Key
developments since May 2000: As of July 2001, Venezuela had not yet
submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report, due 29 March 2000.
Venezuelan military sources indicate that Venezuela holds a small number of
antipersonnel mines in stock for training purposes.
Venezuela signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December
1997, ratified on 14 April 1999, and the treaty entered into force for Venezuela
on 1 October 1999. Venezuela has not enacted domestic implementation
legislation.
Venezuela has not yet submitted its initial Article 7
transparency report, due by 29 March 2000, or the required annual updated
report, due by 30 April 2001. In January 2001, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs
official told Landmine Monitor that it was the responsibility of the Ministry of
Defense to prepare the
report,[1] and an official at
the Ministry of Defense stated that the Article 7 report was being
prepared.[2] In February 2001,
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs official stated that the Ministry had received
an initial report from the Ministry of Defense, but it was incomplete and had
been returned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff with a request for a report “in
the most clear and transparent terms
possible.”[3]
Venezuela attended the Second Meeting of States Parties in September 2000.
It participated in the intersessional Standing Committee meetings in December
2000, but not in May 2001. In November 2000, Venezuela attended the Regional
Seminar on Stockpile Destruction in the Americas, in Buenos Aires. Also in
November, Venezuela voted in favor of UN General Assembly Resolution 55/33V,
supporting the Mine Ban Treaty.
Venezuela is not a party to the Convention
on Conventional Weapons.
Production, Transfer, Stockpiling and Use
Officials state that Venezuela has never produced
or transferred antipersonnel
landmines.[4] Retired General
Alberto Muller Rojas, who was Comptroller of the Army in the 1980s, insisted to
Landmine Monitor that the Venezuelan Company of Military Industries (CAVIM,
Compañía Anónima Venezolana de la Industria Militar) did
not manufacture landmines.[5]
At the Buenos Aires regional landmine meeting, Major Josman Castillo
Benítez also told Landmine Monitor that Venezuela has not produced
antipersonnel mines.[6]
However, the US Department of Defense indicates that Venezuela has produced the
MV-1 antipersonnel mine, which it describes as an improvised fragmentation
antipersonnel mine that uses an E-1 hand grenade fuse, is made from aluminum,
and is black with orange markings on the top and the bottom of the
mine.[7]
Venezuela is
believed to have a stockpile of antipersonnel mines, but the size, composition
and suppliers of the mines are still not known. General Rojas and Major
Benítez told Landmine Monitor that Venezuela has a small number of mines
for training purposes.[8] Some
government officials contacted by Landmine Monitor stressed that they were not
authorized to provide information on stockpiles, even though it was required by
the Mine Ban Treaty to be made public in the Article 7 report required by 29
March 2000.[9] There is no
information on whether Venezuela has a stockpile destruction plan.
There is
no reliable information available on illegal trafficking of weapons, including
antipersonnel mines, within Venezuelan territory. While Colombian political and
military officials have previously commented that the illegal traffic of weapons
in the border areas between the two countries could include antipersonnel mines,
Landmine Monitor did not find any evidence of trafficking in antipersonnel mines
along the border.[10]
None
of the four NGOs contacted by Landmine Monitor who work in border areas in
Amazonas, Apure and Zulia states, which are the most vulnerable to the
activities of Colombian non-state actors, reported knowledge of antipersonnel
mines or mined areas in border regions.
In January 2001, a local journalist
working in the community of Guasdualito, told Landmine Monitor there were no
known mines or minefields
there.[11] Guasdalito at the
time was the location of the First Theatre of Operations of the Venezuelan Army
working on border security.
Landmine Monitor did not record any cases of
peasants or landowners using homemade mines for security along the
conflict-ridden border regions.
Mine Action Assistance
Venezuela continues to contribute military mine
action experts on a regular basis to the MARMINCA mine clearance efforts in
Central America.[12]
There are no known mine victims in Venezuela, and there are no
organizations involved in victim assistance. Venezuela has a national health
system with specialized services located in main urban centers, including
rehabilitation services.
[1] Interview with Richard
Méndez, Second Secretary, Directorate of Multilateral Affairs, Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, Caracas, 10 January
2001.
[2] Telephone interview
with Colonel Nelson Daniels, Director of Human Rights Affairs, Ministry of
Defense, 15 January 2001.
[3]
Response to Landmine Monitor questionnaire sent by by Richard Méndez,
Second Secretary, Directorate of Multilateral Affairs, Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, Caracas, 16 February
2001.
[4] Telephone interview
with Gerardo Delgado, Political Attaché, Venezuelan Embassy in Colombia,
12 December 1999.
[5]
Telephone interview with General Alberto Muller Rojas (ret.), 30 November
2000.
[6] Interview with
Mayor Josman Castillo Benítez, Armaments Service, Venezuelan Air Force,
Buenos Aires, 6 November
2000.
[7] US Department of
Defense, “ORDATA II, Version 1.0,” CD-ROM. This contains a photo
and schematic drawing of the
mine.
[8] Telephone interview
with General Alberto Muller Rojas (ret.), 30 November 2000; Interview with Major
Benítez, Venezuelan Air Force, 6 November
2000.
[9] Interview with
Major Benítez, Venezuelan Air Force, Buenos Aires, 6 November
2000.
[10] Interview with
Pedro Agustín Roa, Special Issues Unit, Disarmament Office Assistant,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bogotá, 10 December 1999; Interview with
Major Anselmo Escobar, Human Rights Official, Fourth Brigade Colombian National
Army, Medellin, 5 January
2000.
[11] Interview with
Raiza Cepeda, 30 January
2001.
[12] Interview with
Major Josman Castillo Benítez, Armaments Service, Venezuelan Air Force,
Buenos Aires, 6 November 2000.