A landmine-free Hemisphere

Every year, hundreds of people, most of them civilians, die or suffer physical harm as a result of anti-personnel mines.

To address this scourge, the Organization of American States (OAS) created in 1992 the Assistance Program for Demining in Central America (PADCA), acting on a request from Central American member states among which Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras and Guatemala, whose territories were impacted by more than 180,000 anti-personnel mines.

Later, in 1998, and acting on a request from Ecuador and Peru, and later from Colombia in 2003, PADCA expanded its reach and transformed itself into the “Program of Comprehensive Action Against Anti-personnel Mines,” known today as AICMA, directed to all OAS Member States. Its headquarters are in Washington, D.C., and it has two offices of Regional Coordination in the cities of Managua, Nicaragua, and Bogota, Colombia. With contributions from the governments of Belgium, Canada, Spain, United States, Holland, Italy and Norway, the Program currently operates in Nicaragua, Colombia, and the border areas between Peru and Ecuador.

AICMA implements the mandates, issued by the OAS General Assembly and legitimized by the humanitarian consensus of Member States, of support for States in the process of developing national demining programs. This Program has helped to rehabilitate and assist the economic and social reintegration of more than 1300 survivors in the entire continent.

AIMCA has a humanitarian orientation and seeks to restore the life conditions and trust of citizens, reduce the threat and danger of anti-personnel explosives and mines, and regain the use of affected land for productive activities.

In agreement with the Resolutions of the OAS General Assembly upon declaring the Americas a mine-free zone, the AICMA program conducts work in the following areas: preventive education for civilians; assistance for experts; mapping, location and clean-up of mined fields (humanitarian demining); destruction of stockpiled mines; support for victims of the demined zones, including physical and psychological rehabilitation as well as socioeconomic reintegration; development of a action against mines data bank; destruction of war-era explosives, munitions and small arms; and support for the total prohibition of the use, production, stockpiling, sale, transportation or exportation of anti-personnel mines under the Ottawa Convention.

It is estimated that in the year 2004, more than a million mines stockpiled in Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru had been destroyed. With the financial support of the Governments of Canada and Australia, the AICMA Program extended technical support to destroy expired munitions in the warehouses of Member States.

In 2007, in coordination with the Mission to Support the Peace Process in Colombia (MAPP-OEA) and with the financial support of the Governments of Canada and Italy, the OAS’s demining initiative assisted in a project to destroy 18,000 small and light weapons surrendered to the Colombian Government by illegally armed paramilitary groups as part of that country’s national peace process.

From April to September 2007, and from February to March 2008, half of existing munitions in Nicaragua were destroyed with the support of Canada and the United States.

Through this program, the OAS fulfills the commitment it shares with the donor community and Member States to reestablish safe, threat-free and productive living conditions in communities affected by landmines.

The OAS joins the Second Revision Conference of the Ottawa Convention

In this context, the Second Revision Conference of the Ottawa Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on their Destruction will take place November 29 to December 4 in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia.

The OAS will join more than a thousand experts at the Conference to strengthen their efforts towards a mine-free world. Ambassador Graeme Clark, Permanent Representative of Canada to the OAS and head of the OAS delegation to the Conference, will travel alongside AICMA Director Carl Case.

At the meeting, countries affected by the threat of anti-personnel mines will have a chance to relate information on the successes of comprehensive steps taken against anti-personnel mines, on what remains to be done and on the need for continuing support from the international community to eradicate the threat of these weapons and alleviate the pain of thousands of survivors.

“We are happy to take part in this conference, and to make sure it continues to gather momentum,” Ambassador Clark said, adding that “we hope it’s not merely an occasion to take stock of where we are but also of where we can go in the future.”

Ambassador Clark also said that the Ottawa Convention is “an accomplishment of Canadian foreign policy.” The Convention was signed September 18, 1997, and came into effect March 1st, 1999. The first Revision Summit took place in November 2004, in Nairobi, Kenya, and the second, the motto of which is “Towards a Mine-Free World,” will take place in Colombia and will be presided by Ambassador Susan Eckey of Norway and Francisco Santos, Vice President of Colombia.

November 24, 2009

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