LM Report 2003

Cape Verde

Cape Verde signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 4 December 1997, ratified on 14 May 2001, and the treaty entered into force for the country on 1 November 2001. It is not known if national implementation measures are in place, as Cape Verde has not yet submitted an Article 7 transparency report. In March 2003, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Landmine Monitor that “the necessary steps will soon be taken” to submit the report.^[1] Cape Verde did not attend any Mine Ban Treaty-related meetings in 2002 or the first half of 2003, but on 22 November 2002 it voted in favor of UN General Assembly Resolution 57/74, promoting universalization and implementation of the treaty. Cape Verde is a member of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) and its Amended Protocol II, but it did not attend CCW meetings in December 2002. In March 2003, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official confirmed that Cape Verde does not maintain a stockpile of antipersonnel mines and is not mine affected, “since this weapon simply does not exist on Cape Verdian territory.”^[2]

[1] Telephone interview with Severino Almeida, Director, General Directorate of External Policy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 27 March 2003.
[2] Ibid.