London, 29 June 2004
 
Landmine victims deserve better
New book reviews Diana’s last campaign
 
Landmine clearance efforts around the world need to be more cost effective, ensure greater involvement of those directly affected and be much closer co-ordinated with broader development work to improve the well-being of war torn communities according to a new book, Mine Action After Diana, published today by Landmine Action, The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund and Pluto Press, and written by mine action expert, Stuart Maslen. 
 
Seven years after Diana’s death and five years after the Ottawa Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty came into force, the book reviews the progress in ridding the world of anti-personnel mines and suggests the way forward for mine action programmes.  The book is intended to stimulate debate ahead of an international review conference of the implementation of the Ottawa Treaty in November 2004 in Nairobi. 
 
The Ottawa Treaty remains one of the fastest and most comprehensive pieces of international disarmament legislation ever to come into force. Despite the reluctance of the world’s biggest military powers – the US, Russia and China – to join the Treaty, Ottawa binds more than two-thirds of the world’s countries to ban the production, trade and use of anti-personnel mines, eliminate them from stockpiles and clear them from their lands. More than 30 million stockpiled mines have been destroyed and millions of mines and other explosive remnants of war – bombs, cluster bombs, grenades and shells - have been cleared.
 
Since 1997, £750 million have been committed to mine action – the collective term for demining, community education, assistance to survivors, advocacy against the use of anti-personnel mines, and stockpile destruction.
 
While landmines have fast become a stigmatised weapon, people are also increasingly aware of the problems caused by other explosive remnants of war. In November 2003 an international agreement adopted within the United Nations has made countries responsible for other abandoned and unexploded bombs, grenades and shells left behind by war and conflict.
 
 “The Ottawa Treaty has been successful but there is no room for complacency. There are still an estimated 200 - 215 million mines stockpiled by 78 countries and countless more scattered in the ground around the world. At the same time, alongside wonderful achievements, mine action itself has sometimes badly let down the very people it purports to serve,” said Andrew Purkis, chief executive of The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund.
 
The book finds that:
 
·        The targeting of mine action has at times been unacceptably poor, sometimes failing to address those minefields with the highest impact on the civilian population. 
·        The people most affected by the dangers of mines and  explosive remnants of war have to become more actively involved in finding solutions – to be supported not supplanted by outsiders 
·        There needs to be closer co-ordination between mine action and emergency relief and long term development work by donors as well as by programme planners and implementers 
·        Mine action needs to do better in transferring skills and knowledge from the international “experts” to their national counterparts. Countries affected by mines and explosive remnants of war ultimately have to be able to deal with the problem themselves.
·        Mine risk education needs to be better targeted using communications expertise and lessons learnt from other public health education campaigns.
·        Mine action still does too little to help victims. Victim assistance services are still woefully inadequate.
·        The UN needs to change its policy on mine action and stop competing with NGOs and bilateral agencies for projects on the ground, concentrating instead better co-ordination, for example through improved strategic planning of mine action.
 
“The people affected by the debris of war deserve better support than they are currently getting. Funding via the UN has consistently proven to be too costly and too slow to the detriment of mine affected communities. The whole process has become over-complicated and, as a result, unjustifiably expensive. The needs of mine affected communities must take priority and proportionately more of the money donated for mine action must be spent on demining,“ says Richard Lloyd, director, Landmine Action.
 
The Sudan Landmine Information & Response Initiative (SLIRI) in Sudan is one example of what can be achieved when mine action is integrated at a community level. Supported by Landmine Action and working with both sides in the conflict in 15 areas across Sudan, SLIRI uses local information networks to build up a picture of the mine problem and has trained Sudanese clearance teams to respond to reports of landmines and other explosive remnants of war.
 
- Ends - 
Note to editors
 
1.      Mine Action After Diana, Progress in the struggle against landmines, Stuart Maslen, Landmine Action/Diana Memorial Fund/Pluto Press, London, May 2004. The book is available from all good bookshops and through the Pluto Press website www.plutobooks.com , priced £15.99.
 
2.      Speaking at the launch of the book will be Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP, Secretary of State for International Development; Andrew Purkis, chief executive, Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fund; Stuart Maslen, author, Mine Action After Diana; Mohamed Fawz and Malak Reuben Riak, Sudan Landmine Information and Response Initiative; and Richard Lloyd, director, Landmine Action.
 
3.      Landmine Action works to save lives and livelihoods through the elimination of landmines and other explosive remnants of war. It co-ordinates a network of UK-based NGOs working on this issue, and as the UK arm of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines won the Nobel Peace Prize in December 1997.  
 
4.      The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund funded the research for this book.  Since its original £1 million round of grants to landmine charities in 1999, the Fund has pledged a further £4.5 million to organisations working with people affected by landmines in over a dozen countries.  In addition it has provided core support to Landmine Action and campaigns for the full implementation of the Ottawa Treaty and in favour of international legislation governing cluster munitions and other explosive remnants of war.
 
5.      With the recent peace agreement in the long running Sudan civil war, the clearance of millions of landmines and other unexploded ordnance is vital to ensure that people can return home and rebuild their lives. SLIRI is the only Sudanese mine agency that has been working with both sides of the conflict while Landmine Action is providing SLIRI with training and technical advice. By establishing a cross-conflict project, which, by its nature is engaging many sectors of Sudanese society, it is hoped that the initiative will make a substantive contribution to peace-building.