LM Report 2000

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TUNISIA

Key developments since March 1999: Tunisia ratified the Mine Ban Treaty on 9 July 1999 and it entered into force for Tunisia on 1 January 2000. Tunisia reportedly began destruction of its antipersonnel mine stockpile in July 1999.

Tunisia signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 4 December 1997 and officially deposited its instrument of ratification on 9 July 1999. At the UN in November 1999, the representative of Tunisia stated that the treaty “attested to the will of the international community to end the suffering of so many.”^[1] On 1 December 1999 Tunisia joined 138 other nations in voting in favor of UN General Assembly resolution 54/54B in support of the Mine Ban Treaty.

Tunisia did not attend the First Meeting of States Parties (FMSP) held in Maputo in May 1999. It attended the two Intersessional Standing Committee of Experts on Technologies for Mine Action meetings in Geneva in December 1999 and May 2000, but none of the other SCE meetings. The treaty entered into force for Tunisia on 1 January 2000. The deadline for Tunisia’s Article 7 report was 28 June 2000 but it has not provided it to the UN .

Tunisia is a party to CCW, but has not ratified Amended Protocol II. Tunisia attended the First Annual Conference of States Parties to Amended Protocol II (Landmines) in December 1999 in Geneva. Tunisia became a member of the Conference on Disarmament in 1999.

Tunisia is not known to have produced or exported landmines. In the past, Tunisia imported landmines from Italy, France, Yugoslavia, and Great Britain.^[2] Details on its stockpile will be available once Tunisia publishes its Article 7 report. On 6 July 1999, the Tunisian Army began the destruction of its antipersonnel mine stockpile.^[3] The types and numbers of mines destroyed are not available.

No comprehensive assessment of the landmine problem in Tunisia has been conducted to date. It is known, however, that there is residual landmine and UXO contamination in Tunisia from World War II. In a September 1999 letter to the ICBL, a Tunisian diplomat stated that the Tunisian Army “has destroyed 1,000 mines which have been lying on national territory since the Second World War.” He added, “Over ten years, the Army has discovered and destroyed approximately 6,000 explosive devices scattered over the whole of the Tunisian territory.”^[4]

Landmine Monitor Report 1999 stated that the Tunisian Army had begun marking zones likely to contain mines, that the army was developing an educational program focusing on the landmine problem in northern Tunisia, and that the Arab Institute For Human Rights, an NGO based in Tunis, planned to train instructors for a mine awareness program.^[5] It is not known if there has been any progress in these activities.

[1] Representative of Tunisia, First Committee of the UN General Assembly, 18 October 1999, GA/DIS/3147.
[2] Osservatario sul commercio delle arme, IRES, Toscana, 12 March 1997.
[3] "Tunisia Begins Destruction of Antuipersonnel Landmines,"   Tunisia Online, 6 July 1999.
[4] Letter to ICBL from Tarek Ben Youssef, Councilor to the Tunisian Ambassador to Canada, 13 September 1999.
[5] Landmine Monitor Report 1999, p. 874.