FILE PICTURE OF CHILEAN SOLDIER SEARCHING FOR LANDMINES, 2001-05-03 (photo)

A Chilean soldier searches for landmines in the Chilean highlands close to the border with Bolivia in this file picture taken in July 1999. Between 1974 and 1978, the Chilean Army and Navy dotted the sparsely-populated terrain along its borders with Bolivia, Peru and Argentina with 293 minefields containing between 250,000 and one million anti-personnel and anti-tank mines. The Chilean congress has ratified on May 3, 2001, the Ottawa Convention, an international mine ban treaty, obliging them to clear their territories of all landmines and destroy stockpiles in a maximum of 30 years once the treaty goes into effect. CD/RCS