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OAS TO WORK WITH CIVIL SOCIETY ON LANDMINE AWARENESS INITIATIVE

The Organization of American States (OAS) is co-sponsoring a major that is to be held January 23 to 25, member state delegates at a meeting of the OAS Permanent Council’s Committee on Hemispheric Security were told Monday.

Donna Leigh Hopkins, of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, announced that the Landmine Awareness Festival will bring together landmine survivors and experts and well as representatives of non-governmental and private organizations.

The event will be staged in Coconut Grove, Florida, as a joint initiative of the civil society organization South Florida Landmine Action Group (SFLAG), the U.S. State Department, the Office of the U.S. President’s Special Representative Lincoln P. Bloomfield and the OAS Comprehensive Mine Action Program.

Declaring that landmines “kill or maim people daily in 60 countries around the world, including 10 in Latin America," Hopkins went on to note that “governments alone cannot solve this problem. Civil society must engage, with all the humanitarian and financial resources at its command.”

She added: "In spite of the global investment of $1.6 billion dollars in humanitarian mine action since 1988—more than half which came from the U.S.—the global community has only scratched the surface of the problem." Besides the huge costs involved in removing 40 million to 60 million landmines that have been buried, Hopkins also emphasized the urgent need for medical care, rehabilitation and support for landmine survivors, who also need training to reintegrate into society and economic activity.

The OAS Comprehensive Mine Action Program is supporting this important initiative by co-sponsoring and promoting the Preventive Awareness Festival. The 12 year-old OAS program operates in Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru.

Reference: E-245/03