Venezuela

Since October 1999, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has been a State Party to the Anti-personnel Mine Ban Convention, which it signed 3 December 1997, and ratified 14 April 1999. Upon ratification of the convention, the document became a national law of Venezuela. At the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in 2004, Venezuela announced that it had fulfilled its duties to the Convention in 2003, destroying 47,189 AP mines and keeping 5,000 landmines for military training. The country also announced that it had enacted the Disarmament Act in 2003, which sought to eliminate the illegal possession of small arms/light weapons from the public sector. Despite complying with certain aspects of the Ottawa Convention by ratifying it and meeting deadlines for stockpile destruction, the Venezuelan military continues to violate the Convention by using landmines around several military bases