LM Report 2004

Papua New Guinea

Key developments since May 2003: Papua New Guinea acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty on 28 June 2004. It apparently possesses a small stockpile of Claymore-type mines for training purposes.

Mine Ban Policy

Papua New Guinea (PNG) acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty on 28 June 2004. The treaty will enter into force for the country on 1 December 2004. The status of national implementation measures is not yet known. Its initial Article 7 transparency measure report is due to be submitted by 30 May 2005.

In the period following the 1997 opening for signature of the treaty, PNG officials made statements on numerous occasions indicating the government’s support for the treaty and indicated the accession delay was due to a “lack of prioritization by the government and administrative problems.”^[1] In February 2004, a PNG representative told the intersessional Standing Committee on General Status and Operation of the Convention that the National Executive Council approved PNG joining the Treaty on 21 November 1997, but this process was never completed due to both “political and administrative exigencies.”^[2] In June 2003, the normal treaty ratification procedure was waived to allow for the Speaker (acting on behalf of the Parliament) and the Prime Minister to consent to the country joining the treaty, as the matter was viewed as too urgent “to go through the normal ten sitting days ratification requirement.” By February 2004, both the Speaker and Prime Minister had approved accession.^[3]

Papua New Guinea notes that it has always supported the Mine Ban Treaty, “having sent representatives to various regional and international meetings...[and] voted in favour of pro-ban United Nations General Assembly resolutions in previous years.”^[4] While it was not present at the Fifth Meeting of States Parties, PNG did vote in support of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 58/53 on 8 December 2003, as it had done on similar pro-ban resolutions in previous years.

Papua New Guinea states that it has never used, produced, or transferred antipersonnel mines.^[5] In February 2004, a representative disclosed that the PNG Defence Force maintains “only a small stockpile of less than one hundred mines for training purposes. These are command-detonated claymore mines imported from Australia twenty-one years ago.”^[6]

UXO Problem

Papua New Guinea is not mine-affected, but parts of the country still have a residual unexploded ordnance (UXO) problem dating from World War II. A 2003 report suggested the effects of this contamination were more complicated than elsewhere in the Pacific.^[7] Between July 2003 and March 2004, an Australian company, Milsearch, conducted a survey of UXO contamination from World War II as part of Rabaul-Kokopo road repairs.^[8] An internal conflict between 1988 and 1997 on the island of Bougainville did not include antipersonnel mine use, but improvised explosive devices may have been used. Landmine Monitor has not recorded any mine or UXO casualties in the country.

[1] Notes taken by Landmine Monitor (HRW) from a statement to the Standing Committee on General Status and Operation of the Convention by Grace Dom, Legal Officer, Department of Foreign Affairs, Geneva, 12 May 2003.
[2] National Executive Council Decision No. NG 79/97.
[3] Statement to the Standing Committee on General Status and Operation of the Convention by John C. Balavu, Acting Director General of the International Relations Division of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Immigration, Geneva, 9 February 2004.
[4] Statement by John C. Balavu, Department of Foreign Affairs and Immigration, Geneva, 9 February 2004.
[5] Interview with David Anere, Politics and Security Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Papua New Guinea, Wellington, 27 March 2001.
[6] Statement by John C. Balavu, Department of Foreign Affairs and Immigration, Geneva, 9 February 2004.
[7] John Borrie, Explosive remnants of war: a global survey, Landmine Action, London, June 2003, p. 41.
[8] Email to Landmine Monitor from David Halmarick, Managing Director, Milsearch Pty Ltd, 22 July 2004; email to Landmine Monitor from Ernie Moore, Senior Operations Officer, Milsearch Pty Ltd, 8 April 2004.