programs and encourages returnees to report suspected ERW items.[39]

Casualties

Casualties in 2009

Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor identified a total of 38 casualties in Sri Lanka in 2009. UN agencies reported 28 civilian mine/explosive remnants of war (ERW) casualties. Four people were killed and 24 injured in 18 incidents. Of the total civilian casualties, 18 were adults (15 men and three women) and 10 casualties were children (nine boys and one girl).[1] Another 10 mine/ERW casualties were identified in media reports (two killed and eight injured). All were military; one was an engineer attempting to defuse a stock of antipersonnel mines.[2] 

Landmine Monitor identified at least 79 new mine/ERW casualties in Sri Lanka for 2008. UNDP recorded six civilian casualties, including one deminer: one person killed and five injured in four incidents. The rest of the casualties were identified through media reports.[3] From 2006 to 2009 accurate casualty information was difficult to access, probably resulting in under-reporting.[4] The decrease in mine/ERW casualties recorded from 2008 is not likely indicative of a trend, particularly in the case of military casualties during the conflict.

It was reported that since the 1980s, there were a total of 21,993 landmine casualties, including 1,419 civilian returnees. According to the same report, 3,770 amputees had been recorded among the armed forces, police, and civil defence forces; the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had had 16,804 mine casualties.[5] A limited survey carried out in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in 2009 indicated that a large number of IDPs had mine-related disabilities; 750 people with amputations were identified, many had been injured while fleeing conflict in the last months of the conflict.[6]

Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor identified 1,310 casualties in Sri Lanka from 1999 to the end of 2009 (123 killed, 453 injured, and 734 unknown).[7]

Victim Assistance

The total number of survivors in Sri Lanka was estimated to be in the thousands. [8]

Generally data on war injuries and disabilities was not available and the topic was highly sensitive in the post-conflict context in Sri Lanka.[9] It was planned to establish a fully functional data collection mechanism on persons with disabilities, including mine survivors, and available services, by the end of 2010. In 2009, the system remained in discussion and no concrete progress in establishing a system was made.[10]

However, some pilot assessment activities were undertaken in 2009. Limited screening of people with physical injuries in four zones of the Menik Farm IDP camps was undertaken by Handicap International in September 2009.[11] UNICEF partnered with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Ministry of Health and Nutrition (MoHN) to implement a Retrospective Community and Household Survey in Jaffna (the most mine-affected district) in July through September 2009. The survey included questions for measuring the impact of mines/ERW. Almost 30% of communities surveyed were found to have residents with mine/ERW-related injuries.[12] The survey was undertaken to create a 10-year baseline to support the MoHN in expanding its injury surveillance system.[13]

Victim assistance coordination[14]

UNICEF organized quarterly Technical Working Group (TWG) meetings at which victim assistance was discussed with relevant stakeholders, including UNDP and the Ministry of Social Services and Social Welfare (MoSS). The meetings analyzed needs, planed activities, and sought agreement on common approaches.[15] A national strategy on victim assistance had not been developed by the end of the year as efforts were focused on building relationships to encourage key government partners to carry out their responsibilities.[16]

The MoHN Directorate of Rehabilitation for Youth, Elderly, Disabled and Displaced and the MoSS shared responsibility for disability issues more generally.[17] Coordination among key physical rehabilitation stakeholders took effect during 2009 with the MoHN increasingly taking on a lead role.[18]

UNICEF worked with victim assistance officers from the staff of NGO partners who supported victim assistance coordination and facilitated access to services for persons with disabilities. Coordination networks for people with disabilities also existed in some mine-affected districts, including Batticaloa, Mannar, Trincomalee, and Vavuniya.[19] Attempts to revive disability coordination in Jaffna began in 2010.[20]

Disabled persons’ organizations (DPOs) are included in the various coordination mechanisms. Survivor representatives and persons with disabilities also participated in TWG meetings and played key roles in the drafting of the victim assistance strategy for 2010. [21]

Service accessibility and effectiveness

Victim assistance activities in 2009[22]

The situation for persons with disabilities (including mine/ERW survivors) reportedly improved during 2009, following the end of the conflict.[23] However there were few reports of improvements in the quality of services in 2009.

UNICEF found that there was a large funding gap for victim assistance due to the relatively slow donor response in 2009. This was in part a result of competing humanitarian needs and concerns about access and security, and also since victim assistance received less attention from donors overall than other areas of mine action.[24]

In 2009, medical structures in government-controlled areas struggled to cope with the large influx of patients from the conflict zone. The ICRC supported some hospitals and medical facilities, but planned war-surgery seminars and emergency-room trauma courses were cancelled as medical staff were overstretched by the high numbers of casualties. Facilities in LTTE-controlled areas suffered from decreasing staff levels and a lack of supplies.[25] HI established a temporary emergency unit to treat injured persons who fled the fighting.[26]

Relief efforts were further hampered by the government reportedly refusing to extend dozens of international aid workers’ visas in June 2009.[27] The ICRC continued supporting the Jaffna Jaipur Center for Disability Rehabilitation, but some planned training activities were not implemented because an ICRC specialist could not obtain a visa.[28] Instead, prosthetic technicians attended courses abroad, but the training of physiotherapists was postponed to 2010.[29] To cope with the increased workload, the Jaffna Jaipur Center for Disability Rehabilitation increased services to six days a week in September 2009. [30]

On the Jaffna peninsula, persons with disabilities continued to face many obstacles in obtaining rehabilitation services. Irregular public transport, poor roads, and the high cost of transportation continued to make travel to access services costly and time consuming.[31] However near the end of 2009, overall accessibility in Jaffna was rapidly changing with the opening of the main A9 road, which had been closed since 1990.[32] 

There were ongoing concerns that the technology used to make prostheses at the Mannar physical rehabilitation center was not of internationally accepted standards and the training level of technicians was insufficient.[33] The center’s Caritas management agreed to change to internationally accepted standards and received funding support from Catholic Relief Services and UNICEF in late 2009 and for 2010.[34]

Psychological assistance and social support were very limited in Sri Lanka.^[35] No improvements were reported. There was a need to strengthen and improve the quality of existing community-based programs for psychological support such as problem sharing and peer support.^[36] The government reportedly incorporated vocational training in rehabilitation activities for some disabled former LTTE fighters in detention camps, prior to their release.^[37]

The MoSS provided a community-based rehabilitation program for people with disabilities, however the mine-affected North and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka were yet to be included in the program in 2009.[38]

The law prohibited discrimination against persons with disabilities in Sri Lanka, however discrimination continued to occur in employment, education, and the provision of state services. There were regulations on physical accessibility to buildings for persons with disabilities, but these were rarely implemented. In October 2009, the Supreme Court directed that measures be taken to provide access to public buildings for persons with disabilities.[39]

Sri Lanka signed the UN Convention of the Rights of People with Disabilities in March 2007.

Support for Mine Action

Sri Lanka continued to receive significant levels of international assistance for mine action in 2011. International contributions from seven states, the European Commission (EC), UNDP, and UNICEF towards mine action totaled US$24.6 million.[1]

Australia provided the largest contribution (US$7.86 million), while Norway ($3.65 million) and the EC ($3.3 million) were the second and third largest contributors.

In July 2011, UNDP and UNICEF completed a joint mine action program that began in January 2010 and which supported risk education activities and established the National Mine Action Center with $3 million from the UN Peacebuilding Fund.[2]

India has contributed to mine action in Sri Lanka since 2003. The Indian NGO Sarvatra conducts clearance activities in Sri Lanka with an unspecified amount of support from the government of India.[3]

Sri Lanka has never reported its financial contribution to its mine action program. However, in a speech on the 2012 budget, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said that since 2009 the army has been engaged in demining, rebuilding, and urban development at a cost of LKR5.4 billion (approximately US$40 million).[4]

International contributions: 2011[5]

Summary of contributions: 2007–2011[6]