TORONTO, November 4: With a push of a button and a swipe at US reticence on the land mine ban, Nobel peace laureate Jody Williams and Prime Minister Jean Chretien blew up the last batch of Canada's land mines on Monday.

The detonation at a weapons testing range outside Ottawa came exactly a month before delegates from about 100 nations are expected in the Canadian capital to sign a sweeping ban on anti-personnel mines.

Williams' remarks were pointedly aimed at a notable holdout, her native United States.

``We have all of NATO except for the US and Turkey. We have all of this hemisphere except the US and Cuba,'' she said before the ceremony.``I look at this equation and I say what does the United States bring, now, except itself? In my view that is still cold war period thinking that you have to have a superpower in order to make the world different.''

To prove its commitment to the cause, Canada has destroyed nearly 100,000 land mines over the past two years. The roughly 100 mines detonated yesterday were the last stockpile left except for mines being kept for instructional purposes.

Chretien and his Foreign Minister, Lloyd Axworthy, have been lobbying intensively to enlist more countries in support of the ban. Several major holdouts remain, including the United States and China, but Russian President Boris Yeltsin told Chretien last month that his government would eventually endorse the ban.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.