Key developments since 1999: Equatorial Guinea became a State Party
on 1 March 1999. It has not enacted national implementation measures. It has
not submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report, due on 28 August 1999.
It has not officially informed States Parties if it has complied with its
obligation to have destroyed any stockpiled mines by 1 March 2003.
Equatorial Guinea acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty on 16 September 1998, and
the treaty entered into force on 1 March 1999. It has not enacted national
implementation measures. In 2001, Equatorial Guinea indicated that it required
assistance in meeting this treaty
obligation.[1]
Equatorial Guinea did not participate in the Ottawa Process and the only Mine
Ban Treaty-related meeting it has attended was the Fourth Meeting of States
Parties in Geneva, in September 2002. Regionally, it attended an Africa-wide
landmines conference held in Mali in February 2001. Equatorial Guinea has voted
in favor of past UN General Assembly resolutions in support of the Mine Ban
Treaty, but was absent from the vote on UNGA Resolution 58/53 on 8 December
2003, as it was in 2002.
Equatorial Guinea has not yet submitted its initial Article 7 transparency
report, due on 28 August 1999. In February 2001, a government representative
told Landmine Monitor that the country has never used, produced, or imported
antipersonnel mines, and does not maintain a stockpile of landmines, including
for training purposes.[2] He
also said that Equatorial Guinea is not mine-affected and has no mine
victims.
Because it has not submitted an Article 7 report, Equatorial Guinea has not
officially informed States Parties if it has a stockpile of antipersonnel mines,
and whether it has complied with its obligation to have destroyed any stockpiled
mines by 1 March 2003.
The government never responded to Landmine Monitor’s query regarding a
past allegation of antipersonnel mine use on the island of
Bioko.[3] It did not reply to
numerous requests for information regarding landmines made in 2004 by the
Spanish NGO Moviment Per La Pau.
[1] Interview with Amb. Pedro Edjang Mba
Medja, Bamako, Mali, 15 February
2001. [2]
Ibid. [3] See Landmine Monitor Report
2002, p. 248.