Colombian Singer Juanes Fights Land Mines

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Colombian rock star Juanes was staging a rare concert Wednesday at the European Parliament as part of his campaign fighting against land mines, a spokeswoman said.

He is the first musician invited to perform in the auditorium, which normally is reserved for EU parliamentarians and world leaders.

Accompanying himself on guitar, Juanes planned to sing five songs to support the

European Union's campaign for a mine-free world, and to raise awareness about the devastation wrought by anti-personnel mines in his homeland, parliament spokeswoman Maria Andres said.

Some 4,500 people have been killed by land mines in the past 15 years in Colombia, with a record 1,070 deaths last year, giving the South American country the world's highest number of land-mine deaths for 2005, according to the Colombian government's Land Mine Observatory. In 2004, Colombia was third, after Angola and

Afghanistan, it said.

Colombia — which has been divided by conflict among leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitaries and the army — stopped making land mines in 1997 and began removing them from areas surrounding 33 military bases. Warring parties, however, continue to lay more.

The EU is a key world donor in the fight against land mines. Last month, the

European Commission adopted a €17.5 million (US$21.4 million) program to help affected countries.

"We need the support of the international community to help the victims and to prevent more deaths and mutilations," said Juanes said, returning to Brussels where six weeks ago he held a concert on his world tour.

Juanes, who has won 12 Latin

Grammys and been named by Time Magazine in 2005 as one of the world's 100 most influential people, planned Wednesday to sing the song "Fijate bien donde pisas," or "Pay Attention Where You Step," Andres said.

For the event in parliament's massive semicircle auditorium, the speaker's desk had been removed.

Last year, European Parliament criticized the United States, Russia, China or India for refusing to sign the Ottawa Convention prohibiting the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of land-mines.