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	Thailand leads SE Asia in ratifying landmine treaty

Information Newsline

December 14, 1998

UNICEF today congratulated Thailand for being the first Southeast Asian country to ratify the treaty to ban anti-personnel landmines, which kill or maim thousands of people in the region each year, and it urged other nations in the region to follow the Thai example.

UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said Thailand's action should spur a strong movement for ratification among the other Southeast Asian nations gathered at the 15-16 December ASEAN Summit in Hanoi.

"Thailand's leadership on banning anti-personnel landmines is good news for the children and women who continue to be innocent victims of these hidden killers, " Ms. Bellamy said. "Four additional nations in the region are preparing to follow suit. The Hanoi meeting should encourage all ASEAN nations to put landmine treaty ratification at the top of their agendas."

Thailand is the 55th country in the world to ratify the treaty, which prohibits the use, production, development, acquisition, sale, stockpiling and transfer of anti-personnel landmines. The ban, which seeks to eradicate landmines from the globe within 10 years, will go into effect in March 1999.

Of the nine ASEAN members (Brunei, Indonesia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam) Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines have signalled their intention to ratify the treaty.

Ms. Bellamy said it was a positive sign that Cambodia, which is being considered for ASEAN membership, has also signed the landmine treaty and is expected to ratify it. During a recent meeting with UNICEF officials, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said ratification would be among the first pieces of legislation to be introduced in the country's new National Assembly.

"It is important that each of the region's nations, whether formal members of ASEAN or not, join the anti-landmine effort because Southeast Asia is one of the most heavily mined regions in the world," Ms. Bellamy explained. "In Cambodia alone, landmines killed 15,000 people and injured 25,000 others between 1979 and 1997. In addition, thousands of square kilometres of the country's most fertile land still cannot be farmed due to the continued presence of four to six million mines."

Viet Nam, Lao PDR and Thailand all have significant numbers of landmines or unexploded ordinance, much of it dating back to the Viet Nam War and related conflicts.

In the wider Asia-Pacific Region, only Japan, Thailand and the Pacific Island nations of Fiji, Niue and Samoa have ratified the treaty.

"Landmines remain one of the greatest obstacles to social and economic development," the UNICEF chief continued. "In addition to killing and mutilating between 8,000 and 10,000 children a year, they also severely impede the healthy development of millions of others."

Under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most widely recognized human rights instrument in history, countries are legally obliged to provide for the survival, protection and development of their children. But until each of the estimated 60 million to 100 million landmines hidden around the world are destroyed or removed, the rights of children will continue to be at risk, Ms. Bellamy said.

In addition to strongly advocating ratification of the landmine treaty, UNICEF supports mine-awareness programmes that help minimize the danger to children until mines are cleared. The agency also sponsors physical and psychosocial rehabilitation programmes for child victims of landmines. In 1995, UNICEF resolved not to do business with any companies that manufacture or sell anti-personnel mines or their components.

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