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Background

ANTI-PERSONNEL MINES DESTROYED IN SURINAME

A group of officials, including representatives of the media, the Government of Canada, the local landmine monitoring authority, the International Red Cross, the Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs, and the Organization of American States (OAS), witnessed the destruction of Anti-Personnel Mines (APMs) at a training facility of the national army on Wednesday, February 25, 2004. The officials were specially invited by the Ministry of Defense to attend the proceedings.

The exercise was the first conducted under the provisions of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction (The Ottawa Convention). Article 4 stipulates that, except for the retention of minimal amounts of APMs for training and detection purposes, each State Party to the Convention “undertakes to destroy or ensure the destruction of all stockpiled APMs it owns or possesses, or that are under its jurisdiction or control, as soon as possible, but not later than four years, after the entry into force of the Convention for that State Party.”

Major Joseph Laurens, the army’s APM expert, supervised the activity. Members of the official party observed the placing of the first batch of 70 APMs in a dug-out, specially prepared for the purpose. They were then taken to a safe distance, from where they viewed the detonation. An amount of 146 APMs was destroyed. The Ministry states that this brings the total number of APMs destroyed in Suriname to 296. Based on its investigations, the army concludes that there are 13 APMs still active in an area which was delineated by the Minister of Defense in September 2002. The Government of Suriname is seeking assistance in de-activating this last known minefield in the country.

Suriname is an active participant in the procedures of the Ottawa Convention. Ms. Nalinie Sewpersadsingh of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, attended the February 2004 Standing Committee Meetings of States Parties at the Department for Disarmament Affairs, United Nations Office in Geneva. The Government has also established an Inter-Departmental Commission for APMs to monitor and control the landmine situation nationally.

The OAS Special Mission to Suriname (1992 – 2000) collaborated with local authorities in the identification and destruction of a number of APMs, which were planted during the period of the country’s internal conflict (1986 – 1992). The Organization is committed to the complete eradication of these dangerous devices in the Hemisphere, within the framework of the Ottawa Convention.

Ambassador Kingsley C.A. Layne, Director of the Office of the General Secretariat of the OAS in Suriname, represented the Organization at the exercises.

Reference: OASSUR