Second Annual Observance of International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action

In 1988 the United States helped launch in Afghanistan what was then termed "humanitarian demining," and in subsequent years extended its demining assistance to Cambodia, Kuwait, northern Iraq, Mozambique and elsewhere. In 1993, the United States established the world's most comprehensive mechanism to support the U.S. Humanitarian Mine Action Program worldwide. This mechanism involves the Department of State, Department of Defense, Agency for International Development's Leahy War Victims Fund, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since 1993 alone, the United States has contributed over $1.1 billion dollars through these agencies to help clear persistent landmines and explosive remnants of war, provide assistance to survivors of landmines and other war-related accidents, and teach mine risk education. Nearly 50 countries and regions have received various forms of such assistance from the United States: as a result, Costa Rica, Djibouti, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, Macedonia, Namibia, and Suriname have achieved mine "impact-free" status. Other major accomplishments include:

1992: The United States banned the export of anti-personnel landmines.
1998: The United States completed destruction of over 3.3 million of its non-self-destructing anti-personnel landmines, keeping only enough for the defense of South Korea and for training and research. Also, the United States joined with other donor nations to form the Mine Action Support Group (www.state.gov/t/pm/wra/c17719.htm ) to better coordinate mine action assistance.
1999: The United States removed its last permanent minefield, on its perimeter at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo, Cuba and ratified the Amended Mines Protocol to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (http://ccwtreaty.state.gov/ ).
2000: The United States joined the European Commission, Belgium, Canada, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Sweden to establish the International Test and Evaluation Program for Humanitarian Demining Equipment, Processes and Methods.
2004: The United States launched a new landmine policy, committing: to never use "persistent" anti-personnel or anti-vehicle mines after 2010; not to use non-detectable mines after 2004; to seek a worldwide ban on the sale of all such mines; and to continue research and development on self-destructing/self-deactivating landmines that cease to be a threat after battle.
2005: The United States ban on its non-detectable anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines went into effect.
2006: The United States and 24 other countries declared their intention to adopt humanitarian practices related to anti-vehicle mines, including to not use particular types of such mines outside perimeter-marked areas, and requirements concerning detectability, self-destruction, self-neutralization, and deactivation of anti-vehicle mines.

To learn more about the U.S. Humanitarian Mine Action Program, visit the website of the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at www.state.gov/t/pm/wra.

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