Four
of the eighteen countries of the Middle East/North Africa region are States
Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty: Jordan, Qatar, Yemen, and most recently Tunisia
(9 July 1999). Algeria signed the treaty in December 1997, but the ratification
process has apparently not begun. Representatives of Palestine and Western
Sahara have expressed a willingness to join the treaty if they were in a
position to do so.
Thirteen states in the region have not acceded to the treaty: Bahrain, Egypt,
Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria,
and United Arab Emirates. No states from the region have acceded to Amended
Protocol II of CCW.
Jordan and Yemen have submitted to the UN their Article 7 transparency
measures reports, but Qatar and Tunisia are late. Qatar’s report was due
by 27 September 1999 and Tunisia’s report was due by 28 June 2000.
Delegations from Algeria, Jordan, and Yemen attended the First Meeting of
States Parties in Maputo, Mozambique in May 1999. Qatar did not attend. Among
the twelve non-signatory delegations attending as observers were Israel, Libya,
Morocco, and Palestine.
Yemen and Jordan cite existing law as adequate to implement the treaty
domestically, but both have indicated a willingness to pass specific
legislation. The status of implementing legislation in Qatar and Tunisia is not
known.
Lebanon became the first country to ever vote against a pro-ban resolution at
the UN General Assembly by voting against UNGA Resolution 54/54 B on 1 December
1999. Among the 20 governments abstaining on the vote were Egypt, Iran, Israel,
Libya, Morocco, and Syria. Bahrain, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates voted in
favor of this resolution despite having not joined the treaty.
The final declaration of the EU-OAU Summit held in Cairo in April 2000 was
watered down at the insistence of Egypt to remove any pro-Mine Ban Treaty
language. The following week at a regional seminar on landmines in Cairo at the
Arab League headquarters, the final recommendations of the meeting reflected
only Egypt’s national stance. The ICBL criticized Egypt’s actions.
Delegations from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen
participated in the seminar.
Use
It is likely that
Israel, the Israeli backed South Lebanon Army, and other non-state actors like
Hezbollah planted antipersonnel mines in southern Lebanon during the March 1999
to May 2000 reporting period. There have been reports of continuing use of AP
mines by the PKK in Northern Iraq.
Production and Transfer
Landmine Monitor
Report 1999 identified three current AP mine producers (Egypt, Iran, and
Iraq) and one past producer (Israel) in the region. Jordan in its Article 7
transparency report disclosed that it possesses antipersonnel mines of Syrian
origin. This is the first evidence of past production or export of
antipersonnel mines by Syria. Egypt told a UN assessment mission in February
2000 that it no longer produces antipersonnel mines, but it is unclear if this
is an official policy or if it constitutes either a moratorium or prohibition on
production. While Israel has stated frequently since 1997 that it no longer
produces AP mines, an Israeli official told the ICBL in December 1999 that
Israel does not rule out production of AP mines in the future if the situation
requires it; it is not known if this is official policy.
Israel has a formal moratorium on AP mine exports in place through 2003.
Egyptian and Iranian officials have publicly stated that their countries no
longer export AP mines, but Egypt has not given official written confirmation of
this. Iran has been accused of exporting mines to several nations in recent
years, but no concrete evidence has been found. Iraq is the only nation in the
world known to have exported antipersonnel mines in the past that has not at
least announced a halt to exports
Stockpiling and Destruction
States Parties have to
begun to destroy their stockpiles of antipersonnel mines.Yemen has
destroyed 10,050 of its approximately 79,000 antipersonnel mines. Yemen
authorities discovered another 20,000 AP mines after submission of its Article 7
report in November 1999 (which indicated a stockpile of 59,000). Yemen has
indicated that if funding is forthcoming, it can destroy its entire stockpile
within a year. Yemen will retain 4,000 antipersonnel mines for training and
research purposes. Jordan has destroyed 20,552 of its stockpile of 93,342
antipersonnel mines and has committed to finishing destruction by April 2003.
Jordan will retain 1,000 antipersonnel mines for training and research purposes.
Tunisia stated that it destroyed some mines in July 1999. Details of
Tunisia’s stockpile will emerge when it submits its Article 7 transparency
measures report.
Landmine Monitor for the first time reveals that Qatar, a State Party, hosts
a stockpile of 4,776 U.S. antipersonnel mines. Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain are
also slated to host additional stocks (at least 3,265 in each country) of U.S.
antipersonnel mines in the near future. The U.S. stockpiles 49,610
antipersonnel mines in Saudi Arabia and 8,896 antipersonnel mines in Kuwait.
Although it was previously thought that Kuwait had no antipersonnel mine
stockpile, it appears that it has retained and stored 45,845 antipersonnel mines
and 48,742 antitank mines cleared during the demining operations conducted after
the Gulf War.
Aside from Jordan and Yemen, no other state in the region has divulged
details about the total number of antipersonnel mines in its stockpile. It is
likely that Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, and Syria have the biggest stocks of
antipersonnel mines in the region.
Landmine Problem
The first Level One
Impact Survey is scheduled to be completed in July 2000 in Yemen. This is the
first survey of its kind to be conducted in any landmine-affected country.
UNMAS conducted new assessment missions in Egypt and Lebanon following its
earlier missions to Jordan and Yemen.
Fourteen countries of the region report some landmine problem, all except
Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Estimates of the
total number of mines emplaced in the region vary greatly. Government officials
claim that 22 million “landmines” are emplaced in Egypt. However,
this total apparently includes not only antipersonnel and AT mines laid by
foreign armies during World War II, it also includes those used by Egyptian and
Israeli forces during the Middle Eastern Wars, and an estimate of UXO. Based on
some clearance experience in Egypt, the number of antipersonnel mines removed
totals less that twenty-percent of the total.
Mine Action Funding
Supplies and funds
valued at about $8 million were provided for mine action in Northern Iraq (Iraqi
Kurdistan) from April-October 1999. In 1999, the United Arab Emirates funded a
mine clearance project in Egypt providing one of the first examples of the
funding of a mine clearance project among Arab states. Israel has provided mine
action assistance to Angola (since 1996) and Guatemala. Israel and Saudi Arabia
have contributed to the UN’s Voluntary Trust Fund for Assistance in Mine
Action. Qatar has contributed to the International Trust Fund for the Removal
of Landmines and Assisting Their Victims in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Yemen participate in the U.S. humanitarian
demining assistance program. Algeria and Oman have requested U.S. demining
assistance. Other governments including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Norway,
and the United Kingdom provide demining assistance and funding in the region.
Mine Clearance
The major humanitarian
mine clearance program in the region is in Iraqi Kurdistan, carried out by
international and non-governmental organizations. As of May 2000, the UN reports
nearly 3.1 square kilometers of land cleared and returned to productive use,
impacting forty-nine villages. A socio-economic impact survey of 95% of the
villages in the three northern governorates has been conducted. Kuwait
continues to clear mines even after removing 1,646,916 million landmines and
111,750 tons of UXO in an $800 million program conducted after the Persian Gulf
War. Other affected states where mine clearance occurs, sometimes
systematically and sometimes sporadically, are Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan,
Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Tunisia, and Yemen. Mine clearance is carried
out by the armed forces in most of these states.
Mine Awareness
The withdrawal of
Israeli forces from southern Lebanon and subsequent mine casualties among the
returning population in this mine-affected area highlights the need for mine
awareness education even in countries with existing programs.
There are extensive mine awareness education programs occurring in Lebanon
and Yemen. In Yemen, a national body, the Yemeni Mine Awareness Association,
implements the activities. In Lebanon, the program is carried out by local NGOs
like the Landmine Resource Center in cooperation with the Army. These programs
receive funding and technical assistance from donor governments, international
non-governmental organizations like Rädda Barnen and the World
Rehabilitation Fund, and UN agencies like UNICEF. A similar mine awareness
program is slated to start in Jordan in 2000. Another mine awareness program is
conducted by Defense of Children International/Palestine Section in the Occupied
Palestinian Territories. The Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq has
documented the need for a mine awareness program in the Golan Heights. A
Norwegian People’s Aid mine awareness program in Western Sahara ended in
May 2000.
Mine Awareness is the responsibility of the state in countries like Israel,
Kuwait, and Syria. There are no state funded mine awareness programs in other
mine-affected countries like Algeria, Egypt, and Iran.
Mine Casualties
In the last year, there
have been new victims of mines in Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan,
Kuwait, Libya, Lebanon, Oman, Syria, and Yemen. There have also been mine
incidents in areas such as the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Golan Heights,
Western Sahara, and Iraqi Kurdistan. In the month following the Israeli
withdrawal from South Lebanon, there were twenty new mine casualties. Overall
there were 50 mine casualties in Lebanon in 1999, and 35 as of June 2000.
Forty-two mine casualties were reported in Western Sahara from November 1999 to
March 2000.
Survivor Assistance
The availability of
services to mine victims and survivors varies greatly across the region. In
Kuwait, the medical expenditure incurred by the state to treat traumatic
injuries caused by a mine or UXO accident, from initial visit to the emergency
room through physiotherapy, totals $17,331. In contrast, services are virtually
non-existent in remote mine-affected regions of Egypt and Western Sahara. While
medical care is “free” to citizens in many countries of the region,
it is not possible to assess the actual quality or comprehensiveness of it.
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