|
|
|
 |
World Landmine News
Videotaped Remarks by Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan
Ending the Tragedy of Landmines Through Innovation and Cooperation
Mine Action Conference sponsored by U.S. Department of State, Rotary International, JMU Mine Action Information Center
Seattle, Washington—September 30, 2002
Rotarians, international guests, and mine action partners, I deeply regret that longstanding commitments prevent me from being with you today. I extend my thanks to the State Department’s Office of Mine Action Initiatives and Partnership and Rotary International for the vision and sponsorship that has brought us to Seattle today. And we welcome the United States’ commitment to provide resources for demining and victim assistance worldwide.
Our mission is crucial. And you know well the challenge: tens of millions of landmines buried in over 80 countries. Every hour of every day new mine victims. 80% are civilians and fewer than 10% have access to proper medical care and rehabilitation.
We celebrate the selfless commitment of those who get mines out of the ground and the courageous survivors who struggle to recover and heal. Deminers are heroic individuals who put their lives on the line to detect and defuse this dangerous debris of war. Groups like Landmine Survivors Network work tirelessly to provide humanitarian assistance to mine victims, helping to heal the injured by offering the tools to reclaim lives and rebuild communities.
Today, we applaud Rotary International—our emerging partner in mine action. For over one hundred years, Rotary’s network of volunteers has worked to advance understanding, goodwill and peace. You are a global community: 1.2 million professionals in 160 countries, who are united in a commitment to service.
I admire the Rotarian promise to solve problems that destroy lives and trample dreams and human potential. Who could not be impressed by “Polio Plus”—the most ambitious humanitarian program ever undertaken by the private sector? With partners like the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers For Disease Control and UNICEF, Rotary International will help eradicate polio by 2005. The campaign is on track and I believe Rotary will achieve its goal.
Already the Rotary Club in Bosnia is working with Landmine Survivors Network to provide children with prostheses, clothes, food, housing, and education. This model program demonstrates the Rotary commitment to serve, helping victims to heal, recover and live with dignity.
The Middle East has been called the landmine heartland of the world. It is estimated that since World War I, 30 to 50 million mines have been buried from Morocco to Afghanistan. After peace is declared and armies go home, landmines--the leftover litter of war—remain.
10% of Jordanians live in areas that landmines have rendered desolate and deadly. His Majesty King Hussein set the goal of a landmine-free Jordan by the year 2000. In 1998, we committed to ban the use of antipersonnel mines, to destroy our remaining stockpiles, and to de-mine all of Jordan.
We are not yet there, but a third of the 300,000 mines have been cleared.
Too often on my trips to mine-affected countries from Colombia to Lebanon to Vietnam, I talk to the mothers who have watched a mine kill or disable their child. The landmine is an equal opportunity weapon: It kills and maims Shiites in Iran; Sunnis in Afghanistan; Christians in Nicaragua; and Buddhists in Cambodia and Laos. They maim and kill all ages, genders, religious and ethnic groups. There is no difference between a soldier, a young mother carrying her new baby, and a child skipping across the schoolyard.
Landmines threaten peace. They impede political and economic recovery. Efficient and effective mine clearance is a first step in the marathon of conflict recovery.
Afghanistan is a case in point. The reality of living in one of the most heavily mined countries is brought home by the story of Zainaba and her family. They were nomadic sheepherders who had pitched camp near Kandahar. Early one morning, there was a deafening explosion… Zainaba heard her eldest daughter screaming in the darkness. Her granddaughter ran out of the tent to help. There was another explosion. As the darkness began to lift, Zainaba saw her daughter and granddaughter lying on the ground, screaming, and covered with blood. She could see that each had lost her legs. By sunrise, both daughters were dead, and all her sheep had been killed as well. In her anger and grief, she picked up one of the mines lying near her tent and raised her arm to throw it against the ground. The mine exploded in her hand. Zainaba is now blind and has no fingers on her right hand.
This summer, President Karzai committed Afghanistan to the historic Mine Ban Treaty. I applaud this courageous act to prevent future tragedies such as Zainaba’s.
Too often, landmine survivors not only face amputations and blindness, but in many countries in the developing world they also face social and cultural stigmas as people with disabilities. Survivors are denied jobs, excluded from schools, considered unfit for marriage, and even barred from religious practices.
Landmines are a man-made disease, an epidemic—germs of terror that threaten tens of millions of people. The good news is that we know the cure—destroy stockpiles, clear minefields, and help the victims. Rotary International, with its extensive experience in eradicating another global epidemic—polio—and its commitment to champion economic opportunities for people with disability, is the ideal mine action partner.
Partnership comes in all shapes and sizes—between the UN and local communities; between corporations and NGOs; between survivors and their families; between de-miners and their loyal dogs, and between Rotary and the mine action community. Resources will be pooled, and together we will discover creative ways to cure the landmine disease that infects land and kills people.
I entreat all here today to launch new partnerships and welcome Rotary International as builders of a mine-free world. This powerful partnership will save lives, strengthen efforts to build peace and global interdependence.
The Prophet Mohammed said, “The removal of things that cause suffering from the path is a good deed.” Our new mine action partnerships will heal the wounded and remove mines from our global path. Our partnership is bound to succeed. I look to a time in the near future, God willing, when we will come together again, and celebrate the success of our collaborative good deed…a mine-free world.
Thank you.
Posted: Tuesday, October 1, 2002
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
