SIMONOVIC: MINE CLEARING REQUIRES MORE MONEY AND COOPERATION

NEW YORK, Nov 17 (Hina) - The international community will have to secure much more funds and more efficient coordination of different activities related to the implementation of the Convention on Anti- Personnel Mines, Croatia's Ambassador to the United Nations Ivan Simonovic said in New York on Tuesday. Simonovic recalled that Croatia was among the first countries to ratify the Convention, adopted in Ottawa last year. Speaking at a UN General Assembly session, Simonovic said that it was of utmost importance to preserve cooperation between governments, international organisations and bodies and numerous non-government associations, which has marked and ensured the success of the Ottawa conference. There are more than one million anti-personnel mines strewn over 6,000 square km throughout Croatia. This makes our country one of the eight countries in the world which face the most difficult problems in mine clearing. Between 1995 and 1996, 580 people were injured or killed in mine related incidents, 102 of them being children, Simonovic said. The Croatian Government is financing more than 95 per cent of all demining projects and aside from the earlier earmarked budgetary funds, it has allocated another US$10 million for that purpose, Simonovic said. He called on international donors to provide financial help for the mine removal process in Croatia, adding that the help given so far had been symbolic. Simonovic also thanked the governments of some European countries, the European Commission and the UN fund for mine clearing for assistance. The EU Ministerial Council has recently awarded Croatia ECU435,000 for mine clearing programmes, Simonovic noted. Countries like Croatia have to invest a lot of money in the mine clearing process. Special attention will have to be paid to this problem during the preparations for the next international conference on mine clearing, to be held in Maputo, Mozambique, Simonovic said. (hina) rml