Last August, flowers were laid by the 12-metre-high wooden chair installed by anti-landmine organizations, in homage to one of their own, Princess Diana. In January 1997, seven months before her tragic death on August 31 in a Paris car crash, Diana travelled to Angola, the world's most heavily mined country after Cambodia.

In a few days, French footballer David Ginola, who plays with the British club Tottenham Hotspur, will undertake a similar mission to Angola under the sponsorship of the French Red Cross. Angola is said to be crammed with nine million mines laid during its 20 years of civil war.

The International Committee of the Red Cross praises the impact Diana's trips to Angola and Bosnia had in highlighting the wanton destructiveness of landmines, of which there are an estimated 100 million worldwide. The whole world has seen photos of the two boy amputees, one a Serb, the other a Muslim, comforted by the Princess in a village in Bosnia.

Diana's work helped nurture the huge international campaign against landmines, Which resulted in a Nobel Peace prize for US campaigner Jody Williams, coordinator of hundreds of organisations fighting for the cause. It also led to the signing by 129 countries in Ottawa last December of a treaty banning the weapons.

The United States, Russia, China and India, all big landmine producers, did not put their signatures to the treaty which enters into force six months after the 40th ratification. So far 32, mainly European nations, have ratified. ICRC spokeswoman Mary-Anne Andersen said the necessary eight ratifications could come in the next two months. ``Obviously, Diana and the British Red Cross raised awareness of the problem and she did a lot for the cause,'' Andersen said.

The 61-member Conference on Disarmament in Geneva has tried for several years to negotiate a treaty on anti-personnel landmines, but its member states have failed to reach a consensus on the scope of a treaty. Advances will likely be made in small steps, since the focus is currently on banning the `transfer' of mines, or their trade across international borders, but not their use or deployment.

Project coordinator Australian ambassador John Campbell said on Thursday at a pLenary session that China, Russia and Europe favoured treaty negotiations but that the group of 21 non-aligned countries still required further time to reach a decision.