Volume 3   Issue  36                        November   2004

                 

Foreign Minister Launches 'Demining Week'
 allAfrica.com November 15, 2004

Mozambique's demining programme has resulted in the destruction of over 38,000 anti-personnel land mines, and 35,000 other items of unexploded ordnance, Foreign Minister Leonardo Simao announced in Maputo on Monday.

Launching a "Demining Week", under the theme "For a world Free of Land Mines", Simao said that an area of 57 million square meters has now been cleared of mines.

In addition, as part of the country's obligations under the Ottawa treaty banning anti-personal mines, the Mozambican Armed Forces (FADM) have destroyed their remaining stocks, which had totaled 37,878 mines.

Thanks to the mine clearance, said Simao, "it was possible to open new schools, health posts, roads, bridges, wells". Such undertakings as the gas pipeline from Inhambane province to South Africa, and the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Park, had also depended on demining, he added.

To achieve these results, the government had relied on support from its cooperation partners, whose contribution to demining now stood at over 95 million US dollars. The idea of a "Demining Week", said Simao, arose when the International Campaign to Ban Landmines asked the government for authorization to launch its 2004 report, covering the last five years, in Maputo.

The government immediately agreed, and the report will be unveiled on Wednesday. Furthermore, Simao added, at the end of this month the first review conference of the Ottawa Convention will be held in Nairobi. Through the "Demining Week", the government hoped to bring awareness of these events to a wider public.

Monday's ceremony also saw the launching of the magazine of the National Demining Institute (IND). Entitled simply "Desminando" ("Demining"), the magazine has a print run of 6,000 and will be published three times a year.
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