| U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines In this edition. . .
More than 300 landmine victims in Iraq Agence France Presse More than 300 people have been killed or wounded by landmines or unexploded ordnance in southern Iraq since August 2002, a government survey said Thursday. “More than 300 recent victims of mines and UXO (unexploded ordnance) have been recorded in just four of the 18 governorates of Iraq,” said a statement by Iraq's ministry of planning and development cooperation and the UN Development Program. About two-thirds of the victims were killed, the rest were wounded, said Kent Paulusson, a UNDP representative involved with the study, which interviewed families in southern Iraq from August 2004. In addition, many Iraqis who fled their homes during the Iraq-Iran war, the 1991 Gulf War and the US-led invasion in March 2003 were not returning because of dangers posed by such explosives, said Behnam Puttrus, Iraqi deputy minister of planning and development cooperation. “In many parts of the country, contamination is hindering the safe return of internally displaced persons and refugees,” Puttrus said in a statement. “The well-being of the civilian population is threatened by denying access to valuable resources.” More than 300 towns were found to have various levels of contamination of the more than 2,300 visited in the four governorates of Basra, Al-Samawah, Thi-Qar and Missan. Once the survey is complete, mine groups would need funding and help from other countries to clear the explosives, said Salomon Schreuder, a senior UNDP advisor. “This is a humanitarian issue and needs all concerned players to collaborate in dealing with it,” Schreuder said. Mines force town to walk fine line; The story of a Colombian village that persuaded guerrillas to remove their land mines from a road shows how mines are both deadly and divisive. By: STEVEN DUDLEY The dirt road between the villages of Micoahumado and La Caoba covers only about six miles through some steep hills in central Colombia that have long served as a home to leftist guerrillas. Jagged rocks, sandy gullies and numerous switchbacks make it a hard trip by any means. But it is the only road between the towns, so when the rebels laced it with land mines a couple of years ago to block incursions by their enemies, area residents complained to guerrilla leaders in the hope that it would set a precedent in the fight against a weapon that is quickly becoming one of Colombia's leading killers. Instead, the efforts to clear the road of mines have brought more problems. While the negotiations with the rebels built trust between the villagers and the guerrillas, they aroused murderous suspicions among right-wing paramilitary forces and widened the divide between the locals and the army. “There's no way to live in peace . . . around here,” said 12-year-old Yesid James, who was running up a hill when his friend stepped on a mine and it blew up in the boys' faces. Both survived, but Yesid still has shrapnel in his knee and stomach. The story of the Micoahumado road starts where most stories in Colombia do -- in war. Colombia's has lasted for more than four decades, during which leftist guerrillas, the government and illegal rightist paramilitary groups seeded at least 50,000 mines throughout half of the country, most of them in the last five years. To read the complete article, go to: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/11874610.htm 25 People Killed After Bus Hits Land Mine In Nepal KATHMANDU, Nepal, At least 25 people were killed and dozens more wounded Monday when a crowded bus detonated a land mine planted by suspected communist rebels in Nepal's South, an army official said. The bus, traveling on a rural highway, was ripped apart when it drove over the mine near Badarmude village, killing 25 people instantly, an army official said. Another 36 people were wounded, some of them critically,
and were taken to nearby hospitals, the army official said. Police suspect the land mine was planted by Maoist rebels, who have been fighting since 1996 to abolish Nepal's constitutional monarchy and set up a communist state. The guerrillas claim to be inspired by Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong. More than 11,500 people have died in the fighting. State Department: U.S. Funding To Combat Land Mines Will Reach $1 Billion The total amount the United States has spent trying to eradicate land mines worldwide since 1993 will reach the billion-dollar mark in 2005, a State Department official says. James Lawrence, a deputy office director in State's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, told an Anti-Personnel Mine Treaty committee the United States remains committed to reducing the harmful impact of long-lasting land mines. “Later this year, the accumulated total United States interagency contribution to humanitarian mine action worldwide since 1993 will reach the $1 billion mark,” Lawrence said. In remarks June 14 in Geneva, Lawrence said that U.S. funding is nearly $69 million this fiscal year, entirely apart from a vigorous mine-clearing program currently operating in Iraq. Next year the budget request for combating land mines will increase to $82 million, a 16-percent increase, he said. Land mines still kill or injure more than 10,000 people each year worldwide. Many were designed to stay active or "live" until detonated, months, years or even decades after deployment, thus rendering the minefields unsafe for any further use. U.S. land mine policy seeks to eliminate all long-lasting land mines from its own arsenal and ban worldwide the sale or export of long-lasting land mines. To see complete remarks go to: http://www.state.gov/t/pm/rls/rm/47904.htm UN helps Iraq clear 500 kilometers of land of deadly unexploded mines UN News Centre Nearly 500 square kilometers in Iraq have been cleared of landmines over the past year thanks to United Nations-backed efforts to rid the country of potentially deadly unexploded remnants of war, most of them seeded in densely populated regions in the centre and south, the world body announced today. “Mine action is crucial not only to the safety of the Iraqi people but also to their economic advancement,” said Staffan de Mistura, Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Deputy Special Representative for Humanitarian, Reconstruction and Development Affairs. “Dangerous areas cannot be farmed, but safe
land is potentially productive land,” he added. “And
agricultural production feeds not only people but also development.” Since the Security Council outlined the mandate of the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) roughly one year ago, the world body’s presence has helped boost national efforts to cope with the legacy of successive wars endured by the Iraqi people in recent decades. With $3 million in donor funding, the UN launched a project which has trained over two dozen National Explosive Ordnance Disposal Teams from the National Mine Action Authority. Over 490,380 square meters have been cleared thanks to the removal of 3,715 mines or other explosive ordnance items, such as shells. The UN has also provided staff to Iraq’s National Mine Action Authority while helping it to develop information materials – including posters and television spots – aimed at alerting families, especially children, to the dangers of unexploded remnants of war. Minefields in Iraq date back to the First World War, but these “crops of war” are mainly the result of more recent violence, including the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, conflicts between rival ethnic and political parties, the military actions of 1990/1991 and the ongoing war, which started in 2003. For more information about the US Campaign to Ban Landmines or to donate on-line, please see our website at www.banminesusa.org U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines If you would like to contribute to the US Campaign to Ban Landmines go to: www.banminesusa.org/support/body.html and click on Donate. |
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