Key developments
since March 1999: Hungary completed destruction of the 356,884 AP mines in
stockpile in June 1999. It has also destroyed 100,000 UKA-63 antivehicle mines
with tilt-rod fuzes. Hungary served as the chair of the SCE on Stockpile
Destruction.
Mine Ban Policy
The Republic of Hungary signed the Mine Ban Treaty
(MBT) on 3 December 1997, and was the eighth country to ratify on 6 April 1998.
On 24 February 1998, the Hungarian Parliament passed national legislation
adopting the MBT, which came into effect on 7 March
1998.[1]
Hungary attended the First Meeting of States Parties to the MBT in May 1999.
Since the FMSP, it has served as co-chair of the MBT’s intersessional
Standing Committee of Experts on Stockpile Destruction, and has taken a lead
role in promoting the importance of stockpile destruction internationally as
preventive mine action. It also has participated in nearly all of the other SCE
meetings. Hungary attended the regional landmine conferences in Zagreb in June
1999 and Ljubljana in June 2000.
The government submitted its initial Article 7 report on 1 October 1999,
covering 1 March 1999 to 27 August 1999, and its second Article 7 report on 25
April 2000, covering 27 August 1999 to 25 April
2000.[2] The reports are
minimalist, providing little supplemental information.
Hungary voted in favor of the December 1999 UNGA resolution supporting the
treaty, as it has on the other pro-ban UN resolutions in 1996, 1997, and
1998.
Hungary is a State Party to Amended Protocol II of the Convention on
Conventional Weapons. The government participated in the First Conference of
States Parties to Amended Protocol in December 1999, having submitted its report
as required under Article 13. Hungary continues to support attempts to
negotiate a transfer ban of AP mines in the Conference on Disarmament.
Production and Transfer
Hungary informed the United Nations in 1995 that
it no longer produced or exported AP
mines.[3] However, it had been
a significant past producer and exporter of AP mines. Hungarian Mechanical Works
(Magyar Mechanikai Muvek, MMM) was the sole producer for many
decades.[4] It produced M-49,
M-62, GYATA-64 and POMZ-2 AP mines, as well as the UKA-63 antivehicle
mine.[5]
On 1 January 1998, MMM became Mechanical Works Special plc (Mechanikai Muvek
Specialis RT., MWS). This company, owned by the Ministry of Defense, handles
the destruction of all mines in Hungary. While MWS is still capable of
producing antivehicle mines on a large scale, Hungary stated in its Article 7
report that conversion of AP mine production capabilities had been
completed.[6]
Stockpile and Destruction
Hungary completed destruction of its antipersonnel
mine stockpile on 29 June
1999.[7] According to
Hungary’s initial Article 7 report, a total of 356,884 AP mines were
destroyed in 1998 and 1999, including 207,198 GYATA-64 mines in the period 1
March 1999 to 27 August 1999.[8]
According to MWS, all the mines that were destroyed in 1998 and 1999 were
GYATA-64 mines.[9]
In addition to the GYATA-64, the Ministry of Defense has acknowledged that
prior to beginning destruction, Hungary also had in stock POMZ-2 AP mines and
MON-50 Claymore-type directional fragmentation AP
mines.[10] The Article 7
reports did not include information on these mines.
Apparently, all of the POMZ-2s were destroyed prior to entry into force of
the MBT, including many in
1997.[11] It has been indicated
that none of the stocks of MON-50s have been destroyed and there are no plans to
do so.[12] The MON-50 is a
directional fragmentation mine; use of tripwire operated directional
fragmentation mines is not permitted by the MBT, but use of such mines in
command detonated mode is allowed. A landmine expert from the Military College
of Technology states that Hungary also has MON-100 and MON-200 directional
fragmentation mines, and that all are equipped with electric percussion cap and
cable and can be detonated only by remote control; there is no tripwire attached
for victim-activation.[13] When
such a modification might have been made is not known.
The Article 7 reports provide no information regarding the two other AP mines
produced by Hungary in the past, types M-49 and M-62. The Ministry of Defense
declined to provide requested information on these mines on at least two
occasions.[14] However, a
Ministry of Foreign Affairs official has indicated that these mines were
produced shortly after World War II and had an expired shelf life; thus they
were destroyed as part of the regular ammunition maintenance program some time
ago.[15]
It would be useful, in the interests of complete transparency, for
information regarding POMZ-2s, MONs, M-49sand M-62s to be provided in the
Article 7 report.[16]
Hungary reported that 1,500 GYATA-64 mines would be retained for development
of demining techniques, as permitted under Article 3 of the
MBT.[17] In March 2000, a
letter from the Ministry of Defense noted that the number retained was 2,000
mines.[18] However, a Ministry
of Foreign Affairs official stated in July 2000 that in fact Hungary had
retained no AP mines, and that all had been
destroyed.[19]
In an interview in March 2000 with the deputy-director general of the MSW
destruction facility, he revealed that some 100,000 UKA-63 type mines,
representing half the stockpile, had been destroyed from September 1996 to March
2000, and that the remaining 100,000 units were scheduled to be destroyed by
March 2002.[20]
The destruction of the UKA-63 mines is of particular interest to the ICBL, as
it is an antivehicle mine with a tilt rod fuze, which likely makes the mine act
like an AP mine and therefore banned under the
MBT.[21] The ICBL has pressed
governments to report on such mines in the interest of transparency and to help
establish which antivehicle mines with antihandling devices are prohibited under
the treaty.
Hungary’s Article 7 reports provides no detail about methods used for
destroying the mines or about safety and environmental standards observed in
their destruction. The reports state only that destruction is carried out by
MWS at Törökbálint, by the “disassembly” method,
according to “industrial
standard.”[22]
MWS and Foreign Ministry officials indicate that stockpile destruction
(carried out by the Ministry of Defense-owned MWS) takes place in the assembly
plant on a specially developed production line that can process 200 kilograms in
an eight-hour shift. There is a stand-by machine in case of failure of the
production line. Dismantling takes place in three steps behind concrete
protecting walls. Three mines are dismantled simultaneously, and workers have
to account for every mine. All parts of the GYATA-64 and UKA-63 mines are
recycled, except the detonator, which is destroyed by explosion. Explosives from
the mines are used for excavating; steel plates are sent to furnaces. Explosive
charges used in excavations are exported to the Scandinavian firms, Dinamo Nobel
and Nitro Nobel, and to a German company, with a one to three years’
guarantee, and cannot be converted to arms again. Other parts, such as
non-decaying or slowly decaying plastic covers, are used in highway construction
or destroyed in combustion furnaces. Mine dismantling has been performed
without any casualties so
far.[23]
Hungary would like to establish a “regional mine-destruction
center” at an established military base with good infrastructure, in the
eastern part of the country near Nyíregyháza. The Ministry of
Foreign Affairs is financing this project. A profit-oriented Hungarian company
owned by the Ministry of Defense has the contract to destroy mines in an
environment-friendly way, utilizing plasma-burning technology developed in the
United States. The glass-like end product would be used in highway and
embankment construction. In the future, landmines from other regional states
could be destroyed there, but the plant would be able to burn other kinds of
hazardous refuse as well.[24]
Landmine Problem and Mine Clearance
The government reports that there are no mined
areas in Hungary. While the country was demined after World War II, there are
“mine and munitions contaminated areas” in Hungary
today.[25] The Ministry of
Foreign Affairs stated that “[T]here is no official register” of
underground objects.[26]
Affected areas in Hungary come from three periods and sources: World War II,
the Soviet Army 1944-1991, and the conflicts in Yugoslavia 1991-1995. There is
only one such World War II mined area remaining, around 3,000-5,000 hectares of
wooded area near the village of Nagybajom. Mine accidents were last recorded in
this area in the 1950s, but each year one or two mines are found in the
forest.[27]
Soviet troops occupied 104 Hungarian settlements, from 1944 to June 1991.
They stocked mines of unknown quantity and types in Hungary. From 1 January
1994 to 31 December 1999, the MH-HTAZ found 2,300 antitank mines on land
formerly used by the Soviet Army. Mines of Soviet origin were found in
shooting-ranges and drill grounds of Kunmadaras, Veszprém,
Orgovány, Kecskemét, Debrecen and Esztergom (the latter was the
most contaminated).[28]
During the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, especially in the periods
of the Serbian-Croatian war (1991-1992, 1994-1995), mine barriers were deployed
on the Yugoslavian side of a sixty-six kilometer-long section of the border,
starting at the junction of the river Dráva and the Danube. Mines were
usually deployed within a few meters of the Hungarian border, some of them
stretching into Hungarian territory from a few centimeters to three meters.
Border guards and bomb-disposal experts of the Hungarian Army neutralized all
mines found on Hungarian ground. The settlements of Erdõpuszta,
Kölked, Udvar, Lippó, Ivándárda, Old,
Alsószentmárton, Magyarboly, and Drávaszabolcs all had such
mine deployments on their outskirts. According to the Hungarian Border Guard
authority, they have installed one hundred warning boards in the Hungarian area
facing the mined border line, and strongly advise local inhabitants to take
these warnings seriously.[29]
Mine Action
Hungarian troops have engaged in some demining as
part of the IFOR/SFOR peacekeeping contingent in Croatia. Hungary has also
stationed a 350-strong KFOR contingent in Kosovo at Pristina since summer 1999.
There is a mine searcher, bomb-disposal team in this contingent, which so far
has demined the road to the KFOR telecommunications center that they
protect.[30]
At the Budapest Regional Conference on Landmines in March 1998, then-Foreign
Minister Laszlo Kovacs announced Hungary’s “Agenda '98,”
consisting of six items with the purpose of banning and destroying antipersonnel
landmines and lessening the damage caused by the weapon. Among other things he
said that Hungary would establish a physio- and psychotherapeutic institution to
help landmine victims, and would pursue a German-Hungarian demining initiative
in the Eastern Slavonia region of
Croatia.[31]
In the two years since then, Hungary offered $3,000 for the Slovenian
demining program in 1999 and another donation is expected in 2000, but further
contributions to demining programs are uncertain. The German-Hungarian
initiative has not been realized. Between ten and forty professional Hungarian
deminers work in Croatia, employed by foreign, profit-oriented private
companies.[32]
The physio- and psychotherapeutic program to aid the recovery of landmine
victims was to have been funded by Canada ($100,000) with a similar amount of
Hungarian support in the form of buildings. But the project, managed by the
Children for Children Foundation, did not gain support from any Hungarian
Ministry up to July 1999, after which the Canadian Government ordered a revision
of the project, to be completed by spring
2000.[33]
[1] Act X of 1998 ratifying the MBT. Act
LXXXVII of 1998, Articles 38 and 60, and Act LXXI, Article 14, of 1993 amend the
criminal code (Act IV of 1978) to provide penal sanctions for violations of
international law. [2] Mine Ban Treaty
Article 7 Reports, submitted 1 October 1999, covering 1 March 1999-27 August
1999, and submitted 25 April 2000, covering 27 August 1999-25 April 2000,
available at:
http://domino.un.org/ottawa.nsf. [3] UN
General Assembly, “Report of the Secretary-General: Moratorium on the
export of anti-personnel landmines," (New York: United Nations, 1995), A/50/701,
3 November 1995, p. 6. [4] Magyar Honved
(Ed.), “Eltaposott aknak,” A honvedelmi Minizterium hetilapja
(weekly magazine of the Ministry of Defense), 10 April 1998, pp. 4-8: This
article reported that in the “past few decades,” MMM has completed
the renewal of twenty to thirty million mines for the Hungarian
Army. [5] See Landmine Monitor Report
1999, pp. 627-628. Landmine Monitor Report 99 reported production of three
other mines, the RAMP blast mine, No. 1131 bounding mine, and Model 36
fragmentation mine, but Hungarian officials are unaware of Hungarian production
of such mines. Telephone interviews with Dr. Laszlo Lukacs and Gyorgy Viczian,
29 May 2000. [6] Article 7 Report, Form
E, submitted 1 October 1999, covering 1 March 1999 to 27 August
1999. [7] Statement by HE Mr. Gabor
Bagi, Deputy State Secretary, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, at the Zagreb
Regional Conference on Antipersonnel Landmines, 28 June
1999. [8] MBT, Article 7 Report, Form G
1, available at:
http://domino.un.org/ottawa.nsf. [9]
Interview with Deputy Director-General Molnár, MWS plc,
Törökbálint, 10 March
2000. [10] Letters from Col.
László Tikos, Head of Public Information, Ministry of Defense, 28
February 2000 and 21 March 2000. In November 1996, it was reported to the
Parliament that the army possessed a total of 375,306 AP
mines. [11] Interview with Deputy
Director-General Molnár, MWS plc, Törökbálint, 10 March
2000; Magyar Honvéd (Ed),“Eltaposott aknák,” A
Honvédelmi Minisztérium hetilapja (weekly magazine of the Ministry
of Defense), 10 April 1998, pp. 4-8. A newspaper report in December 1997 had
stated that 15,000 POMZ-2s had been destroyed and that “a few
hundred” MON-50s were not destroyed; see Col. József Tián,
technical head, land forces, Hungarian Army, in: Matyuc Péter, "A
hídépítés rövidebb ideig tart, mint az
aknatelepítés," Népszabadság, 24 December 1997, pp.
1 and 4. On 12 July 2000 Col. Jozsef Tian told the LM researcher that 29,720
POMZ-2 had been destroyed up until 14 June 1999. A Ministry of Foreign Affairs
official indicated that POMZ-2 destruction began in 1991 and was completed
before MBT entry into force; thus destruction was not reported in the Article 7
report. Email to Landmine Monitor/HRW 26 July
2000. [12] Col. László
Bodrogi, Head of Department for Technology of Tactical Operations, Zrínyi
Miklós University of National Defense, "Lehet-e hatása a
gyalogság elleni aknák betiltásáról
szóló nemzetközi egyezményeknek a katonai
védelmi tevékenységekre?" Muszaki Katonai
Közlöny, MHTT Muszaki Szakosztály folyóirata (technical
magazine of the Hungarian Army), No. 4, 1999, pp. 36-39; this information was
confirmed by several sources which wished to remain anonymous, Budapest,
January-April 2000. [13] Telephone
interview with Lt. Col. Lukács, Military College of Technology, 29 May
2000. This was confirmed by a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official. Email to
Landmine Monitor/HRW 26 July 2000. [14]
Landmine Monitor letters on this subject to Col. Tikos, Ministry of Defense, 17
February 2000; MoD responses 28 February 2000 and 21 March
2000. [15] Email to Landmine
Monitor/HRW, 26 July 2000. [16] Article
7 Report, Hungary, 1 March 1999-27 August 1999, and 27 August 1999-25 April
2000. [17] Article 7 Report, 1 March
1999-27 August 1999, Form G 1. [18]
Letter from Col. László Tikos, Ministry of Defense, 21 March
2000. [19] Email to Landmine
Monitor/HRW, 26 July 2000. [20]
Interview with Deputy Director-General Molnár, MWS plc,
Törökbálint, 10 March 2000; Magyar Honvéd
(Ed),“Eltaposott aknák,” A Honvédelmi
Minisztérium hetilapja (weekly magazine of the Ministry of Defense), 10
April 1998, pp. 4-8. [21] There are two
other Hungarian antivehicle mines of concern, the CVP 1 Dual Purpose, which has
a variable pressure fuze, and a nonmetallic-shaped ATM, whose designation is
unknown. See Human Rights Watch Fact Sheet, “Antivehicle Mines with
Antihandling Devices,” January
2000. [22] Article 7 Reports, Form F, 27
August 1999, and 25 April 2000. [23]
Interviews with Deputy Director-General Molnár,
Törökbálint, 10 March 2000, and Dr. László
Deák, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Budapest, 25 February 2000; confirmed
independently by two workers of MM, who wished to be
unnamed. [24] Interview with Dr.
Deák and György Viczián, Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Budapest, 25 February 2000. [25] Ibid;
Letter from Dr. Deák, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 25 February 2000;
Letter from Lt. Col. László Lukács, Head of Technical
Department of Bólyai János Military College of Technology,
Zrínyi Miklós University of National Defense, 3 March
2000. [26] Ibid; Telephone interview
with Captain Lajos Posta, Head of the Reconnaissance Department of the First
Bomb-disposal and Mine-searcher Battalion of the Hungarian Army (MH HTAZ),
Budapest, 7 April 2000. [27] Telephone
interview with Dr. József Fehér, clerk to Nagybajom, 11 April
2000. [28]
Ibid. [29] "Aknatelepítés
a Drávaszögben," Magyar Hírlap, 25 April 1995, p. 27.
Through the good offices of the Management of Duna-Dráva National Park,
the Landmine Monitor researcher had the opportunity to inspect these areas in
March 2000; details are available upon
request. [30] "KFOR-krónika,"
supplement to Magyar Honvéd, 12 March 2000, p.
14. [31] László
Kovács, former Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Hungary
(1994-1998), Statement, in: ICBL Report, Regional Conference on Landmines,
Budapest, 26-28 March 1998, pp. 4-9: “Hungary has undertaken to complete
the elimination of her entire stockpile of anti-personnel landmines by December
31, 2000. We stand committed, however, to mobilize the necessary resources to
accomplish this goal well before the end of this year.” This statement
was understood at the time to commit Hungary to stockpile destruction by the end
of 1998 and was reported as such in the Landmine Monitor Report 1999. For a
fuller account of Agenda 98, see: Landmine Monitor Report 1999, pp.
626-627. [32] Telephone interview with
György Viczián, military expert for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
12 May 2000. [33] Telephone interview
with Dr. András Blahó, President of the Advisory Board, Children
for Children Foundation, 12 April 2000.