South Africa was the
third country to sign the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997. In his address to
the signing ceremony, Foreign Affairs Minister, A.B. Nzo, noted that the ban
treaty “represents some of the best news in the field of disarmament as it
abolishes an entire range of conventional weapons. Early Entry Into Force of
the Convention must be a top priority to make our new international norm against
anti-personnel mines legally
binding.”[1] The National
Assembly ratified the ban treaty on 5 May 1998, and on 26 June 1998 South
Africa deposited its instrument of ratification, the twenty-first country to do
so and the fifth from Africa.
South Africa has been one of the most active African nations in the global
process to ban antipersonnel mines. On 20 February 1997, just days before the
Fourth International NGO Conference on Landmines in Maputo, Mozambique, South
Africa announced, effective immediately, a comprehensive ban on use, production,
and trade of antipersonnel mines, as well as its intention to destroy existing
stocks.
In June 1995, a number of South Africa NGO representatives attended the third
International Conference to Ban Landmines in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and, on their
return, the Ceasefire Campaign launched a coordinated campaign against
antipersonnel landmines. In early 1996, the campaign was restructured as the
South African Campaign To Ban Landmines
(SACBL).[2]
In May 1996, at the conclusion of the negotiations on the Landmine Protocol
of the Convention on Conventional Weapons, South Africa announced that it was
suspending use of antipersonnel mines, pending an evaluation of the military
utility of the weapon. However, it continued at that time to advocate
“smart” mines as the solution to the global mine crisis. Over the
course of 1996 and early 1997 South Africa’s policy shifted to one of full
support for a comprehensive ban, leading to the 20 February 1997 unilateral ban
announcement.
South Africa played a prominent role in the Ottawa Process. It was a member
of the “core group” of governments that took responsibility for
developing and promoting the Mine Ban Treaty. At the first treaty preparatory
meeting held in Vienna in February 1997, South Africa was the first nation to
speak, making a particularly strong statement in support of the Ottawa Process.
South Africa hosted the Organization of African Unity (OAU) conference on
landmines in Kempton Park in May 1997, a key meeting in building support among
African states for the ban treaty. South Africa’s Ambassador to the
United Nations in Geneva, Jacob Selebi, skillfully steered the ban treaty
negotiations toward their successful conclusion in September 1997 in Oslo,
Norway. South Africa has also supported or co-sponsored all key UN General
Assembly resolutions on landmines.
The roads to the ban was never completely smooth, however. A South African
Defense Department document dated 20 May 1997, described the possibility of a
global ban as "a tall order" and went on challenge "anyone doubting the
effectiveness of such an anti-personnel minefield, should try it
sometime."[3] South Africa
ratified the CCW on 13 October 1995, and its amended Protocol II on 26 June
1998. It is a member of the Conference on Disarmament, but has not been
supportive of efforts to negotiate landmine restrictions in that forum.
Production and Transfer
South Africa has in the past produced and exported
landmines, but the government, manufacturers and the South African National
Defence Force (SANDF) have been tight-lipped about how many mines were made,
where they were exported to, and when exactly the manufacture
ceased.[4] Some claim that in the
past South Africa was the largest African producer and exporter of
landmines.[5] South Africa's
mines have been found in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe and
exported further afield to Cambodia, Rwanda and
Somalia.[6] The U.S. Department
of Defense has identified South Africa as manufacturing six antipersonnel mines:
the R2M2; the R2M1; the Mini-MS 803; Shrapnel No. 2; the Type 72, a direct copy
of the Chinese Type 72; and the No. 69 Mk1, a direct copy of the Italian Valmara
69.[7]
South Africa also produced the “Ambush” mine which can be used
against “personnel, vehicles of low-flying helicopters,” and the
DEVA M8926A1 anti-handling device equipped with a self-destruct of
self-neutralization option.[8] It
produced the Demi, also known as M8943A1, a mine initiator or add-on fuse
designed to be “conventional pressure-activated anti-tank mines providing
an add-on magnetic sensing
capability.”[9] South Africa
also produced the following antitank mines: the “intelligent horizontal
mine;” the No. 8 and the Type 72 antitank
mine.[10] More recently, Ruetech
Defence Industries has developed the Superstop Area Denial Boom System (ADBS
145) for the South African armed forces. It was introduced to the defense
industry at IDEX 97 in Abu
Dhabi.[11]
In March 1994, the De Klerk government announced an indefinite moratorium on
the export of all landmines (both AP and AT mines). This was superseded
by the 20 February 1997 announcement of a unilateral comprehensive ban on use,
production, and trade of antipersonnel mines.
Stockpiling
The Minister of Defense in reply to a question in
Parliament on 15 May 1996 said that the SANDF has "a total of 311,179 landmines
in stock. Of these 261, 423 are anti-personnel types and 49, 756
anti-tank.” In May 1997 the South African Department of Defense listed
South Africa's stockpile as consisting of: R2M2 "blast" type anti-personnel
landmines, J69 "Shrapnel" type jumping anti-personnel landmines and number 8 HE
anti-tank mines.[12] It stated
that all of the standard South African landmines are "dumb"
(non-self-destructing) landmines. There were 186,408 AP mines (HE), 13,038
practice AP mines, 48,484 J69 Jumping mines; 2,059 practice Jumping mines; and
11,434 foreign mines making a total of 261,423
mines.[13]
A significant number of these mines were destroyed in a "big bang" ceremony
on the 21 May 1997. The remaining stockpiled antipersonnel landmines were
destroyed over a period of five months in 211 detonations which culminated in
the destruction of the last thousand on 30 October 1997. By then, the total
destroyed was 243,423.[14] It was
estimated that R1,18 million (U.S. $19 million) would be required to destroy the
AP mines but the actual cost is not known. An environmental study was conducted
before and after the destruction to ensure that as little cost to the
environment as possible would be done. South Africa prides itself on not only
having destroyed its stockpiles way ahead of the four year period provided for
in the Convention, but also for the fact that it was the first country to have
involved the media and NGOs as witnesses in various phases of the
destruction.
When South Africa announced its ban policy in February 1997, it also stated
that it would retain "a very limited and verifiable number solely for training
specific military personnel in de-mining techniques and for research into
assisting the de-mining
process.”[15] Since then it
has indicated that 5,000 high explosive AP mines have been retained for research
and development and 13,000 AP mines for demining
training.[16] South Africa also
vowed that demining training and research will be carried out under the
strictest government supervision and control.
Mine Use
Mines have been used in South Africa, though not
extensively. According to one source, South African security forces sometimes
placed AP mines on suspected ANC infiltration routes in northern and eastern
Transvaal.[17] Recently, various
sources including from the ANC's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) have
revealed new information regarding mine use in South
Africa.[18]
After its June 1985 National Consultative Conference in Kabwe, Zambia, the
African National Congress (ANC) conducted a low intensity guerrilla campaign and
opened up a new front in rural areas by laying a number of landmines on roads
and farm tracks. In response, the South African government repeatedly warned
the neighboring governments against allowing their territories to be used as
bases from which the ANC could operate and subsequently South African Defence
Forces personnel carried out "cross-border" raids into Swaziland, Lesotho,
Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
In a submission to the TRC in June 1996, retired senior members of the South
African Police argued that the decision by the ANC to engage in a landmine
campaign was a flagrant violation of Protocol 1 of 1977 of the Geneva Convention
of 1949 which the ANC had signed in 1980. "In their struggle to overthrow the
South African government, the ANC alliance resorted to one of the most
frightening and intimidatory, if not cowardly, forms of violence, namely the use
of landmines."[19]
Research by the Institute for Strategic Studies at the University of Pretoria
has revealed that ninety percent of the ANC’s landmine use occurred in
rural areas.[20] According to the
South Africa Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR), in 1986, 1,298 people were
killed in political violence, of whom forty-two were killed by landmines and
other explosives.[21] The
then-Minister of Law and Order claimed that between 1 January and 14 September
1986, seventeen landmine attacks were carried out by the ANC. The South African
government also claimed at the time that eleven people were killed in fourteen
landmine incidents in the Eastern Transvaal alone from April to November 1986.
Other sources list fifty-seven landmine incidents between November 1985 and
February 1991, of which thirty-nine landmines were actually detonated, fourteen
were detected and de-activated and another four destroyed by controlled
explosions. In this period, twenty-five people were killed and seventy-six
injured. It should be noted that it is often unclear in the sources whether
“landmines” refer to antitank and/or antipersonnel landmines.
According to South Africa police figures between 1991 and 1994, twenty-six
landmines were seized in South Africa in operations aimed to stem the illegal
weapons trade in Southern Africa and in particular the flow of illegal weapons
into South Africa.[22] In 1994,
the press reported that on 6 December an arms cache was seized in the Ingwavuma
district of Kwa-Zulu Natal containing among other weapons four TM7 landmines and
thirty-four PMN mines.[23] In
April 1995, police seized what was believed to the biggest and most
sophisticated arms cache of its kind found in the country, on a farm near
Pretoria. The cache included 15 Valsella antipersonnel landmines and one
Claymore mine.[24] In the same
month another large cache of weapons allegedly stolen from the South African
Police training center in November 1994 was recovered. Twenty-six Claymore mines
and two practice mines were amongst the arms
found.[25]
The number of landmines seized by police in 1995 showed an increase of one
over 1994.[26] In March 1996, a
cache unearthed near Bloemfontien included landmines and antipersonnel bombs.
In November 1996, an advertisement was placed in a daily newspaper's
"classified" section by a Cape Town-based man who described himself as a
commodities dealer. Under the R200 columns, the man advertised M-18 Claymore,
SPM, PMN and PMD-2 mines. He claimed that more than 200 had been
bought.[27] As late as February
1998, police raided and arrested exiled Albanian King Leka for the possession of
a large arsenal of weapons and explosives, including
landmines.[28]
Mine Action
South Africa is emerging as a leader in the field
of mine clearance equipment and believes that it possesses leading demining
technology and expertise as well as medical capability and experience to assist
mine victims. Mechem, a specialized engineering division/subsidiary of South
Africa’s state-owned arms giant Denel has since 1991 been contracted by
both U.N. and private electrical or road-building companies to demine in
Mozambique. In 1997, it was estimated that Mechem mine-clearance contracts in
Mozambique and Angola have brought in up to U.S. $5 million a
year.[29] In August 1997, the
South African government signed a R12 million deal with Mechem to clear
landmines along the Maputo
Corridor.[30]
In October 1997, it was reported that the United States was to order twenty
Chubby mobile mine-detection systems developed by the South African company,
Dorbyl Ltd (RSD Division).[31] The
same article said that the Chubby is being used by the French, British and
Rwandan forces as well as by IFOR in Bosnia.
South Africa’s involvement in demining has not been without
controversy. Besides the issue of “double-dipping”, which the South
African Campaign to Ban Landmines defines broadly to include demining profits
being earmarked for general arms production, Mechem’s Terra Limpa (clean
land) project in Mozambique recently received media attention because of alleged
bad labor practices. In addition, the SACBL has called on Mechem staff to come
clean on their apartheid past. A former member of Koevoet and the Civil
Co-operation Bureau units who is regularly employed by Mechem appeared before
the Truth and Reconciliation to ask for amnesty for his role in the killing of
anti-apartheid activists in 1985. Mechem’s property was also allegedly
used to store large caches of weaponry earmarked for the Inkatha Freedom Party
to be used before the first democratic general elections in
1994.[32]
A list of landmine incidents in South Africa is
available.[33]
[1]Address to the Signing
Ceremony by Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of South Africa, A.B.
Nzo, Ottawa, 3 December 1997.
[2]SACBL members include OXFAM,
the Group for Environmental Monitoring (GEM), the Anglican Church, the Catholic
Justice and Peace Commission and more than 100 non-governmental organizations
(NGOs), community-based organizations, religious groups and student
movements.
[3]Department of Defense,
Landmines in the Department of Defense. (SANDF, Logistical Division 20
May 1997).
[4]Weekly Mail and
Guardian, (Johannesburg), 10 May 1996.
[5]Human Rights Watch, Still
Killing: Landmines in Southern Africa (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1997),
p. 125.
[18]Political Conflict in
South Africa: Data Trends 1984 - 1988. (Durban: Indicator SA, 1998); Various
Press reports; the South African Institute for Race Relations' Race Relations
Survey.
[19]Submission to the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission by the Foundation for Equality Before the Law, June
1996.
[21]Race Relations Survey 1986,
Part 2, pp. 517-518.
[22]In 1991, nine landmines
were found; in 1992 - eleven; 1993 - none; 1994 - six. Chris Smith and Alex
Vines, Light Weapons Proliferation in Southern Africa, London Defence
Studies 42, (London: Brassey's and Centre for Defence Studies, 1997), p.30.