Samoa’s Minister of Transport, Hans Joachim
Keil, signed the Mine Ban Treaty in Ottawa on 3 December 1997. In a statement to
the signing ceremony, Keil said that Samoa does not “use, produce, import
or stockpile anti-personnel mines. However, we share the abhorrence of the
indiscriminate devastation and suffering caused by these horrific weapons and
have consistently maintained our support for international efforts to ban this
terrible scourge.”[1]
Keil said “[i]t is our earnest hope that early ratification by all
signatories will lead to early entry into force at the earliest possible
time” and on 23 July 1998 Samoa became the third Asia-Pacific nation to
deposit its instrument of ratification after Niue and Fiji, and the
twenty-eighth in total.[2]
Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa, did not actively participate in the
Ottawa Process meetings but it supported the 1996 and 1997 landmine resolutions
by the UN General Assembly.
[1]Statement by Hon. Hans
Joachim Keil, Minister of Transport of the Independent State of Samoa at the
Signing Ceremony, Ottawa, Canada, 3 December 1997.