CARTAGENA, 4 December 2009 (IRIN) - Assistance for landmine victims, widely regarded as the weakest link in the 10-year-old Mine Ban Treaty (MBT), has taken centre stage at its second review conference in Cartagena, Colombia.

"The heart of the convention was the victim, and the prevention of new victims [of landmines]; the spirit was not disarmament, it was the prevention of more victims," said Paul Vermeulen, director of Handicap International.

It was a timely reminder that the driving force of the treaty was to prevent the catalogue of mutilation and death spawned by these indiscriminate weapons, rather than a protocol for disarmament.

Emphasis on victim assistance was very nearly the deal breaker; it could have scuppered the MBT becoming an international fixture with unprecedented cooperation between national governments and civil society, setting the tone for future agreements, most notably the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions.

The complexities of providing victim assistance made the eradication of minefields and explosive remnants of war the relatively easier option.

The 2009 Cartagena Declaration on 3 December applauded "the countless limbs and lives [that have] been saved through the destruction of more than 42 million stockpiled antipersonnel mines and the clearance of vast mined areas ... We continue to be guided by the humanitarian imperative that led to the Convention.

"We will ensure the full and effective participation and inclusion of mine victims in the social, cultural, economic and political life of their communities. Our victim assistance efforts will meet the highest international standards in order to fulfil the rights and fundamental freedoms of survivors and other persons with disabilities," the declaration said.

The adoption of the Cartagena Action Plan, a roadmap for the next five years of the MBT, resolved that victim assistance would be "made available, affordable, accessible and sustainable" to all those with disabilities, and statements by many of the 156 signatories to the MBT emphasized responsibility to victims.

"Despite our efforts, the hopes that that most landmine survivors had for this Convention have not yet been fulfilled. This Summit can, and must be, the turning point at which this reality begins to change," said the vice-president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Christine Beerli, who acknowledged the treaty's failings in her address to the review conference.
Vermeulen told IRIN that "To improve victim assistance, something must change; something needs to change in practice ... The first thought of landmine victims is suicide."

The difficulties of providing assistance to victims in mine-affected countries are both a consequence of fragile states emerging from conflicts, and the capacity and determination of governments to effect change.

Assisting landmine survivors requires a range of services that make a swathe of government ministries responsible: many victims need immediate trauma assistance, followed by medical and psychological rehabilitation, community reintegration, and economic opportunities.

"Donor reluctance over victim assistance is the result of political will ... if there is no political will, nothing will change," Vermeulen said. "A lot can be done by existing institutions [in affected countries], and some straightforward sharing of the information of what is already available."

Governments, institutions, non-governmental organizations, landmine survivors and the disabled should collaborate to bring about a sense of commitment; once that was achieved, there would be access to donors.

Vermeulen said it would be interesting to see how far victim assistance had progressed after the third review conference of the MBT in five years' time.

Rude health

Paul Hannon, a management member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) - the civil society movement largely responsible for galvanising world opinion against the use of landmines, which led to the MBT - told IRIN: "We got most of what we were looking for [from the review conference], but you never get everything."

ICBL had reservations about the reticence of some governments to speak out about abuses of the treaty and issues related to anti-vehicle mines equipped with sensitive fuses, which the ICBL believed should make them illegal under the MBT.

Hannon said the continued destruction of landmine stockpiles would make more money available for victim assistance. Stockpiles incurred storage costs, and as these stockpiles disappeared, the money saved could be invested in landmine survivors.

MBT signatories were permitted to retain a number of landmines for training and research, but these had not diminished, which was "not consistent with the spirit of the treaty", Hannon said. It could be viewed as maintaining a much reduced stockpile, and required greater vigilance to ensure that signatories complied with the provisions of the MBT.

It was also frustrating that no new countries had joined the MBT since November 2007, but the concern that the 156 countries who had joined indicated a saturation point was expected to change in the next few years.

Finland and Poland were on course to sign up by 2012, leaving 37 states outside the convention, and there were signs that Mongolia, Nepal, and some Gulf states could be candidates for membership of the MBT.

"This treaty is in a remarkably healthy state - 165 [member states] is very possible, and we might be getting to the point of the 'dirty thirty' [remaining outside of the MBT]," Hannon said.

By the time of the third review conference, he hoped annual casualties from landmines and explosive remnants of war "will be cut in half of what they are now, to about 2,500, and I would like to see serious action for landmine survivors, so that they become active members of society."

Source http://www.irinnews.org/