The Guardian 29 June, 2005
Australia undermines anti-landmine treaty
Anti-landmine campaigner, Dr Mark Zirnsak said that Australia had taken new steps that would undermine the integrity of the international ban on landmines treaty, to which Australia is a signatory.
In a speech to an international conference in Geneva to monitor the implementation of the Ottawa Treaty leading to a ban on anti-personnel landmines, the Australian Ambassador in Geneva said that whilst Australian troops cannot lay landmines they can provide military protection to the troops of non treaty countries — like the United States — as those troops lay the mines.
"This is a form of aiding and abetting those countries who have already thumbed their nose at the international attempts to stop the carnage landmines cause around the world", said Dr Zirnsak who is National Co-ordinator of the Australian Network to Ban Landmines and Director, Social Justice for Uniting Church in Victoria and Tasmania.
"It’s like Australian troops being on guard so someone else who is hiding a bomb in the ground — that could blow up an innocent family — gets away with it.
"It is holding the hands of troops who lay the same mines that Australia itself has banned. It is an action that undermines the very integrity of the Ottawa Treaty.
"One has to ask, why would a country like Australia want to help another country undermine a treaty banning the indiscriminate killing of so many people, when Australia itself has signed that treaty?"
The Ambassador, showing no shame, suggested that Australian troops might then benefit from the freshly laid landmines!
The Australian statement comes as the US government has said it will never sign the Ottawa Treaty whilst the Bush administration is in power.
On a more positive note, Dr Zirnsak welcomed the Australian government’s decision to accept that any landmine that can be set off by an individual person should be banned as being an anti-personnel landmine.
"This is a victory for common sense, even if the support for troops laying mines is nothing short of hypocrisy.
"Australia’s positive announcement should have put pressure on those governments that continue to manufacture anti-vehicle mines to accept a global standard that any mine that can be set off by a person is already banned. Instead, their announcement has undermined the veracity of the treaty itself", Dr Zirnsak said.
Until now the Australian government has been willing to accept that if a landmine is manufactured as an "anti-vehicle mine" it is not banned under the treaty even if a person stepping on it triggers it off.
Ms Kylie Russell, widow of the only Australian killed in Afghanistan said, "While the Australian government’s decision to change the definition of what constitutes an anti-personnel landmine is excellent, it is totally undone by their decision to support the laying of more mines by other countries who do not bother to sign the treaty.
"Only support for a total ban on anti-vehicle mines will ensure that other women will not be in my situation of losing their spouse to a weapon laid from a war long over", said Kylie Russell, whose husband, SAS Sergeant Andrew Russell, was killed by an anti-vehicle mine in Afghanistan.
Anti-vehicle mines are mines that blow up vehicles instead of people on foot. These are not banned under the Ottawa Treaty.
Uniting Church in Australia and the Australian Network to Ban Landmines remain concerned that anti-vehicle mines continue to kill and maim hundreds of civilians, humanitarian aid workers and peace-keepers each year.
For example, in October 2004, two humanitarian aid workers for Save the Children were killed when their vehicle hit an anti-vehicle mine in Darfur, Sudan.
"Anti-vehicle mines do not tell the difference between a school bus and a tank.
They kill and maim indiscriminately and go on killing for decades after the guns have fallen silent and the soldiers in a war have gone home", said Dr Zirnsak.