Mine ban policy overview

Policy

The Republic of Colombia signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997 and ratified on 6 September 2000, becoming a State Party on 1 March 2001.

National implementation legislation, Law 759, came into effect on 25 July 2002.[1] In relation to the Mine Ban Treaty, Colombia has also passed laws on victim assistance, land restitution, and civilian humanitarian demining operations. Law 1421 of 2010 permits NGOs to conduct humanitarian demining operations in the country.[2] On 13 July 2011, the Colombian Presidential Program for Comprehensive Mine Action (Programa Presidencial de Acción Integral Contra Minas Antipersonales, PAICMA) published the draft regulatory decree of Law 1421.[3] On 10 October 2011, the President of Colombia, through the Ministry of Defense, approved decree 3750 which promulgated Law 1421 regulating demining by civil society organizations.[4]

Colombia submitted its 13^th Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 report in 2013, which covered calendar year 2012.[5] Under national implementation measures, Colombia listed Law 1448 of 2011, the Victims and Land Restitution Law (Ley de Victimas y de Restitución de Tierra), in its 2012 report.[6] The section remained unchanged in its 2013 report. In the 2011 report, Colombia listed its “main operational results” against non-state armed groups (NSAGs) during 2010, including the number of demobilizations and captures.[7]

Colombia attended the Twelfth Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty in Geneva in December 2012, where it made several statements. Colombia also participated in the intersessional Standing Committee meetings in May 2013.

Colombia has continued its activity in support of the Mine Ban Treaty at the highest levels. It hosted the Second Review Conference of the Mine Ban Treaty in Cartagena in November–December 2009. Colombia served as co-chair of the Standing Committee on Mine Clearance, Mine Risk Education and Mine Action Technologies in 2011. Colombia is part of an informal working group of States Parties from Latin America that monitors implementation of the Cartagena Action Plan.[8]

Colombia is a signatory to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) and its Amended Protocol II on landmines, but has never submitted a CCW Amended Protocol II Article 13 annual report.

The Colombian Campaign against Landmines (Campaña Colombiana contra Minas, CCCM) has continued its work to increase awareness of the country’s mine problem and its solutions.[9] It has called on the government to use military demining teams to clear coca crops because civilians employed by the Colombian government to eradicate the crops have become casualties due to explosive devices.[10]

The Colombian NGO Fundación Arcángeles partnered with the ICBL and the UN Mine Action Service to again hold a global “Lend Your Leg” campaign from 1 March until 4 April 2013. The activity, which involves people making the symbolic gesture of rolling up a pant leg in support of efforts against landmines and in solidarity with victims, was inspired by the Remangate (“Roll-up”) activity first organized by Fundación Arcangeles in Colombia in 2011.

In 2012, Colombian music star Juanes joined the Convention’s Special Envoy, Prince Mired Raad Al Hussein of Jordan, to participate in a high-level group in support of the Mine Ban Treaty’s universalization.[11]

Production, transfer, use, and stockpiling

Colombia’s State Military Industry (Industria Militar, INDUMIL) ceased production of antipersonnel mines in September 1998 and destroyed its production equipment on 18 November 1999.[12]

The government of Colombia is not known to have ever exported antipersonnel mines.

Colombia reported completion of the destruction of its stockpile of 18,531 antipersonnel mines on 24 October 2004.[13]

Since 2007, Colombia has retained a total of 586 MAP-1 mines for training purposes. It declared a total of 586 MAP-1 mines retained for training purposes in its 2009 Article 7 report. In the 2010, 2011, and 2012 reports, Colombia did not provide a number but declared “no change in the quantity of retained antipersonnel mines” since 2009.[14] Colombia has not destroyed or consumed any mines in training activities since a total of 300 retained mines were destroyed in three separate events in 2006.[15] In March 2007, the Antipersonnel Mines Observatory (Observatorio de las Minas Antipersonal) said that Colombia had made a decision in 2006 to destroy all of its antipersonnel mines previously retained for training.[16]

Colombia has not reported in detail on the intended purposes and actual uses of its retained mines, as agreed by States Parties. However, in May 2011, it informed the Monitor that the 586 retained mines were “used for training the humanitarian demining units [of the armed forces], in the use of equipment for mine clearance.” In the event it was to destroy these mines, Colombia said it would account for this change in its Article 7 report.[17]

Antipersonnel mines discovered during mine clearance are destroyed on site and not kept for training purposes.[18]

Transfer and production by non-state armed groups

There have been past reports of mines transferred as part of illegal weapons shipments destined for NSAGs in Colombia, but the Monitor knows of no reports since 2003.

NSAGs in Colombia are experts in the production of explosive devices. Both the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo, FARC) and the National Liberation Army (Unión Camilista-Ejército de Liberación Nacional, ELN) manufacture antipersonnel mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that are both victim-activated and remotely-controlled.

Colombia’s Article 7 reports contain information on mines produced by NSAGs by type, dimensions, fuzing, explosive type and content, and metallic content; the reports also include photographs and additional information. Twelve different design types are manufactured, which include antipersonnel, antivehicle, and Claymore-type directional mines, as well as IEDs. The military states that the mines are sometimes fitted with antihandling devices.[19]

Use by non-state armed groups      

FARC has continued to use antipersonnel mines and IEDs on a regular basis. Government forces continued to recover mines from the ELN, which has been documented as an antipersonnel mine user. In the past decade, paramilitary forces have also used antipersonnel mines, most notably the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia until its disbandment in 2006.[20]

In August 2012, the ELN again called for peace talks with the government, but the vice-president stated that the ELN should halt mine use before commencing peace talks.[21] In September, the ELN confirmed that the landmine issue must be an element of peace talks and that it was willing to collaborate to facilitate demining activities in certain areas in the southwest of the country.[22]

FARC is probably the most prolific user of antipersonnel mines among rebel groups anywhere in the world. Peace talks between the government of Colombia and FARC continued in Havana in the first half of 2013. The CCCM has called for a special agreement to be reached to demine areas along Colombia’s border areas and southern provinces where the fighting with the FARC has been most intense.[23]

Colombian NSAGs lay mines near their campsites or bases, on other paths that lead to areas of strategic importance (such as paths to main transit routes along mountain ridges) and to protect caches of explosives, weapons, medicine, and clothing.[24] NSAGs, predominantly FARC, also plant antipersonnel mines in or near coca fields to prevent eradication efforts, causing casualties among coca eradicators.[25] In 2012, the ICBL expressed concern to the government of Colombia regarding the use of civilians to undertake coca eradication when these areas are increasingly known to be mined.[26]

The areas of Colombia where armed conflict has been intense and landmines have been planted often coincide with areas from which internally displaced persons (IDPs) fled and to which they are now seeking to return. In September 2013, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that, according to the Restitution Unit, the government has recorded landmine incidents in approximately 70 percent of the municipalities where IDPs have filed land restitution claims.[27]

Media reports and statements by the armed forces show how the Colombian Army has continued to recover mines from FARC and the ELN in its operations in 2012 and the first half of 2013. According to media reports, in August 2012 the Colombian army found 20 antipersonnel mines reportedly planted by FARC in Tolima and Arauca.[28] A dozen antipersonnel mines allegedly belonging to FARC were discovered in September 2012 in a minefield in Cordoba[29] and in a military raid of a FARC camp in Norte de Santander.[30] In October, four antipersonnel mines were found by the army in different departments.[31] An antipersonnel mine and five IEDs reportedly laid by the ELN were also discovered by the army in the same month.

In November 2012, the Colombian Army discovered nine antipersonnel mines reportedly planted by FARC in the departments of Narino,[32] Antioquia,[33] La Cordillera,[34] and Buenaventura.[35] The army also discovered an antipersonnel mine laid by the ELN in Casanare.⁵¹

In December 2012, nine landmines attributed to FARC were discovered in Caqueta[36] and Norte de Santander.[37]

FARC and the ELN continued to use landmines in 2013, with the greatest number of media reports appearing between June and August. Relatively few incidents were reported during the first half of 2013, although in April the Army discovered two weapons caches in Albania in the department of Caqueta containing a total of 7,345 antipersonnel mines.[38]

In June 2013, the Colombian Army located a minefield near a home in village of Crucero near Tulua in Cauca;[39] found and destroyed seven IEDs in the municipalities of Sardinata, Teorama, and Tibú in Norte de Santander[40]; destroyed 31 IEDs in the municipalities of Jambalo, Morales, and Suarz in Cauca department[41]; destroyed 14 IEDs installed by the FARC in the departments of Cauca, Antioquia, and Meta[42]; reportedly found 18 explosive devices belonging to FARC in Antioquia and 2 IEDs belonging to FARC in Calamar, Guivare[43]; and destroyed eight IEDs in the departments of Bolivar, Santander, Norte de Santander, Antioquia, and Meta.[44]

In July 2013, the army destroyed six explosives found in the rural area near Patio Bonita village in the municipality of Buenos Aires in the department of Cauca[45]; destroyed four IEDs that had been laid by FARC at La Punta in the municipality of Tumaco in Narino department and in the village of Plan de Zuniga in the municipality of Caldono in Cauca department[46]; and destroyed three IEDs “belonging to Captain Mauricio Front of the ELN” in the village of Amalfi Areiza in Antioquia.[47]

In August 2013, in less than a week, 70 IEDs were found by the army in the town of La Paz in the Cauca department, and a minefield containing eight explosives was found in a rural area near the village of Bolo Blanco in the municipality of Pradera in the department of Cauca.[48] Also in August 2013, the army found and destroyed a mined area of five IEDs “installed by narco-terrorists of Antonia Santos Mobile Column of the FARC” in the village of El Placer, Sardinata municipality.[49]