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Campaign to Ban Landmines
Email Newsletter
October 2005
In this edition. . .
Quake may have shifted landmines
From correspondents in Srinagar
October 20, 2005
THE devastating October 8 earthquake may have shifted thousands
of landmines planted by Indian and Pakistani troops along their
disputed Kashmir border, a group warned Thursday.
"We are very much concerned," said Shafat Hussain of Global
Green Peace, a non-government organisation that has worked since
1998 to persuade India and Pakistan to demine the region.
"There are thousands of mines out there threatening to take
human lives."
Mr Hussain said areas along the de facto border, the Line of Control
(LoC), are "heavily mined" on both the sides.
"As the earthquake triggered massive landslides along the Line
of Control, it must have surely relocated these mines," he
said.
"We are told that respective armies do keep a proper map of
the planted mines, but those maps will not help, given the devastation."
To read the full article, go to: www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16980856%255E1702,00.html
USCBL Steering Committee Members, Adopt-A-Minefield and Landmine Survivors Network, Launch That Landmine Thing Campaign
UNA-USA's Adopt-A-Minefield and Landmine Survivors Network invite
you to join us for our official launch of the 2005/2006 That Landmine
Thing campaign at 6:30pm on November 3, 2005 in Chicago. Loyola
Academy will be hosting the event on its Wilmette campus (1100 Laramie
Avenue), and the evening will consist of a speaking engagement and
question and answer discussion featuring the campaign's new Youth
Ambassador, Farah Ahmedi.
Farah, a 17-year-old landmine survivor joined the campaign after
winning Good Morning America and Simon and Schuster's "The
Story of My Life" contest. Farah was seriously injured by a
landmine in Afghanistan at the age of seven; she lost her left leg
and her right leg was fused at the knee. Soon after returning home
following two years of rehabilitation in Germany without her family,
Farah's father and two sisters were killed by a rocket strike on
their home and her two brothers fled Afghanistan and disappeared.
Despite her condition, Farah and her mother eventually traveled
over the mountains into Pakistan and lived there for several years
as refugees. They were finally rescued and relocated by World Relief
to Wheaton, Illinois in 2002.
That Landmine Thing is a student campaign to raise funds to clear
minefields, assist survivors, and raise awareness about the landmine
problem. The campaign currently involves over 1,000 schools and
has raised over $222,000, clearing five minefields in Cambodia and
Bosnia-Herzegovina, and providing survivors with appropriate medial
care, peer support, and the means for establishing an ongoing livelihood.
Funds raised from the 2005/2006 campaign will be used to sponsor
a demining team in Afghanistan and to help thousands of survivors
in Farah's name.
PLEASE REGISTER FOR THE EVENT AT: www.landmines.org/getinvolved/studentaction/tlt_launch_event_reg.cfm
VVAF and Viet Nam join forces on landmine survey; Former foes join forces on landmine survey
Viet Nam News
October 17, 2005
HA NOI — A project assessing the impact of landmines left
by the American War in three central provinces has completed its
first phase, the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF) and
Viet Nam’s Defense Ministry announced last Friday.
"Destruction does not stop when conflict ends, and this is
especially telling of circumstances in Viet Nam today. This survey
represents an extraordinary milestone in US-Viet Nam relations,"
said VVAF President and Viet Nam veteran William Belding. "As
both nations still face the legacy of this war, we hope that our
continued partnership will further reconciliation efforts and result
in effective rehabilitation programmes for victims of landmines
and unexploded ordnance."
Funded by the US Department of State Office of Weapons Removal and
Abatement, the US$1.2 million pilot study was a joint project of
the Defense Ministry’s Technology Centre for Bomb and Mine
Disposal and VVAF’s Information Management and Mine Action
Programmes (iMMAP).
The pilot project assessed the impact of landmines and unexploded
ordnance in the central provinces of Ha Tinh, Quang Binh and Quang
Tri, believed to be the most heavily affected, said iMMAP Director
Bill Barron at Friday’s meeting in Ha Noi.
Landmines in the three provinces caused an average of 403 deaths
and injuries per year from 1975 to 1999, an average which has fallen
to 106 per year over the past five years, the survey said.
To read the full article, go to: http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showarticle.php?num=02SOC171005
To read another article about the report from Agence France-Presse,
go to: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051014/hl_afp/healthvietnamusmines_051014185344
Clearing Landmines Imperative for Economic Recovery
Private-public partnerships can help, Secretary of State
Rice says
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is drawing attention to the
fact that landmines and other abandoned weapons impede the efforts
of nations trying to recover from years of conflict.
Speaking in a videotaped address to the National Conference for
Landmine Action in Chicago, Rice said landmines and other abandoned
weapons “kill or maim thousands of innocent men, women and
children each year.” The existence of such weapons, she said
impede recovery efforts in places like Angola.
But the situation in Angola, and elsewhere, is improving, Rice said,
as a result of organizations such as the Chicago Coalition for Landmine
Action. The coalition, along with the State Department’s Office
of Weapons Removal and Abatement, sponsored the October 6-7 conference
designed to show organizations how to raise funds effectively for
clearing and reclaiming land that was previously mined.
More than 150 organizations attended the conference. A full list
of attendees is available on the State Department Web site.
More information about U.S. policy on removing landmines is highlighted
in the U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda electronic journal, Protecting
Lives, Restoring Livelihoods: The U.S. Program to Remove Landmines.
To read Sec. Rice’s full speech go to: www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/55202.htm
Braving frostbite, death to destroy land mines:
Removing land mines high in Chile's Andes mountains is a hard, cold job that can take the breath away
Miami Heralde
Tyler Bridges
Tambo Quemado, Chile
At 15,321 feet above sea level, the Chilean soldiers face a hellish
task removing land mines sown around these Andean peaks a generation
ago by a paranoid dictator.
Snow storms blanket the minefields. The wind howls. A 40-foot cascade
of ice dangles from a leaky water tower. Although it is spring in
the Southern Hemisphere, the thermometer reads 20 degrees Fahrenheit.
And the air is so bereft of oxygen that walking up a flight of stairs
can leave visitors breathless and with a splitting headache.
But it is here at Tambo Quemado -- a bleak spot 300 yards from the
border with Bolivia -- that 29 Chilean soldiers are spending six
days a week trying to deactivate or destroy 4,410 deadly mines.
They are part of a stunning 120,000 land mines laid by Gen. Augusto
Pinochet's military regime in a little-known effort begun in 1973
to protect Chile's borders in the years after the bloody coup that
overthrew President Salvador Allende.
By definition, removing land mines is dangerous work. Deactivating
2,000 mines leads to one injury or death on average internationally,
according to Col. Gunther Siebert.
An anti-personnel mine exploded Saturday morning, blowing off part
of a corporal's toe. He is in the hospital recovering.
To read the entire article, go to: www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/2005/10/04/news/world/americas/12809530.htm
For more information on the US Campaign to Ban Landmines, go
to www.banminesusa.org
U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines
c/o Friends Committee on National Legislation
245 2nd Street NE
Washington, DC 20002
phone: (202) 547-6000
fax: (202) 547-6019
Email: landmines@fcnl.org
To make a donation to the US Campaign to Ban
Landmines go to: www.banminesusa.org/support/body.html
and click on Donate. |
