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A paper on the problem of Landmines in Egypt
The Problem of landmines in Egypt:
1. The problem of landmines in Egypt has a particularly special and important dimension. Egypt is the most affected country by landmines which cause great loss in civilian lives and hinder the optimal benefit from all available resources in the areas where they exist. There are nearly 22.7 million landmines and other explosive remnants of war (ERW) planted in Egypt after the Second World War. This constitutes more than 20% of the total landmines worldwide, 17.2 million of which are in the western desert. Although this is quite a large number, it must be not be forgotten that the Egyptian armed forces alone removed 3 million mines from 387300Hectares in the Western Desert since 1981 with a cost of nearly 27 million Dollars.
2. The removals of such a large amount covering nearly 248 thousand Hectares require huge financial resources. They are therefore the greatest obstacle before achieving a great developmental leap in the areas where they are found whether through land reclamation for agricultural purposes or using them as tourist attractions or discovering mineral wealth. The existence of these mines and fissile materials has lead to many economic and social problems for Egypt. Due to the existence of these mines, Egypt was unable, throughout more than 60 years, to benefit from promising areas and the reclamation of nearly a million feddans of cultivable land was halted. Many national projects like the Qatara depression project which is equivalent in importance in benefit to the High Dam .were also impeded. The areas were the landmines were planted, specially the North Western Coast enjoy great oil and mineral wealth such as petroleum and Natural Gas. The problems of landmines lead to the contribution of the North Coast to 14%only of the total oil and natural gas production in Egypt. The area is also a rich reservoir of exported minerals, which provide self sufficiency with a potential for export. The areas where the mines are a center for demographic attraction and getting out of the narrow valley and creating a new developmental society between Alexandria and Matrouh . The mines also prevent benefiting the great tourist potential of the area which are provided by natural reserves and moderate climate besides Sahari and oasis tourism.
3. There is also an important human dimension for the problems of mines in Egypt. The mines have caused human deaths in inflicted areas. Statistics indicate that there were 8313human losses and casualties since 1982 within the Western Desert 696 of who were dead, 7617 wounded in addition to many unregistered cases. Moreover 50 cases of mine explosions victims were registered
4. with the beginning of the Ministry of Defense' preparation for a comprehensive plan to landmine clearing in Egypt, a major problem emerged regarding the region of Western Desert (the North Western strategic direction), which is the severe lack in information whether about the location of the landmines, their different types, or the places that might contain traces of war machinery. This induced the military forces to hold an international seminar for landmine clearing from the Western Desert at the Engineering organization in March 1983. The Seminar was attended by delegates from France, Germany, Britain, Italy, and the United States, some of which handed us some maps for some of the locations which contain landmines.
5.The Ministry of Defense prepared a map according to the information present in the documents sent by some countries. With the beginning of the process of exploring landmines, it was discovered that the documents contain little information about the real dimensions of the problem, although there were some maps illustrating the location of landmines, the Egyptian Military Forces faced numerous difficulties during the process of elimination, such as the lack of accurate records about the location of landmines, the over-a places due to weather conditions, the fact that proved the uselessness of the available maps. This, in turn, lead to widen the area of inspection, and consequently, the increase of the costs of their removal. The Military Forces defined it’s demands to resume the landmine clearing effectively. These demands include providing the required funding to remove landmines , introducing new landmines detectors for more than one meter depth, and scanning the second world war scene in order to determine the mined areas.
6- The National Council for Human Rights, in coordination with the UN Development Programme held an international conference for development and landmine clearing in the north-western coastal area. The conference was held in Cairo from 27 to 29 December 2005. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had participated - among other ministries - in helping the National Council prepare for the conference. The conference reached many recommendation including calling upon the developed countries and international organizations to provide Egypt with expertise, and advanced technological equipments that enable active and efficient contribution in the process and establish a fund to rid the north-western coast of the scourge of antipersonnel mines, provided that the fund is financed by the countries that were parties in the WWII together with other countries, organizations and international institutions. The conference also called upon non-governmental organizations to launch an international campaign to support the Egyptian efforts to clear the north-western coast from the landmines and highlight the issue from a human and development perspective. The participants also called upon Egypt to reconsider its stance which rejects joining the Ottawa Convention Banning landmines.
Second: the efforts exerted by the Foreign Ministry to mine-clearing:
7- Since the beginning of the 90s, the Foreign Ministry focused on raising the mines problem on the international arena, as one of the Egyptian foreign policy priorities. The Egyptian diplomatic missions abroad exert notable efforts to acquaint the international community with the dimensions of the mines problem in Egypt, and to raise the issue in all the international events.
8- The efforts of the Egyptian missions abroad resulted in providing symbolic assistances from the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. The missions also conduct contacts with the Japanese side to discuss the possibility of assisting Egypt in mine-clearing. In this context, a Japanese delegation from the University of Kiyosho visited Egypt to test the state-of-the-art electronic equipments for mines detection in cooperation with the Egyptian Military Forces.
9- In view of the shortage in receiving assistances, if compared to the gravity of the problem, the Foreign Ministry developed the Egyptian stance towards the problem in order to reach a comprehensive presentation of the problem, where the focus will be on the developmental and humanitarian aspects. This developed stance will replace the approach that focuses only on the responsibility of the country that laid the mines towards clearing them, in order to benefit from the assistances offered by other countries concerned with mine-clearing operations, and to encourage the countries which deny their responsibility towards laying mines on participating in funding such operations, through adopting the developmental approach, to facilitate investing in projects, where mine-clearing operations expenses are estimated in the feasibility studies.
10- As for the Ministry's cooperation with the international organizations, the Ministry succeeded, in coordination with the UN Secretariat, in arranging the visit of the UN Assessment Mission in the period from 12 to 22 February 2000, which aimed at assessing the mines problem in Egypt. The mission comprised representatives of the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS), UNICEF, UN Development Programme, and World Health Organization. The mission visited Al-Alamein and El-Ein El-Sokhna to find out the facts of the problem, and to review the national efforts exerted by the Egyptian Military Forces to clear this area from mines. The mission also met with a number of Egyptian mine victims, as well as ministers and officials to discuss the development policies and mine-clearing operations in the Northern and Southern areas, and the possibility of utilizing such areas in the fields of agriculture, tourism, mining, and petrol. The mission issued a positive report that highlighted the problem, its causes, and the role of the Egyptian Government and the Military Forces in facing it.
The most important recommendations of the Mission were:
a- Praising the Egyptian Military Forces efforts in mine-clearing operations.
b- Specific recommendations regarding the Egyptian needs in different sectors (health, injury rehabilitation, …)
c- The importance of the role of the international organizations and donor countries in providing technical and financial aid for landmine clearing.
d- Recommendation for establishing a Trust Fund in cooperation with the UN to deal with mine problem.
11- It is taken into consideration that the report was issued as an official document from the UN which is a neutral and objective authority. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry circulated the report to Egypt's missions abroad in order to be used in presenting the mine problem in Egypt in coordination with the activity and recommendations of the National Committee on supervising minesweeping which was formed upon Ministerial decree no. 750 for the year 2000, which was headed by the Minister of International Cooperation. The committee was renamed to be the National Committee on supervising the elimination of mines and developing the northeastern coast, . The members of the committee include ministries, governmental authorities, concerned governorates, and labour NGOs.
The Committee succeeded in establishing Trust Fund in cooperation with the UN Developmental Programme aiming at assisting the Egyptian Government in its special programme for development and minesweeping by receiving funds from the donor countries in addition to the private sector |