Gabon
signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997, ratified it on 8 September 2000,
and became a State Party on 1 March 2001. At the May 2001 intersessional
Standing Committee meetings in Geneva, Gabon distributed a document labeled as
Article 7 Report, Form A (National Implementation Measures). It indicated that
a national authority charged with implementing the provisions of the Mine Ban
Treaty is being established.[1]
However, Gabon is not known to have taken any domestic measures to implement
the Mine Ban Treaty. Its first Article 7 transparency report due on 28 August
2001 has not yet been submitted to the United Nations. An official at the
Permanent Mission of Gabon at the UN in New York said the delay is because Gabon
is not a mine-affected country, therefore writing the Article 7 Report did not
merit serious attention. He promised to take necessary action for Gabon to
fulfill its treaty
obligations.[2]
Gabon did not attend the Third Meeting of States Parties in Managua,
Nicaragua in September 2001. It did not participate in the intersessional
Standing Committee meetings in Geneva in January or May 2002. Gabon cosponsored
and voted in favor of UN General Assembly Resolution 56/24M on 29 November 2001,
promoting the Mine Ban Treaty.
Gabon has never produced or exported antipersonnel
mines.[3] In January 2001, a
Ministry of Foreign Affairs official told Landmine Monitor that Gabon has a
small quantity of antipersonnel mines for training
purposes.[4] A Gabon official
told a regional landmine conference in Bamako, Mali, in February 2001 that Gabon
has no stockpile of antipersonnel
mines.[5] The May 2001 document
states that Gabon does not possess antipersonnel
mines.[6]
Gabon is not mine-affected and there have been no reports of mine
casualties.
[1] Landmine Monitor has a copy of this
one-page document, which has the signature of Jean Ping, Minister of State,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and is dated 3 May
2001. [2] Telephone interview with
Alfred Moungara Moussotsi, First Counselor in Charge of Small Arms at the
Permanent Mission of Gabon to the United Nations, New York, 21 February
2002. [3] Landmine Monitor Report 2001,
p. 75. [4] Interview with Willfried
Otchanga, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Libreville, 26 January
2001. [5] Oral remarks during the
Article 7 workshop at the Bamako Seminar, 16 February 2001. Notes taken by
Landmine Monitor/HRW. [6] It states,
“Le Gabon ne possede pas de mine antipersonnel.”
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