MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and Peru Coordinate Mine Clearance Activities

The mines date back to the days of the Pinochet regime

Defence officials from Bolivia, Chile, Peru and Argentina will be participating in a high level meeting to coordinate efforts for the elimination of anti-personnel mines which still remain in border fields of the four countries involved.

According to the Bolivian daily Cambio, the Bolivian Consul in Santiago de Chile, Walker San Miguel said the meeting is scheduled for next June under the auspices of United Nations. As part of that coordination effort, Bolivian Defence Minister Ruben Saavedra Soto recently visited Chile to visit on-field mine sweeping activities undertaken by the Chilean Army special groups.

Under the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty, over a hundred countries are obliged to mine clearance in their territories, including areas along borders. Chile is currently involved in mine clearance activities in the south of the country, close to the Argentine border. The explosives—both anti personnel and anti tank—date from the seventies, when the two neighbouring countries almost went to war over three disputed islands in the Beagle Channel, Tierra del Fuego.

Chile adhered to the Ottawa Treaty on de-mining in December 1997 and all the explosives planted during the regime of dictator Augusto Pinochet (1973/1990) begun to be cleared in 2005. “There has been a great advance on mine clearance along the Bolivian/Chilean border,” said Bolivian diplomat San Miguel quoted by Cambio.

Only a few weeks ago the Chilean Army announced the clearance of 5,799 mines in the extreme south of the country, to the north of Tierra del Fuego, next to the so called Primera Angostura (First Narrow) of the Magellan Strait. The field task was under the command of Captain Christian Wheeler Damianovic, head of the Chilean Army Demining Unit, belonging to the Vth Division, Pudeto Regiment.

Operations continue at neighbouring areas to Primera Angostura, identified as Bahía Azul and Faro Méndez. The next demining task involves the Province of Ultima Esperanza, particularly the road leading from Puerto Natales to the world famous Torres del Paine National Park, an area running parallel to the Argentine border.