“We have no capacity to produce antipersonnel
mines,” said Lawrence Sylvester, a spokesman for the Belize Ministry of
Foreign Affairs in Belize City.[1]
Though Belize is the only Central American country not to have been affected by
landmines, Belize has nonetheless generally supported the international effort
to ban them.
Belize signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 27 February 1998 and ratified quickly
afterward. After the treaty was ratified by Belize’s House of
Representatives, Belize deposited its instrument of ratification with the United
Nations in New York on 23 April 1998. Belize was the tenth nation to do so
globally and the second country in the Western Hemisphere, after Canada.
Belize did not participate in the Oslo ban treaty negotiations nor in the
Ottawa signing ceremony but it did attend the June 1997 Brussels conference
where it endorsed the pro-ban treaty Brussels Declaration. Belize also voted in
favor of the pro-ban resolutions in 1996 and 1997 in U.N. General Assembly.
Belize has never produced, imported, stockpiled or used antipersonnel
landmines. The Belize Defense Forces possess some limited quantities of antitank
mines, but have no antipersonnel landmines in their
stocks.[2]
No party in Belize is known to have ever used landmines. Consequently, there
has been no need for mine action programs in Belize. Belize has not contributed
to international mine action programs.
[1] Statement to LM Researcher
by Lawrence Sylvester, spokesman for the Belize Ministry of Foreign Affairs, New
Administrative Building, Belmopan, Belize, 16 February 1999.
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