FROM LANDMINE TREATY TO

10TH ANNIVERSARY OF MINE BAN TREATY CELEBRATION
FROM LANDMINE TREATY TO
HUMAN SECURITY
Panel Discussion, Sept 17th 2007
Oslo-Norway

Firoz Ali ALIZADA

Ladies and gentlemen!

25 years ago from now my villagers along with my family members had ran a way from the main road to rescue themselves from attack of soviet invasion, the ruthless soviets without any distinguishing between civilians and militaries butcherly were killing people and burning the livelihoods of everybody, that my family was one of those affected families, who lost all their properties. I was born during that hard period when my family was living in a tiny stony cave, 60 km far from our village on the Tashbig a rocky mountain in Shaikhali District of Parwan Province of Afghanistan to safe them from the invasion storms.

It means I grow up in a country where I have been witnessing the hundreds of different disastrous problem such as: invasion, civil war, door to door conflicts, genocides, domestic violence, the terrible Taliban regime, the terrible international Terrorism, suicide bombings and other natural disasters like: droughts and opium.

In 1996 I stepped on a landmine which was planted on a shortcut way to my school, I lost my legs and wounded my left hand, since then I have been campaigning for the safety of others who have not maimed so far and for the rights of those who affected and victimized by different causes.

In my short period of experience I have learned to encourage the affected and non affected Afghans to raise their voices to stop the on going tragedies and innocent casualties and protect their inherent rights and dignities.


It has been fruitful to campaign against any single disastrous weapons, but at the same time it has been very heavy, costly and time consumer, the inaccurate ammunition banned and will be banned but unfortunately after tremendous tragedies among the civilians. Why the weapons have been testing on civilians? Why the weapons have been testing on poor and developing countries? Who respond to the past tragedies and who is responding to the ongoing one? Indeed who assist the war victims, particularly the landmine and cluster munitions victims?

You all know, Afghanistan passed the nearly 3 decades of dark period, but the consequences of war still very seriously affecting the Afghans: the landmines still maims an average of 60 people per month, the cluster bomblets still maims the people, the armed groups still threat people, the illiteracy rate is extremely high and this problem is still ongoing for example: this year 60000 students applied to study in the universities, but due to lack of capacity of universities of Afghanistan only 20000 of them accepted, the health care services can not respond to the crucial needs of Afghans, the human rights advocates are in danger, the domestic violence is increasingly increasing, discriminations against women and other minorities are existing and hundreds of other challenges which have been hampering the development and human security of afghans and Afghanistan.

Today Afghanistan is not only a post-conflict country, the enemies of Afghanistan, the Taliban and the international terrorists still fight against the government, which highly affects the people, the poppy cultivation is growing up, in one hand affect the Afghans and on the other hand create problems in international relations of Afghanistan and for the humanity.

Today when you walk in Kabul city, you will see the depression on the face and eyes of Afghans, you will see the risks of suicide bombings threaten the Afghans, you will see the poverty which obligates the children to work on the streets and beg money, you will see the hundreds of people waiting under the hot sun but no one give them work to do and so on.

While I agree with the importance of the national security, but to secure the state do not automatically mean securing people, thus I strongly believe human security or individual security is much more important than any other attempts, the individual security can be implied by paving the way for a basic and safe life through provisions of heath care, education and work in a democratic atmosphere, these are the three main elements which could be an efficient way to begin securing the individual rights, beside protecting the individual from any political violations.

I don’t see any point to wait for the next inaccurate weapons and human violations, after thousands of innocent casualties, campaign and advocacy won’t be as effective as it is before the tragedies, the famous proverb says: “prevention is better than cure”

I will not be tired at all to campaign under the slogans of:
No landmine, No cluster munitions, No nuclear, No poverty and No human violations!

Thank you,