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Australia bans landmines, calls for global abolition

CANBERRA: Australia on Monday banned its military from using anti-personnel landmines and declared support for a global ban on the weapons which kill or maim on average more than 25,000 people a year around the world.

Reversing the former Labor government's stand, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Defence Minister Ian McLachlan said in a statement Australia's move would add weight to the international push for a ban on landmines.

"Australians are rightly dismayed at the daily tragedies which indiscriminately-sown landmines wreak on innocent civilians, often in areas which have long ceased to be battle zones," Downer said.

"By joining the small but growing number of countries which have suspended the use of landmines by their national defence forces, Australia hopes, by the example it sets, to add its weight to the international campaign for a global ban on the use, transfer, production and stockpiling of landmines -- that is, their total elimination as a weapon of war.

"Australia will work internationally for the achievement of such a ban."

McLachlan said the ban on landmine use by Australia's military would be immediate.

But the armed forces have not used anti-personnel landmines for several years and the move is largely symbolic.

"It is appropriate for a country with Australia's strong humanitarian record to demonstrate leadership on this issue," he said.

The former Labor government, ousted by the Liberal-National conservative alliance in a March 2 national election, rejected a total ban on landmines as impractical and pushed instead for tougher controls on their use.

There are an estimated 100 million landmines buried around the world, many in wartorn Cambodia and Afghanistan where thousands of civilians have been killed and injured and large tracts of agricultural land rendered useless, according to international aid agencies.-Reuter