With heads bowed, delegates from more than 100 countries at an international conference seeking a global ban on landmines paid a one-minute tribute of silence yesterday to the Princess of Wales.
Opening the proceedings, the Norwegian Foreign Minister, Mr Bjoern Tore Godal, said the death of Princess Diana, the world's most prominent campaigner against landmines, had made a deep impression.
"Three weeks ago, Princess Diana visited the minefields in Bosnia. Once again she demonstrated her deep concern for the millions of innocent victims and emphasised how important she felt it was to ban landmines," Mr Godal said. "We shall spare no efforts at this conference to achieve the goals she had set for herself."
The princess became the best-known supporter of the campaign for a worldwide ban on mines, drawing strong media attention when she visited mutilated victims in Bosnia and Angola.
She had been invited to attend the 19-day conference which will work on a draft text for a convention banning the use, export, production and stockpiling of antipersonnel landmines. A final treaty, if agreed, will be signed in the Canadian capital of Ottawa in December.
Ms Jody Williams, co-ordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, said Princess Diana had added a unique voice to the campaign. Her untimely death was a loss to the survivors of landmines, she said.
"However, we need to be very clear that the campaign is made up of pro-ban governments and 1,000 non-governmental organisations working in 60 countries," Mr Williams told a news conference. "It [the campaign] has been working for years and is about bringing about a ban. It is not about one person who tragically dies, it is about the 26,000 annually who tragically are maimed and killed by this weapon."
According to figures from the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, one person is maimed or killed by landmines every 20 minutes. An estimated 110 million undetonated weapons lay buried in 70 countries, mostly in developing countries.
Mr Godal told delegates it was vital to end the deployment of mines. For every single mine cleared, 20 new ones are planted, he said.
"Current new deployments of anti-personnel mines by far outstrip our mine-clearing capacity. . .The issue before you to stop the use of anti-personnel mines is therefore one of the most serious, pressing humanitarian issues of our time."
He said the conference offered an historic opportunity to reach an agreement that would significantly reduce the human suffering caused by the weapons.
"We are aware this problem cannot be fully resolved immediately.
"An international convention banning the production, stockpiling, transfer and use of anti-personnel mines will not effectively reach those mines that are already seeded," he said.
"Nor will it produce the technologies needed to render all of them harmless."
He said only a clear, consistent ban could produce an unequivocal international norm and compel nations to take the necessary measures to eliminate mines.
Eoin Licken adds: Ireland is represented at the Oslo talks by a senior Department of Foreign Affairs official. A spokesperson for the Department said yesterday Ireland was playing an active role "as one of the friends of the chair".
She added: "During the Irish presidency of the European Union, Ireland worked closely with Canada and others in a core group of countries committed to this fast track for securing a total ban on anti-personnel landmines."