Landmine Monitor Report 2003: Toward a Mine-Free World.

Landmine Monitor Report 2003: Toward a Mine-Free World, by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, publ. by Human Rights Watch, 2003, ISBN 1-56432-287-4, 826 pp., paperback, $45.00 (US). Copies can be ordered by going to http://www.icbl.org/lm/order/. The report is also available on-line at http://www.icbl.org/lm/2003/ report.html.

Landmine Monitor Report 2003 is the fifth annual report of the Landmine Monitor, a civil society-based initiative by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Landmine Monitor is the responsibility of a Core Group of ICBL members, including Mines Action Canada, to which Project Ploughshares belongs.

This report is a product of a global reporting network of 110 researchers from 90 countries. It contains information for every country on anti-personnel landmine use, production, stockpiling, trade, humanitarian mine clearance, mine risk education and mine survivor assistance. Landmine Monitor collects information and assesses the response by the international community to the global landmine crisis.

Among the key findings:

* As of 31 July 2003, a total of 134 countries were States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty, and another 13 had signed but not yet ratified, constituting more than three-quarters of the world's nations. Since the last Landmine Monitor report, nine countries joined the treaty including Afghanistan and Cyprus, which are both mine-affected.

* The only government to be added to the list of mine users was Iraq, as Saddam Hussein's forces used anti-personnel mines in the lead-up to and during the 2003 conflict in Iraq. The governments of India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Russia have all acknowledged using anti-personnel mines in this reporting period. It is also clear that government forces in Myanmar (Burma) continued to lay mines. There have been credible reports of use by Georgia, but the government denies it.

* Some four million stockpiled antipersonnel mines have been destroyed since the last Landmine Monitor report, bringing the total to more than 50 million in recent years.

* Landmine Monitor estimates that there are approximately 200-215 million antipersonnel mines currently stockpiled by 78 countries. Non-signatories account for all but about 10 million of those mines, including China (estimated 110 million), Russia (estimated 50 million), US (10.4 million), Pakistan (estimated 6 million), India (estimated 4-5 million), Belarus (4.5 million), and South Korea (2 million).

* In 2002 and through June 2003, there were new landmine casualties reported in 65 countries; the majority (41) of these countries were at peace, not war. Only 15 per cent of reported casualties in 2002 were identified as military personnel. In 2002, the greatest number of reported new casualties were found in Chechnya (5,695 casualties recorded), Afghanistan (1,286), Cambodia (834), Colombia (530), India (523), Iraq (457), Angola (287), Chad (200), Nepal (177), Vietnam (166), Sri Lanka (142), Burundi (114), Burma/Myanmar (114), and Pakistan (111). Significant numbers (over 50) of new casualties were also recorded in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Laos, Palestine, Senegal, Somalia, and Sudan.