Team:Edinburgh/mapxmlnetherlands



Netherlands <![CDATA[In part, frustrated by the lack of progress in the negotiations on the Landmines Protocol of the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) during the 1995-96 Review Conference, the Netherlands was one of the first countries to opt for a fast track procedure to ban antipersonnel mines (APMs). Growing pressure from Parliament and the Dutch public, which had been strongly influenced by the Dutch Campaign to Ban Landmines (an NGO coalition including Pax Christi Netherlands, MSF-Netherlands, Dutch Interchurch Aid and Novib), led to the change in the official Dutch position. But this change in policy did not happen overnight.

Mines and UXO from World War II continue to be found in the Netherlands even though the most recent Article 7 report states that there are no “mined areas” or suspected areas. The Dutch Army Bomb Squad and six commercial firms are involved in this work. The bomb squad receives 2,500 telephone calls per year about bombs (compared with 4,000 calls per year twenty-five years ago). In August 2000, a major clearance operation costing Dfl1 million was carried out on the beach at Zandvoort aan Zee, after an antitank mine was discovered. The last mine/UXO victim was in 1978.

Since January 2000 the Netherlands has served as chair of the Mine Action Support Group (MASG), which coordinates the mine action policy of the twenty-two most significant donors. Dutch Crown Prince Willem Alexander presided over the September 2000 meeting of the MASG.

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