Malaysia could use its influential leadership to help make the region free of anti-personnel landmines, said a Canadian lobbyist today.

According to a Bernama report, former Canadian Chief of Defence Staff Gen (Rtd) Maurice Baril said Malaysia could play an important role in convincing Singapore and Vietnam to abandon their anti-personnel landmine producing capabilities.

Malaysia could also help in persuading Myanmar against using the deadly device, he told reporters after giving a talk at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) in Kuala Lumpur.

He said Singapore, Vietnam and Myanmar were not parties to the Ottawa Convention which prohibits the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of anti-personnel mines and on their destruction.

"We planted seeds of doubt so that they could re-think about their decisions," he said.

Baril said a total of 147 countries have joined the 1997 convention and about 50 countries including the United States (US), Poland, Serbia, Libya and Egypt have yet to ratify the convention.

The US, China, India and Pakistan still had a large stockpile of the anti-personnel landmines while Myanmar, Nepal and Russia were still using the landmines lately, he added

"The United States has stated that it will not be joining. However, the US is not part of the problem and solution," he said, adding that the US had no longer produced or sold the weapon.

WMD and landmines

He said the signatory countries destroyed more than 37 million stockpiled mines and more than US$2 billion had been generated globally for efforts that were consistent with the convention's aims.

The convention, pioneered by Canada, aims at ridding the world of one of the greatest threats to human security.

Asked what was the point of eliminating the world from anti-personnel landmines while weapons of mass destruction (WMD) still existed, he said: "Authorisation for use of WMD can only be made at the highest level but anti-personnel landmines could be placed by anybody and anywhere and they could not differentiate between friends and foe,"

Baril said it cost only a few dollars to plant the devise but took about US2$ million to clear an area of a square kilometre regardless of one or 200 anti-personnel landmines being planted in that area.