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| Tuesday, 13 January 2004 |
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The Japan Centre for Conflict Prevention(JCCP) has concluded an agreement with the Japanese Government to enable JCCP to carry out its task of full scale humanitarian demining operations in the Vavunia area. The Grant Agreement was signed between Japanese Ambassador to Sri Lanka Akio Suda and Eiki Sasai,JCCP Representative in Sri Lanka yesterday at the Japanese Embassy in Colombo. According to media release by the JCCP, its humanitarian demining project aims to secure peace and stability and to promote rehabilitation and development in Sri Lanka through securing safe land for Internally Displaced Persons. The overall objectives are to repatriate, resettle, and reorganize communities, and revitalize economic and social activities in the mine-cleared areas of Sri Lanka. This is the first attempt ever for a Japanese organization to engage in demining activities by organizing its own demining team with Japanese specialists and local deminers. To initiate this project, two of JCCPs staff have undergone training with the Danish Demining Group (DDG), an international mine clearance organization which is, in partnership with JCCP, to provide technical advisors for the project the release adds. Additionally, a JCCP field office has been set up in Vavuniya which will serve as the project's operational base. A team composed of 45 Sri Lankan staff will engage in mine clearance in the vicinity of Vavuniya from March 2004 for a period of ten months. The team will be supervised by one chief technical advisor from DDG and two Japanese technical advisors from JCCP. The JCCP is a Japanese NGO whose mission is to contribute to the prevention and mitigation of violent conflict and the prevention of its recurrence with a focus on the Asia-Pacific region. Since the JCCP started its operation in Sri Lanka in August 2000, it has carried out such programs as the Interfaith Peace Conference, Peace Building and Development Programmes, and Emergency Relief and Human Rights Education for the Police Force, in collaboration with local NGOs according to press release. Although the Japanese Government's assistance for JCCPs humanitarian demining project under January's Agreement is given for a period of one year, the JCCP would like to continue the project for at least three years in order to assure a tangible and substantial outcome. It is the JCCP's fervent wish that its humanitarian demining project will contribute much to the peace building process in Sri Lanka, the release adds. |
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