Deputy Minister of Defense of Nicaragua and Executive Secretary of Nicaragua's National Demining Commission—Maria Auxiliadora Cuadra

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In 1989, according to the records of the Nicaraguan Army, there was about one mine per square meter of land in Nicaragua making it one of the most heavily mined countries in the region. Because of this, in 1989, ten years before the Ottawa Convention went into effect, Nicaragua began its mine clearance activities. Demining activities were hard because Nicaragua had no records of where the regular forces had put their landmines, demining was being done solely based on the records of the army of Nicaragua. In 1992, the government presented The National Program of Humanitarian Mine Clearance to the OAS. This program aimed to clear all the mines in the national territory and also served as the basis of all future mine clearance activities. This program was re-established in 1997 to comply with the Ottawa Convention.

The National Commission of Mine Clearance is the coordinating body between International Organizations and the government based on the national legislation and the principles of international law. The president of the Commission is the Ministry of Defense that executes it mandate through the executive secretary and its function is carried out through the vice minister, such as myself. It is complicated to organize a bunch of people that represent governmental institutions and non-governmental institutions. In order to preserve the diversity of the group, we have created three sub-commissions to serve the mine clearance components such as mine clearance, mine risk education (MRE) and reintegration into society. These programs are actually represented by three women who are Vice Ministers of Defense, Health and Education.

The objective in creating this sort of coordination structure on the level of vice ministers was to give executive capabilities to the decisions and tasks that came from the President of Secretariat in the process of implementation at the national program of mine clearance. We still have some adjustments to make to be able to develop the mandate. Despite the progress that we have made, there are still great differences between the functioning and performance in the three sub-commissions. For example in the case of mine clearance, the Army of Nicaragua has had ten years of experience; they have the funds, goals and objectives different from the other two. The other two lack these resources, they do not have the funds, and sometimes they do not even have working plans. Traditionally the highest level of coordination has been focused on mine clearance and the destruction of mines, the second highest level has been devoted to humanitarian needs, that is, assistance and socioeconomic reinsertion of the victims into society.

It is for this reason that in 2000, the Ministry of Defense, who presides over the commission, decided to restructure this coordination to make the interior more representative through the creation of an executive secretariat. This Executive Secretariat who is in charge of the Vice Minister and the technical secretariat and evolving other institutions that up until now, have not participated in the national efforts, as well as committing the member institutions to fulfilling the mandates of this commission. This process is then confirmed by the President of the Republic through a President's Statement in which the humanitarian demining is considered a policy of the state. It is not just a proposal, or activity of the government in term. Part of this accessing the functioning of our commission is the level of coordination that was given by the government because it re-establishes a functional subordination of the other ministers of presidents of autonomous entities, army and police to the structures of this commission as well as to the stability and continuity that it has had.

It is also important to understand that we asked the First Lady of the Republic to become the honorary chairlady of the National Commission of Mine Clearance. By having her as a representative for our cause, we have received great support from many sides of society. The progress of the Commission has been undeniable in the last two years. It is good to say that the financial weaknesses in the different sectors and the different institutions, and the lack of national provisions have now been delivered in the levels that we like. This seems contradictory as I mentioned before the restraining financial policy of the state, however, we do not have a part in the state budget. This is due to our limitations in the budget of the nation due to our difficulties.

We have some recommendations for those agencies created in other countries. It is very important to have the financial approval of the state, to provide budget items for the issues. We always put this into our budget. Resources for mine clearance are limited in all of our countries. A creation of a center of mine action reasonably supported by financial resources could precipitate politically feasible actions. We need to engage civil and corporate agencies as we need to have our own resources to comply with the mandate to facilitate mine clearance and assistance to victims. In our case, due to economic limitations that have not allowed us to have the resources necessary, we have solved this problem with the international cooperation that has allowed us to strengthen the mine clearance center and the activities we have proposed. I would like to express our sincere acknowledge to Col. William McDonough for the valuable and prompt formalities before the donor countries, particularly the U.S.

Likewise, the main responsibility of mine clearance belongs to our governments. We believe that civil society as a whole and their regional organizations should continue playing the key role of solving and acting as catalyst of this combined effort. One thing we should take into account, those countries affected by mines, is that we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of wasting our time. The multiple benefits for us like this conference, is to be able to share the positive experiences and the negative lessons learned in order to avoid making the same errors we made in the past. Ms. Cuadra concluded by reaffirming Nicaragua's commitment to working with other states of the region, international organizations and non-governmental organizations to achieve more success in our common fight against anti-personnel mines.