Russia Using Landmines in Chechnya

by Gustavo Capdevila

Williams, who in 1997 shared the Nobel Peace prize with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), said the use of such weapons was just one of a range of violations of international human rights law committed by Russian troops.

On two occasions last year, Russian troops planted mines in neighboring Georgia, said Williams.

In the previous war between Russians and Chechens, from December 1994 to August 1996, both sides used anti-personnel mines, which claimed more than 1,000 civilian lives.

The conduct of Russian troops in the Caucusus was cited by Williams to substantiate her criticism of the legal formulas conceived of by the governments of a handful of countries to restrict, rather than ban, the use of landmines worldwide.

Russia, China, Finland, India, Pakistan, the United States, Cuba, Belarus, Georgia, Israel, Laos, Latvia, Mongolia and Yugoslavia are in favor of resolving the problem of landmines by means of an Amended Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices.

The Amended Protocol is an annex to the 1980 Convention on Prohibitions and Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW).

But Williams said "this protocol should be recognized for what it is: an agreement of limited, and often ignored, restrictions on anti-personnel mines for those nations which continue to reject the demand by the rest of the world to totally ban the weapon."

Civil society played a key role in the debate that led to the approval of the Ottawa treaty, termed by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan "a milestone in the history of disarmament."

The signing of the Ottawa treaty by 136 states and its ratification by 89 demonstrates that "the world has moved beyond this dismal attempt to deal with the global land-mine problem (with the CCW Amended Protocol), and it is beyond time for recalcitrant governments to realize that," Williams said at a news briefing today in Geneva.

The renowned activist recommended that the party states to the first conference of the CCW, meeting this week in Geneva, "use this opportunity to move the Protocol closer to the Mine Ban Treaty so they can embrace the norm.

"This would include changes in the definition of the protocol and in its scope, compliance with verification measures, to rebuild the suggestion that they take those steps as a minimum to move themselves closer to the total elimination" of landmines, she said.

A report by the ICBL stated that the feebleness of the attempt to favor simple "restrictions" of landmines was demonstrated by the conduct of Russia as well as other countries backing that position.

Pakistan, said the document, reportedly used landmines during its border dispute with India early this year. India has also been accused of using landmines, although it denies that charge.

Yugoslavian troops frequently employed landmines during the conflict in Kosovo, and the Kosovo Liberation Army also used them. More than 200 civilians have been killed by landmines and other explosives since the war's end.

The United States, which also backs the Amended Protocol, reserved the right to employ anti-personnel landmines in NATO military operations in Kosovo.

The United States took that position even though 17 of the 19 members of NATO had already banned the use of landmines, and despite the voices raised in Washington against the use of the weapon by Serbian troops.

The ICBL report also pointed out that Israel has continued employing landmines in southern Lebanon.

The five party states to the Amended Protocol -- China, Finland, India, Pakistan and the United States -- which have not signed the Land Mine Treaty possess around 125 million anti-personnel mines.

The other nine -- Belarus, Cuba, Georgia, Israel, Laos, Latvia, Mongolia, Russia and Yugoslavia -- have around 100 million.