Reports reveal that Syria is planting landmines along parts of its border with Lebanon
and Turkey as refugees stream out of the country to escape the violent crackdown on
anti-government protests.
The Nobel Peace Prize winning International Campaign
to Ban Landmines (ICBL) is calling on all governments to protest Syria’s use of antipersonnel
landmines, a weapon banned by the majority of the world due to its devastating humanitarian
impact on civilians.
The call was issued following confirmation by eye-witnesses
that the Syrian Army has been laying landmines along its borders.
Kasia
Derlicka, ICBL director told Linda Bordoni that the organization is “outraged to see
Syria using antipersonnel mines against its own people, adding to the already dire
humanitarian crisis Syrian civilians are facing”.
She said the organization
was already receiving reports of mine-laying last year that it had not been able to
verify, but in recent days and weeks these reports have been confirmed by eyewitness.
Unfortunately, she says, there have already been casualties.
Derlicka says
“we are outraged and very deeply disturbed because there is no justification to use
antipersonnel landmines in today’s world, by anyone and in any circumstance”.
She
confirms that the mines are being laid along the most popular routes used by Syrian
civilians to flee the country and seek refuge in Lebanon. In addition – she reveals
– another reason for laying the mines is to prevent the smuggling of weapons into
the country.
She says the ICBL is calling on the international community,
on all governments, and especially on UN Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, to speak out
against this latest atrocity and to put strong pressure on Syria to stop using the
mines and to ensure removal and destruction of all the mines planted to prevent further
casualties.
She explains “that 80% of the world has banned landmines: they
are considered to be illegal, indiscriminate weapons. They are weapons that cannot
tell the difference between the foot of a child or a soldier, and that’s why there
is no place for mines being used in today’s world”.
Furthermore Derlicka
explains, “One particular horrible element regarding landmines is that they don’t
only kill and maim during the time of conflict, but years, decades to come after the
conflict is over”.
Derlicka says the mines being used in Syria have been
identified as PMN-2 antipersonnel mines from the former Soviet Union. She says she
is not aware that Syria produces antipersonnel mines, but it has a stock from the
former Soviet Union.
She says the countries that today still produce these
weapons include China, India, Pakistan, Israel. And Derlicka adds that the export
of landmines, thanks to the stigma attached to them and to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty,
has dropped immensely and there is no tangible evidence of the export of antipersonnel
mines at presence.
Derlicka says the ICBL’s call to governments was immediately
well received. She says the organization’s network is working hard to ask all governments
to put pressure on Syria and there is a global mobilization to raise the issue urgently.
She
says there has been excellent media coverage of the issue over the last few days,
and says it is clear that there is so much bad news coming out of Syria, this particular
perspective is just “one of many, however” she stresses “this issue is extremely unacceptable”
In fact: it is not just during this conflict we will have this problem. “Once mines
are planted they will continue killing, maiming and threatening people from using
the land, from leading normal lives, for decades to come”.
Derlicka also
says that she has seen that in the past 12 months, the Arab Spring has led to the
increase in use of mines. Last year, she says, “we witnessed new mine use in Libya
under the Gaddafi forces, also in Israel along the border with Syria, and there is
ongoing use in Myanmar”.