Bogota - Zenaida Rueda, a 36-year-old deserter from the rebel group FARC, experienced first hand the horrors of the landmines laid by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia she once belonged to. After nearly 20 years with FARC, Rueda fled with a hostage she was to have guarded.
Afterwards, she met her 26-year-old brother for the first time in many years, a former soldier walking on crutches after losing his foot in a FARC mine explosion. Television cameras captured their meeting as the one-time guerrilla fighter embraced her brother, a poignant moment in the 40 years of civil war that have plagued Colombia.
"Look what your friends have done to me," the brother said as he greeted his long-lost sister.
She distanced herself from FARC, saying they were once her comrades but no longer. She said she had never helped lay the mines.
"I did not know that you were in the military. Otherwise, I would have left FARC long before," she told her brother.
Landmine victims are to be heard this coming week during the review conference on the Mine Ban Treaty that begins Monday in Cartagena. Although 156 countries have signed the treaty, another 39 have not, with the biggest holdouts the United States, China, Russia and India.
Since the treaty came into effect in 1997, signatory states have cleared millions of mines. But landmines, along with cluster bombs and other anti-personnel bombs not included in the treaty, continue to plague people in more than 80 countries, according to the German organization Action Landmine.de.
Representatives of the 156 signatory states are gathering in Colombia's picturesque sea-side city to review progress to date, along with observers from Russia, China and the US.
The treaty, which was signed in Ottawa, Canada, mandates that signatories ban the use, production and storage of anti-personnel mines. Anti-vehicle mines are exempted from the treaty.
The United States, the only member of NATO that has not signed the treaty, signalled in recent days a possible change in its position. The US State Department said in Washington that its policy was under review, a process it said would take some time because it is the first look by the Obama administration at the policy since 2003, when the Bush administration declared Washington would not sign the ban.
The United States has not used or produced landmines in the 12 years since the treaty has existed but continues to keep stockpiles, which would be prohibited under the treaty.
The United States is the world's largest contributor to humanitarian landmine cleanup programmes. Since 1993, the United States has given 1.3 billion dollars to landmine removal programmes.
In countries with inner conflicts like Colombia, mines are cheap defensive weapons often used by rebel groups like FARC. They are easily transported and stored, cost only several dollars a piece and require no special training for use.
FARC and other rebel and paramilitary groups continue to lay new minefields to bar access to their regions by the Colombian military, a process that has speeded up in recent months according to Vice President Francisco Santos.
Mines are also laid to keep illegal drug plantations, and thus a major source of finance for the rebels, out of reach of the army.
According to official government figures, landmines and other anti-personnel bombs claimed 8,081 victims between 1990 and 2009 in Colombia. Civilians made up 35 per cent of the casualties, the remaining were army and police officers.
In the first six months this year, there were 370 victims - 122 civilians and 248 soldiers.
Colombian television sends constant warnings about landmine dangers. The campaign targets children as first priority, warning them not to pick up strange objects or step on them - even strange footballs, which have been known to be loaded with explosives.
Calling it the "height of cynicism," Santos described how rebels even demand payments of damages from farmers who step on FARC mines because they have destroyed a "defensive" weapon.
According to the president of the nongovernmental organization "Nuevo Arco Iris" (New Rainbow,) Leon Valencia, FARC uses mines not only as a defensive but also an offensive weapon, seeding fields with mines that can be activated remotely.
