China has helped nine countries train 230 personnel to clear
landmines since 1999.
Forty people from Lebanon and Jordan finished a three-month mine
clearance training course at Nanjing Institute of Technology on
Wednesday.
During their stay in China, they learned the theory and the
practice of mine clearance -- handling equipment and carrying out
mine clearance simulations, sources said.
Since 1999, three mine clearance training courses have been
organized for foreign personnel in China and Chinese experts
visited foreign countries three times to help them clear mines,
sources said.
China also donated mine clearance equipment valued at several
million US dollars to 11 foreign countries, sources added.
China has taken an active part in international de-mining
assistance programs in recent years. In 2005, ten de-mining
specialists helped train Thai personnel. In 2002 and 2003, China
sent two groups of de-mining experts to Eritrea for on-site
training and donated mine-clearance equipment.
In 2001, China donated detection and clearance equipment worth
US$1.26 million to countries such as Angola, Cambodia, Ethiopia and
Mozambique.
China joined the Mine Action Support Group, headquartered in New
York, in 2003. China and the Australian Network of the
International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) co-sponsored the
Humanitarian Mine/UXO Clearance Technology and Cooperation Workshop
in Kunming, Yunnan Province, in April 2004.
In 1998, China signed the amended Landmine Protocol of the
Convention of Certain Conventional Weapons, which struck the right
balance between humanitarian concerns and sovereign states' need to
be able to defend themselves.
(Xinhua News Agency December 21, 2006)
