THE UN Secretary General, Dr Boutros Boutros Ghali, voiced disapproval yesterday after delegates from 55 countries, including Ireland, adopted new rules on the use of landmines but ignored demands for an outright ban. The International Committee for the Red Cross described the accord as "woefully inadequate".
An inter governmental conference revising the landmines protocol of the 1980 UN Conventional Weapons Convention agreed to outlaw undetectable anti personnel (AP) mines and put tighter restrictions on the use of other "smarter" types.
But a total ban on AP mines, sought by more than 30 governments as well as the UN and the International Red Cross, will have to wait at least five years.
"I must register my deep disappointment that the progress achieved falls so far short of what I had hoped for at this review conference," Dr Ghali said.
"The next review conference of this convention will take place in five years' time," he said. "Our estimate is that, by the year 2001, an additional 50,000 human beings will have been killed and a further 80,000 injured by landmines."
Delegates observed a minute's silence to honour the estimated 14,586 people killed or maimed since last October when the new landmine protocol was initially scheduled to be adopted.
Mines kill or maim an estimated 25,000 people a year, or one every 20 minutes, and more than 100 million mines now lie buried or hidden in 64 countries.
The revised protocol, expected to come into force within a year, outlaws the use or transfer of so called "dumb" or undetectable AP mines, which are blamed for most of the slaughter in such countries as Cambodia and Afghanistan.
But critics say it encourages the use of more advanced mines which will still be permitted. Detectable mines, containing at least eight grammes of iron, can be used if properly marked, fenced off and guarded provisions that are rarely followed in the beat of battle.
Remotely delivered mines, modern munitions that can be scattered by artillery shell or helicopter, will have to self destruct within 30 days or, failing that, self deactivate with 99.9 per cent reliability within 120 days.
The pact extends the protocol's scope to include internal as well as international conflicts. It bans the export or import of dumb mines.
Shortly before the accord was adopted Pakistan dropped a threat to block it.
The conference chairman, Mr Johan Molander of Sweden, whose government was one of the first to back a ban, said that however strong the call for a ban, the "bottom line" of many governments was that AP mines must remain in their armoury.
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines said Britain, which announced its support for a ban last week but said it would still acquire new "smart" mines, was not being included on the list.
Christopher Bellamy reports from London:
Humanitarian agencies yesterday described the ending of the Geneva conference without a total ban on anti personnel land mines, as a "dismal failure".
A working group on landmines which includes Oxfam, Save the Children, Unicef and Christian Aid, said the decisions were "riddled with loopholes, delays and lack of enforcement. In essence, this is a mine layers' charter".