Times of Central Asia
December 19

No official delegation from Uzbekistan participated in the 1st Central Asian conference on the problems of landmine use, held in Bishkek in November. The forum's organizer was the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, working under the framework of the 1997 Ottawa Convention Banning Landmines.

According to the Landmine Monitor's report, 82 countries have in some way suffered from landmines. Today three quarters of the world's nations have admitted that the long-term and negative humanitarian consequences of landmine use greatly exceeds its short-term military expediency, said ICBL coordinator Elizabeth Bernstein. She called on the governments of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan to join the Ottawa Convention.

Of the five former Soviet republics of Central Asia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan have already joined the convention banning the production, use, spread, and sale of antipersonnel landmines. By 1 March 2003, Turkmenistan had destroyed 700,000 landmines and said it had retained 69,200 landmines for training purposes, which contradicts the convention.

As of 31 July, 134 countries had joined the Ottawa Convention and 13 countries had signed it but not yet ratified it. During the past year nine countries, including Afghanistan and Cyprus (who have experienced the landmine threat), have become new members of the convention.

According to experts, 47 countries with a combined total of 200 million landmines are beyond the Ottawa Convention. These countries include members of the UN Security Council (the United States, Russia, and China) and the former Soviet republics. At the same time, 36 countries have suspended landmine production, 18 countries have completely destroyed their landmine arsenals, and 12 countries are doing so. Since 1992 the financing of anti-landmine measures totals US $1.7 billion.

The political situation in Central Asia in the 1990s forced Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan to use landmines to prevent the penetration of extremist and terrorist groups from Afghanistan. Experts think that at the time these measures were justified, although military efficiency was low since terrorists could easily bypass landmine fields. According to foreign reports, most landmine explosions in the world hit civilians, and only 15% of all landmine explosions in 2002 took place during military actions.

According to the First Deputy Foreign Minister of Kyrgyzstan, in the future the country may join the Ottawa Convention. "Today, however, there are two aspects of this problem," he said. "First, Kyrgyzstan has no money to delete and utilize landmines. Second, there are no alternative weapons to prevent armed criminal groups from penetrating into the country." In the diplomat's words, the Kyrgyz military plants landmines in difficult-to-access areas - mountain passes and peaks - where no people live or carry out any economic activity. At the same time, Uzbekistan has installed landmines in the densely populated agricultural areas of the Fergana Valley.

In June 2001 Kyrgyzstan passed a law creating a legal basis for landmine destruction and then started removing landmines from the Kyrgyz side of the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border. Uzbekistan did not do the same, and, according to some sources, since 2000 Uzbek landmines have killed nearly 100 Tajik and Kyrgyz civilians and many heads of cattle.

Tashkent says that landmines are a forced measure to combat extremist groups (particularly, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan), drug trafficking, contraband, and illegal migration. Independent Uzbek experts believe that this position made sense after the 1999 and 2000 terrorist invasions. After the September 11th events, however, the geo-political situation in Central Asia has completely changed. The US-led international anti-terrorist operation has eliminated the military threat from Afghanistan to the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. The presence of the anti-terrorist coalition air bases in Central Asia is a strong factor of the region's stability. In this situation, landmines no longer play a preventive role. There have been no reports of terrorists killed or injured from landmines, which proves a zero efficiency for "landmine security."

Landmines rarely prevent crime in border areas, as well as drug trafficking. So it's better to destroy heroin labs and trace drug traffickers than hope that landmines will stop the drug flow. According to the conference participants, drug traffickers know safe paths across landmine fields and use legal routes (border and customs checkpoints and motor roads) thanks to corruption from law enforcement agencies. So landmines do not create an obstacle to crime and drug trafficking.

Landmines also create a serious ecological threat, killing wild endangered species. These creatures do not know about state borders and cross them wherever they want. Landmines negatively effect ecological tourism since people are afraid to visit beautiful places where each step might be their last one. Landmines also make it impossible to use large land areas for agriculture, depriving people of a means of existence.

Military analysts think that Uzbekistan has the largest and best-equipped army in Central Asia, although the Tajik army has more combat experience gained during the recent civil war. Tajikistan, however, does not plant landmines along its border because it does not fear its neighbors.

Landmines separate Uzbekistan from its neighbors. They kill and injure innocent people who thus suffer from the government's inability and unwillingness to solve problems through peaceful and democratic methods. As long as landmines remain in the border areas, all the people of Central Asia, especially in Uzbekistan, are their hostages.

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