OTTAWA%26ndash;On the 10th anniversary of an international land-mine treaty signed in Canada, the Conservative government yesterday announced $80 million to help clear mines from Afghanistan.%26#34;Canadians can be proud that our country continues to show international leadership in helping to clear land-mine areas,%26#34; said International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda, who made the announcement accompanied by Afghanistan Ambassador Omar Samad, and John Flanagan, acting director, United Nations Mine Action Service.Canada is the principal donor for demining activities in Afghanistan. So far, the average number of monthly victims has decreased by 55 per cent, and more than 1,000 square kilometres of land have been cleared of mines.In the past decade millions of landmines have been rendered harmless, about 38 countries have stopped making them and countless lives have been saved. Former Liberal foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy, who was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his instrumental role in the treaty known as the Ottawa Convention, told the Toronto Star it is an anniversary that should be celebrated around the world.%26#34;A number of lives have been saved, there has been a substantial drop in the fatality rate, there has been a virtual cessation in trade amongst mines, they have cleaned off 41 million to 42 million mines, stockpiles are down, there are only two or three countries that actually manufacture them and only two that use them, Burma and Russia,%26#34; said Axworthy, who is now president of the University of Winnipeg.He said the situation today is a far cry from what it was.%26#34;Compared to where we were 10 years ago, I think there were more than 30 countries manufacturing and the fatality rate was around 60,000 a year and now it’s down to about 10,000 a year,%26#34; he said.The treaty was also seen as a sea change for diplomacy that would later be applied to handling the proliferation of small arms and the use of child soldiers.%26#34;It was a partnership between some like-minded governments, ourselves, Norwegians and Austrians, Swiss and South Africans. It was a partnership aimed at re-establishing standards of humanitarian law and it led to a number of follow-up models based on the Ottawa process,%26#34; Axworthy said.In 1997 in Ottawa, 121 countries signed the total ban on anti-personnel mines. Since then 155 countries have signed on.Meanwhile, Oda disagreed with a new poll that suggests support for NATO in Afghanistan has plummeted and the Taliban is surging.The survey %26ndash; conducted for ABC News, the BBC and the German public TV station ARD %26ndash; found that in southwestern Afghanistan support for NATO-led forces has plummeted to 45 per cent this year, from 83 per cent a year ago. The biggest complaint is the rising number of civilian casualties, the poll said.With files from The Canadian Press
far cry,kilometres,plo
Related Articles
No user responded in this post
Leave A Reply
Please Note: Comment moderation maybe active so there is no need to resubmit your comments