International concern about landmine use in Libya

TIRANA, June 20 – The President of the international treaty banning anti-personnel mines has expressed “deep concern” about reports of new mine use in Libya.
“New deployments of mines in Libya run counter to the norms that are accepted by the majority of States,” said Gazmend Turdiu, the senior Albanian diplomat who presides over the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, or Ottawa Convention.
“With few exceptions, the international community has accepted that the insidious, indiscriminate nature of anti-personnel mines means they must be eradicated,” said Turdiu. “We should all be deeply concerned. The use of anti-personnel mines in Libya will have devastating effects on civilians, obstruct economic development and reconstruction and will inhibit the repatriation of internally displaced persons.”
Turdiu’s comments came on the eve of meetings of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention’s Standing Committees in Geneva, where over 400 delegates representing more than 100 states and dozens of international and non-governmental organizations were expected to take part.
Turdiu is expected to remind the international community of commitments made during the landmark 2009 Cartagena Summit on a Mine-Free World. “At the Cartagena Summit, States accepted that they will condemn and continue to discourage in every possible way any production, transfer and use of anti-personnel mines by any actors. Reports of new anti-personnel mine use in Libya are deeply disturbing. It is our responsibility to make our concern about this objectionable behaviour widely known,” he said.
New use of anti-personnel mines in Libya was first reported in March and condemned by the Nobel Peace Prize-laureate International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Human Rights Watch has documented in detail mines used by Libyan government forces. In April, the Libyan National Transitional Council issued a written pledge not to use landmines.
Libya is one of only four States in Africa that has not joined the Convention.
The Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention was adopted in Oslo in 1997 and entered into force in 1999.