Mine ban policy overview

Policy

The Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty. The government has in the past stated that Sri Lanka’s accession was dependent on progress in the peace process, and an agreement to ban landmines by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).[1]  The civil war in Sri Lanka ended on 20 May 2009.

In October 2009, Sri Lankan Army Commander Lieutenant General J. Jayasuriya gave a keynote address at a seminar co-organized by UNICEF and the ICBL (Sri Lanka Campaign). He said that since the end of the conflict, the government had reviewed Sri Lanka’s position on the Mine Ban Treaty. He stated, “In the current post-conflict phase in Sri Lanka, it is timely that we focus our attention on the international legal instruments that limit or ban certain weapons based on humanitarian grounds,” referring to the Mine Ban Treaty, the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).[2] Lieutenant General Jayasuriya said that at the end of the review, the government decided to submit an updated voluntary Article 7 transparency report.[3]

Sri Lanka sent an observer to the Second Review Conference of the Mine Ban Treaty in Cartatena, Colombia in November–December 2009, where it assured States Parties that Sri Lanka “fully subscribes” to the humanitarian objectives of the treaty, and pledged to submit a second voluntary Article 7 transparency report.[4]  Sri Lanka did not participate in the June 2010 intersessional Standing Committee meetings in Geneva.

Sri Lanka voted in favor of UN General Assembly Resolution 64/56 on 2 December 2009, 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 CCW and its Amended Protocol II on landmines, but has never submitted an annual Article 13 transparency report.  It has not joined Protocol V on explosive remnants of war.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

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

Sri Lanka Army

There is no evidence that the government of Sri Lanka 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 manufacture.[5] Landmine Monitor had previously reported that Sri Lanka had acquired antipersonnel mines from China, Italy (and/or Singapore), Pakistan, Portugal, and perhaps Belgium, the US, and others.[6]

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....”  He said mines are “marked accordingly and relevant records systematically maintained….”[7]

Landmine Monitor previously reported that there were serious allegations of use antipersonnel mines by Sri Lankan security forces in 2007 and early 2008, and that Sri Lanka strongly denied all accusations.[8]

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

From the time of the cease-fire in February 2002 until mid-2006, Landmine Monitor received few allegations and no compelling reports of use of antipersonnel mines by the LTTE, other than command-detonated Claymore-type devices that are permitted under the Mine Ban Treaty.  From mid-2006 until early 2009, the SLA repeatedly accused the LTTE of planting antipersonnel mines.[9]

 It appears that in 2008 and 2009, the LTTE laid large numbers of mines in defense of its military installations throughout the north. An SLA representative said that they came across many new mines, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and booby-traps between late November 2008 and March 2009.[10]

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.” He claimed that, “it was evident that the LTTE had laid millions of mines in areas under their control.”  He said that the “greater proportion of the mines are antipersonnel type and they can be found virtually anywhere from unmarked minefields to agricultural lands, houses and home gardens….”[11]

In addition to the mines in the ground, the SLA has continued to find numerous caches of LTTE antipersonnel mines. In a survey of SLA reports and news articles between July 2009 and May 2010, Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor recorded the recovery of more than 36,000 antipersonnel mines, as well as a large number of antivehicle mines, Claymore mines, and IEDs.[12] This does not constitute a comprehensive accounting.

Sri Lankan Army Commander Lieutenant General Jayasuriya stated that the SLA had discovered factories of the LTTE in which mines had been manufactured and stored in large quantities.[13] During the late stage of the conflict, the SLA encountered at least two large LTTE factories producing exclusively antipersonnel and antivehicle landmines in Kilinochchi and Mullaittivu districts, as well as more than 10 makeshift antipersonnel mine production facilities.[14]

Prior to its demise, the LTTE was considered 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 P4 MK1 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),[15] as well as Amman 2000, MK1, and MK2 antivehicle mines.[16]