Banning landmine in Sri Lanka

Soon after three decades of protracted armed conflict between the government security forces of Sri Lanka and Liberation of Tamil Tiger of Elam (LTTE) ended in May 2009, the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) set up the Lesson Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) to look into the root causes of the conflict and its report came out in November 2011. Chapter 4 of the LLRC report on Principles of International Humanitarian Law had mentioned that more recent important conventions had been added to the corpus of treaty law. One law is the 1997 Ottawa Convention (or Mine Ban Treaty -MBT) on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Landmines. But Sri Lanka is still not a party to the MBT.  In the three-decade long conflict many people and animals were killed or maimed due to landmines. Fortunately the protracted bloody war was over in 2009, but post-war Sri Lanka is still threatened by this morally outlawed weapon which is still under our soil in war-affected areas of the North and East regions of the country.




Initiation and development of Mine Action Programme in Sri Lanka     
GOSL initiated its National Mine Action Programme (NMAP) in 2002 with the assistance of UNDP, UNICEF, INGOs and NGOs and several donor countries. Since the initiation of humanitarian de-mining activities in 2002, Sri Lanka has achieved many milestones in the NMAP. Millstones such as, developing National Mine Action Standards in 2004, setting up of GOSL Mine Action Strategy in 2006 and 2010, and setting up National Mine Action Centre (NMAC) in 2010 under the Ministry of Economic Development. The National Strategy for Mine Action in Sri Lanka of the NMAC is the official document to address the five pillars such as De-mining, Mine Risk Education (MRE), Victim Assistance (VA), Destruction of Stockpiles and Advocacy.




Mine Casualties in Sri Lanka
The Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor the research arm of the International Campaign to Ban Landmine (ICBL), has reported that “since the 1980s, there had been a total of 21,993 landmine casualties, including 1,419 civilian returnees. According to the same report, 3,770 amputees had been recorded among the armed forces, police, and civil defence forces; the LTTE had had 16,804 mine casualties. In 2009, a limited survey carried out in camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) indicated that a large number of IDPs had mine-related disabilities; 750 people with amputations were identified, and many had been injured while fleeing during the last months of the conflict” the Monitor further reported. According to the NMAC data there are 582 civilian mine causalities reported the period between 2002 and 2012.  Obviously post-war Sri Lanka needs a comprehensive victim assistance strategy which should be coordinated among government institutions, INGOs, NGOs and private sector donations. The Ministry of Social Services and Social Welfare is responsible for coordinating the rehabilitation of persons with disabilities and this ministry needs to become a key ministry in post-war Sri Lanka.





Re-settlement of IDPs completed  
There are two categories of IDPs in Sri Lanka: People who were displaced after April 2008 (beginning of the final phase of the war in the Northern Province) are categorized as ‘new IDPs’ and those who became IDPs prior to April 2008 are categorized as ‘old IDPs’. The GOSL officially announced in September 2012 that there are no more IDPs in the camps to be resettled. Since GOSL has initiated a resettlement programme for over 300,000 new IDPs in 2009, one of the major obstacles faced by the authorities in their efforts to resettle the displaced were mainly due to the fact that many parts of the land to be resettled were infested with the landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW). If the Sri Lankan military and the LTTE had not used landmines, Sri Lanka could have re-settled IDPs in a relatively shorter span of time.  



High risk after the re-settlement
Chapter 6 of the LLRC report, Land Issue: Return and Resettlement, it is mentioned that although the vast majority of new IDPs have been returned or resettled, it had not been possible to restore all of their land at once due to the phased release of agricultural lands. Considering that vast areas of the land in the Vanni that were mined and contaminated with ERW, the delays that were experienced are understandable. Moreover, the area under the agricultural lands was substantially larger than homestead land. Under these circumstances the remaining 105km2 (according to the NMAC data as at 30th November 2012) extent of mine contaminated land across 10 districts is still to be cleared and should be a high priority of the government. Otherwise many obstacles would be faced by the civilians resettled in the areas near the mine fields.  Landmines pose a particular danger for children and  according to UNICEF, landmine and unexploded ordnance violate nearly all articles of the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC): a child’s right to life, to a safer environment in which to play, to health, clean water, sanitary conditions and adequate education. Continuous MRE programmes are a necessity and need to be carried out frequently in these areas as a risk reduction factor.  The National Strategy for Mine Action in Sri Lanka (2010) had mentioned that according to estimation done by the Sri Lankan army; 1.6 million landmines have been laid in Sri Lanka. Up to 2012 November, 510,165 land mines have been cleared and possibly an amount of over 1 million needs to be cleared.  




Birth of Mine Ban Treaty (MBT)
In 1992 ICBL was formed and launched by eight civil society organizations to capture the public imagination and to build political pressure to such a degree that, within five years, the international community would come together to negotiate a treaty banning anti-personnel landmines. The Mine Ban Treaty Known as the Ottawa Treaty was opened for signature in Ottawa, Canada, on 3rd December 1997 and became the first international treaty to ban a weapon of war that had been in widespread use. Since the Treaty became law on March 1999, there has been a dramatic decrease in worldwide use, production, and transfer of antipersonnel mines, and the number of casualties reported has massively reduced.  The only legally binding instrument that puts a stop to mines being used, produced, stockpiled and transferred is the MBT. Today there are 161 states parties to the MBT, that is more than 80 per cent of all the countries in the world; 35 countries have not yet joined the convention, including Sri Lanka. State parties are governments that have ratified or acceded to the treaty. In recognition of this invaluable work initiated and carried on by ICBL, The Nobel Peace Prize 1997 was awarded to the ICBL.




Time for Sri Lanka to accede to the MBT
It is irrational to argue that Sri Lanka may be involved in an international conflict with a neighbouring country or other countries in the future.  Since independence in 1948 no country from outside world had tried to invade or take control of Sri Lanka. The recently ended conflict in Sri Lanka was an internal conflict and post-war Sri Lanka needs to address the root causes for the conflict through political means, in order to ensure that such a scale of bloody conflict would never happen gain. Being a peaceful and friendly nation with almost all the countries in the world, Sri Lanka can demonstrate many acts with regard to human wellbeing, rather than human destruction. One such act is the banning of landmines and guaranteeing that future generation will not have to be in fear of this unknown hidden killer in the island nation of Sri Lanka. And further, the country does not have boundaries to protect its territories or borders through the use of landmines.



Post-war Sri Lanka’s steps towards acceding to the MBT
Post-war Sri Lanka has made some positive statements towards acceding to the MBT. For example; In 2009 Sri Lanka Campaign to Ban Landmine (SLCBL) and UNCEF jointly organized a seminar and there Sri Lanka’s Army Commander Lieutenant General J. Jayasuriya had stated that “In the current post-conflict phase in Sri Lanka, it is timely that we focus our attention on the international legal instruments that limit or ban certain weapons based on humanitarian grounds,” in reference to the MBT, the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), and the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).

The National Strategy for Mine Action in Sri Lanka 2010 of NMAC had stated the necessity to advocate for the respect for international humanitarian law norms, particularly regarding the MBT and the Convention on the Rights of People with Disability (CRPD).  With regards to these conventions, it has further mentioned that “By disseminating public information on the risk of the explosive devices it is aim to reach the general public of Sri Lanka and in this context to advocate for a ban of landmines and cluster munitions; additionally, the importance of CCW Protocol V on ERW highlight as part of advocacy initiatives. And also the relevant Government Authorities, Security Forces specifically targeted as part of advocacy initiative”.

 A national daily reported on 25th September 2012 that the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence, Gotabaya Rajapaksa stating that Sri Lanka is now “ready from a defence point of view” to sign the Ottawa Landmine Treaty. It has further mentioned that this meeting was organized by a high- ranking UN official in Colombo and Rajapaksa – along with several high profile members from the defence establishment who met with the diplomatic community to discuss critical issues of demining, IDPs and land issues.




The way forward     
Sri Lanka has already implemented many obligations under the MBT. ie: Setting up the National Mine Action Center, National Mine Actions Standards, Sri Lanka Army having its own Humanitarian Demining Unit, availability of accredited International National Mine Action Operators in mine clearance, UNICEF conducting MRE and VA through its local partners.

As mentioned above, positive statements, and strategy papers have been made by the GOSL officials and institutes with regard to Sri Lanka acceding to the MBT. The time has come for GOSL to convert them into action means acceding to the MBT. And also another important factor is that since LTTE had produced and widely used landmines, the GOSL should have a moral obligation to ban landmine in post-war Sri Lanka. Banning landmines can be an indirect action to carry out in line with LLRC report; a measure that will help to broaden the current operationalization of LLRC recommendations. This action will be able to win hearts and minds of people locally and globally, guaranteeing for future generations that Sri Lanka will not be using landmines and nobody including animals will not be losing their lives, limbs or be maimed by this unknown killer. Crucially, today any use of antipersonnel landmines is also widely recognized as being unacceptable, and is resoundingly condemned. Those who support mine-free Sri Lanka and a mine-free world should encourage and lobby the GOSL to actively participate and make a positive statement towards acceding to the MBT and also tell the world what post-war Sri Lanka has achieved through its Mine Action Programme.

Writer is a researcher in socioeconomic development.