UN chief slams landmine threat after US announces Ukraine supply
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Antonio Guterres condemns the supply of landmines, highlighting its threat against civilians.
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Antonio Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General, speaks during a news conference at the COP29 UN Climate Summit, on November 21, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP)
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned Monday the "renewed threat" of anti-personnel landmines, coming just days after the United States announced it would provide such weapons to Ukraine during the war.
In a statement delivered to a conference in Cambodia focused on the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty, Guterres praised global efforts to clear and eliminate landmines.
"But the threat remains. This includes the renewed use of anti-personnel mines by some of the Parties to the Convention, as well as some Parties falling behind in their commitments to destroy these weapons," he said in the statement.
He urged the 164 signatories—Ukraine included, but not Russia or the United States—to "meet their obligations and ensure compliance with the Convention."
UN Under-Secretary General Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana delivered Guterres' remarks.
The Ukrainian delegation at the conference did not respond to AFP's questions regarding the US landmine supplies.
Ukrainian civilians probable victims of Biden's landmine approval
Earlier this week, a report by Responsible Spacecraft maintained that US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's claim that the anti-personnel landmines supplied by the Biden administration to Ukraine are safe is entirely false.
The Biden administration has authorized providing Ukraine with anti-personnel landmines for domestic use, reversing previous efforts to reinstate President Obama's ban on the use, production, transfer, and storage of indiscriminate weapons beyond the Korean Peninsula.
According to a US official to The Washington Post, the intention behind this reversal is to "contribute to more effective defense."
The landmines, prohibited in 160 countries under an international treaty, are likely to be deployed mainly in eastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian forces are fighting to hold off the continuous advance of the Russian military, as reported by Responsible Spacecraft.
The report emphasized that similar to the Biden administration's controversial decision to provide Ukraine with cluster bombs—an indiscriminate weapon whose unexploded ordnance can maim and kill civilians, especially children, for decades after use—this move may offer limited military upside. However, according to the report, this could pose substantial risks to Ukrainian civilians and is unlikely to shift the war's outcome in Ukraine's favor.
The Responsible Spacecraft report pointed out that despite the irony of making this announcement in a country where 30% of its land is still contaminated with unexploded ordnance from the US military, Austin brushed off humanitarian concerns regarding the weapon transfer.
