Ecuador’s Vice
Minister of Foreign Affairs Diego Ribaneira signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 4
December 1997. Ecuador has yet to ratify it.
On 18 November 1998, a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson informed
reporters that the Government had begun the constitutional procedure to ratify
the ban treaty.[1] He stated
that the treaty had the support of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Ministries
and that it had been sent to the Constitutional Tribunal for consideration.
After the Constitutional Tribunal’s judgment, the treaty will be sent to
the National Congress for
ratification.[2]
Ecuador participated in all of the ban treaty preparatory meetings, endorsed
the pro-treaty Brussels Declaration, and took part in the Oslo negotiations. It
also voted in favor of the pro-ban UN General Assembly resolutions in 1996, 1997
and 1998, as well as the pro-ban resolutions of the Organization of American
States (OAS).
Despite its participation in the Ottawa Process, Ecuador was not an early or
enthusiastic supporter of a comprehensive ban on antipersonnel mines, citing its
tense security situation with Peru. Ecuador particularly disturbed ban
proponents when during the Oslo treaty negotiations it supported proposals put
forward by the United States which if they had been accepted, would have
severely weakened the treaty text. These included a delay of nine years in the
proposed entry into force period, and a clause permitting withdrawal from the
treaty in times of war.
Ecuador is a party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons and its original
Protocol II on landmines but it has not yet ratified amended Protocol II.
Production, Transfer and Stockpiling
Ecuador is not believed to have ever produced or
exported antipersonnel landmines. There is no information available about the
size or composition of Ecuador’s landmine stockpile. It is known that
Ecuador imported 1,248 antipersonnel mines from the United States (648 M18A1
Claymore mines in 1987, and another 600 M18A1s in
1991).[3] Ecuador instituted a
moratorium on antipersonnel mines on 1 May 1995 when it told the United Nations,
“Ecuador has decided not to issue permits for the export of this type of
weapon [AP mines], if any requests for such permits are submitted in the
future.”[4]
Use
On 26 October 1998 the Presidents of Ecuador and
Peru signed a peace agreement putting an end to a 57-year-old border conflict,
which saw intense fighing in 1941, 1981 and February 1995. Tens of thousands of
landmines were laid during the border conflict, most of them during the 1995
fighting.
While Ecuador acknowledges laying mines in the border region, Peru denies
that its Army laid any mines, a denial Ecuador
rejects.[5] On 3 May 1995,
Ecuador’s Ambassador to the United States wrote to a U.S. Senator,
“In the recent border war with Peru, my country was compelled to use
landmines along its border with Peru and in the disputed area for defensive
purposes only. The deployment and the utilization of such mines was done in
conformity with...the Convention on Landmines of 1981 and its Protocol II....
[Ecuador] took all the necessary steps to assure the safety of the civilian
population, including...clearly marking the mined areas...[and] a detailed
register of the deployment of landmines was
kept.”[6]
Landmine Problem
In its most recent landmine report, the U.S. State
Department estimated the number of mines in Ecuador at
60,000-80,000.[7] The ICRC
reportedly estimated
100,000.[8]
Amazonian indigenous people, the Shuar and Achuar, live on both sides of the
border are affected by the presence or suspected presence of uncleared mines. In
November 1998, the “Families Shuar and Achuar of the Frontier”
issued a joint declaration to the international community, asking for the
governments of both countries demine the
border.[9] On 5 December 1998,
the Ecuadorian Indian Confederation of the Amazonia (COICA in Spanish) demanded
the clearance of landmines along the border.
According to media reports, over sixty people, both civilian and military,
have been injured or killed by mines along the Ecuador-Peru border since
1995.
Mine Clearance
Since the Peace Accord was signed in Brazil on 26
October 1998, Ecuador and Peru have made significant progress in different
issues related to the border situation, including mine clearance. Both countries
asked the Ecuador/Peru Multinational Observation Mission (MOMEP) for support in
order to achieve their goals. The MOMEP is made up of military representatives
of the United States, Brazil, Argentina and Chile, the four countries that are
guarantors of the 1942 Peace Protocol.
On 13 November 1998, MOMEP’s general coordinator, General Plinio Abreu
said that a plan by the presidents of Ecuador and Peru, through Brazilian
President Fernando Cardoso, to remove mines from the border had been completed
at the strategic but not at the technical
level.[10] It included
disclosure from both sides on the sites “where mines were detected or
planted.” The first phase of the clearance operation plan aims to
establish boundary markings between the two countries. On 28 December 1998
clearance began at an area known as
Lagartococha.[11] The
Ecuadorian Army is training forty dogs in detection of landmines for use in the
border clearance effort.
At the January 1999 Regional Seminar on Landmines in Mexico City, Ecuador and
Peru made a joint presentation on the demining program of the
Peruvian-Ecuadorian frontier. Both countries reaffirmed their committment to
eradicate landmines and to make “a specific and tangible contribution
toward the objective of the OAS to get a Hemisphere Free of Antipersonnel
Landmines.”[12] Clearance
work is divided between Peru and Ecuador, according to the geographical access
of each country. According to the agreement, the demining groups of each country
are integrated by officers and voluntary soldiers, one observer of MOMEP and
another one of the other country.
Due to the high costs of the equipment, both countries are making efforts to
work together to obtain international cooperation to reinforce the national
efforts. At the Mexico City Seminar, Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy
announced a donation of $100,000 (Canadian) in equipment to be used in the
first phase of mine
clearance.[13] Other nations are
also contributing funds, equipment and technical support, including Japan,
Spain, Russia and the United States.
[3] U.S. Army, Armament,
Munitions, and Chemical Command (USAMCCOM), Letter to Human Rights Watch, 25
August 1993, and attached statistical tables.
[4] “Report of the
Secretary General: Moratorium on the export of antipersonnel landmines,”
A/50/701, 3 November 1995, p. 13.
[5] See: Letter from Ministro
Juan M. Leoro, Permanent Representative of Ecuador to the OAS to the OAS
Landmine Register,14 March 1997, N.029-97 MPE-OEA; letter from Ambassador
Beatriz Ramaccion, Permenent Representative of Peru to the OAS, Washington DC, 1
March 1997,7-5-M/073; and letter from Ambassador Beatriz Ramaccion, Permenent
Representative of Peru to the OAS, Washington DC, 21 April 1997,Nota
7-5-M/132.
[6] Letter from Ambassador
Edgar Teran to Senator Patrick Leahy, No. 4-7-146/95, 3 May 1995.
[7] U.S. Department of State,
Hidden Killers, September 1998, p. A-1.
[10] Edwin Fernandez,
“Plan to Remove Mines from Border Ready,” Quito El Comercio
(Internet Version) in Spanish, 13 November 1998.
[11] “Fujimori:
Demarcation Work Begins 28 Dec,” EFE, 12 December 1998.
[12] Remarks made at
Regional Seminar on Landmines, Mexico City, Mexico, 11-12 January 1999.
[13] “Axworthy
Announces Mine Action Funding in Latin America,” Press Release, Department
of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Ottawa, Canada, 11 January 1999.
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