UN's Annan: World Can Clear Landmines in Matter of "Years"
    Agence France-Presse

    Wednesday 05 April 2006

    United Nations chief Kofi Annan called Tuesday for a world free of landmines, which claim new victims every day, saying their elimination could be achieved in a matter of years, not decades.

    UN statistics show that 15,000-20,000 people are killed and mutilated every year by anti-personnel mines or unexploded ordnance.

    That is down from 26,000 at the end of the 20th century.

    "The goal of a world without landmines appears achievable in years - not decades as we used to think," Annan said in a speech in New York marking the first International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action, organized by the UN.

    He spoke at a fund-raising dinner for UN mine-clearing operations around the world.

    More than 80 percent of the victims are civilians and at least 20 percent are children.

    Some 84 countries still have mines, many left over from wars, and see "new casualties added every hour," the UN secretary general said.

    Yet this scourge of the past century has the potential to become an early success story of the present one," he declared.

    "The 1997 convention banning anti-personnel landmines ... which has 150 state parties, is already producing tangible results. Governments, donors, nongovernmental organizations and the United Nations are collaborating on an unprecedented scale to address this problem, in more than 30 countries.

    Annan listed a series of advances made to clear the world of the deadly scourge. Both the production and the laying of mines were in decline and "global trade in mines has virtually halted," he said.

    Stockpiles have been destroyed, clearance operations have accelerated and mine-risk education has spread, he said.

    "But to realize this ideal, every one of us - donors, the general public and mine-affected countries - must focus our energies, and our imaginations, on the cause of mine clearance."