MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

OAS support for mine clearance in Chile.

The Organization of American States, OAS, will provide technical assistance to Chile for the elimination of antipersonnel mine inventories. An agreement was signed this week in Washington under which OAS will help Chile “with the elimination of stockpiles, acquisition of special equipment and obtaining international financial support for mine clearance operations”.

Chilean Ambassador before OAS, Esteban Tomic said his country was committed to becoming totally mine-free in two years ahead of the deadline set by the Ottawa De-mining Convention that bans the manufacture, storage, deployment and trading with anti-personnel mines.

Luigi Einaudi, OAS Deputy Secretary General indicated that in recent years the organization had helped with the destruction of over 560,000 of these deadly explosives in countries such as Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru.

Ambassador Tomic stressed the importance of international cooperation in mine clearance and especially thanked Canada for the financial funding and appealed to other members of the world community to support this "very important initiative".

"We must remember that all OAS countries are committed to making America a region free of antipersonnel mines", said Mr. Tomic.

Last month Chile cleared most of the mines it planted during the seventies along the Bolivian and Peruvian border. A similar operation is expected in the coming months in the southern border with Argentina.