Team:Edinburgh/mapxmlaustria



Austria <![CDATA[After playing a crucial role in the “Ottawa Process,” Austria signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997, ratified it on 29 June 1998 and the treaty entered into force on 1 March 1999. National legislation including penal sanctions had previously taken effect on 1 January 1997. The law is more stringent than the Mine Ban Treaty in some respects (destruction of stockpiles within one month of entry into force, prohibition of antimagnetic devices), but less stringent in other respects (omitting the ban on assisting others in prohibited activities).

At the Standing Committee meetings in February and May 2003, Austria described mine action as an aspect of sustainable development. It stressed the need for greater donor-recipient coordination and planning if the necessary long-term funding is to be achieved. It said that greater involvement of the private sector and of the public was also desirable. As a result of Austria’s early role in establishing the Mine Ban Treaty, humanitarian mine action became a priority topic with its own budget line. But this separated mine action from the Austrian development cooperation program. Austria now recognizes “that the mine problem is a ‘cross-cutting’ issue with many different aspects,” and in the near future hopes to reorganize the development cooperation structure to identify synergies between mine action and development programs.

On 17 July 2003, two bomb disposal experts were killed and another seriously injured while trying to excavate a World War II bomb in Salzburg. The Landmine Monitor is not aware of any mine casualties in Austria in the period 1999-2003. In November 1999, seven Austrian tourists were killed and three were injured by mines in Croatia.

In 2003, as in previous years, Austria continued to provide mine and UXO clearance teams as part of the international forces in Kosovo and the Golan Heights. Austria reports that it has a pool of some 75 personnel trained for humanitarian demining operations, using Schiebel, Vallon, MD8, Minelab and Minex equipment. In September 2004, the Ministry of Defense reported that Austria has an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team (five soldiers) continuously deployed within the KFOR unit in Kosovo, engaged in mine and unexploded ordnance (UXO) clearance. ]]> <![CDATA[]]>