| New Landmines for Iraq, Post Nairobi Perspectives, Speech by Desmond Tutu... In this edition. . .
Mine explosion kills four U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan Stephen Graham, Associated Press Writer A land mine exploded under a vehicle south of Kabul on Saturday, killing four U.S. soldiers in the deadliest incident for American troops in Afghanistan in almost 10 months, the military said. The blast highlighted the dangers still facing foreign and Afghan troops more than three years after the fall of the Taliban, although there were conflicting accounts about whether the mine was freshly laid or left over from Afghanistan's long wars. A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the blast. But U.S. spokeswoman Lt. Cindy Moore said investigators suspected the mine was an old charge dislodged by recent rain and snow or that the vehicle had wandered into an unmapped minefield. "We believe it was an old mine which could have shifted," she said. The victims were among a group of American and Afghan officials scouting a potential site for a shooting range in Logar Province, 25 miles south of the Afghan capital, when one of their three vehicles hit the mine, Moore said. The bodies of the four dead were airlifted to the main U.S. base at Bagram, Moore said. The four were members of Indiana's National Guard, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said. "Obviously, it's just a day of incredible sadness," Daniels said in Indianapolis. The governor declined to identify the soldiers but said they were from various parts of Indiana. Family members had been notified, he said. More than 1,000 soldiers from Indiana are in Afghanistan helping to train Afghanistan's new national army. About 17,000 U.S. troops are in Afghanistan battling a stubborn Taliban-led insurgency focused on the south and east and training the new Afghan army. The U.S. military says its air and ground operations have killed eight suspected militants and four civilians in the past week alone. According to U.S. Department of Defense statistics, 122 American soldiers have died since American forces invaded to oust the former Taliban government for harboring al-Qaida militants after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Many have been killed in accidents, including strikes on old mines left behind by Soviet troops who occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s or the Afghan factions including the Taliban who fought each other after the Soviets withdrew. Moore said U.S. troops had first toured the scene of Saturday's incident about a week earlier in search of a site for a training range for the Afghan army. Gov. Mohammed Aman Hamini said the incident occurred in a desert area crisscrossed by rough tracks. "It's an old mine. There's no traffic on the route they took, but the Russians used to use it because they were afraid of the main road," Hamini told The Associated Press. However, Mullah Hakim Latifi, a man who claims to speak for the Taliban, said its fighters detonated the mine by remote control. "We've said again and again that we would resume our holy war in the spring," Latifi told AP by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location. Also Saturday, Uruzgan Gov. Jan Mohammed Khan said U.S. forces detained two suspected Taliban militants the day before as they tried to plant a remote-controlled mine on a road in the province. The blast Saturday was the deadliest incident for the U.S. military since May 29, 2004, when four American special forces soldiers were killed in Zabul province, near the Pakistani border, reportedly by an intentionally laid mine. The bloodiest incident was an accidental explosion at an arms dump in Ghazni province that killed eight American soldiers in January last year. Copyright 2005 Associated Press, All Rights Reserved. Laptop-controlled mine system headed for Iraq NEW YORK, USA, 13 April 2005 U.S. troops in Iraq will soon be able to lace their defensive perimeters with a high-tech, multi-pronged version of one of the most effective weapons in their enemy's playbook: the remote-controlled bomb. By June, soldiers in the Army's Stryker Brigade, which operates mainly in and around the northern city of Mosul, will be able to pick out an individual anti-personnel munition from a minefield of hundreds and explode it by pushing a computer's touch screen from many yards away. The system, known as Matrix, is part of the Army's emerging arsenal of "smart" land mines that military officials say are meant to do away with the accidental deaths and maimings caused by their not-so-smart brethren. Twenty-five sets of mines, including M18 Claymores, and the laptops that trigger them over a wireless network are being rushed into the field after the system was successfully tested in September. Activists who have campaigned to rid the world of land mines are worried about the Matrix system's potential for havoc. "We're concerned the United States is going to field something that has the capability of taking the man out of the loop when engaging the target," said senior researcher Mark Hiznay of Human Rights Watch. "Or that we're putting a 19-year-old soldier in the position of pushing a button when a blip shows up on a computer screen." Hiznay also worries that if need be, the smart land mines can be turned into plain old "dumb" anti-personnel mines. The Landmine Survivors Network, based in Washington, D.C., and other activist groups have started a campaign asking supporters to write to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to voice their concerns. Activists are questioning how soldiers will be able to identify a target from many yards away, and whether civilians could accidentally set off a mine. The Claymores being used in the system have been around since the Vietnam War, and have traditionally been camouflaged and set off by a tripwire. They sit above the ground and are meant to be picked up and removed after an operation is complete. That's not easing activists' minds. "It seems obvious that these remote-control anti-personnel mines, however carefully monitored, will present new dangers to innocent Iraqi civilians for years to come," the landmine survivors' group says in a statement on its Web site. Users of the system will be able to choose between blasting their enemies with Claymores, which spit out hundreds of steel balls propelled by plastic explosives, or with the M5 Modular Crowd Control Munition, a non-lethal take on the Claymore that sprays rubber balls instead of steel. Activists' questions -- about how soldiers will identify targets, and exactly how far away they can operate the system -- have largely gone unanswered because the Army has released little information about Matrix. "We don't know enough about how this thing operates to say whether this is a good or a bad idea," Hiznay said. Representatives from the Pentagon and the Army's Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, which developed Matrix along with contractors Alliant Techsystems Inc. of Edina, Minnesota, and Textron Systems of Wilmington, Massachusetts, would not comment for this story. Alliant Techsystems spokesman Bryce Hallowell said, "We're very pleased with the rapid development and fielding of Matrix and look forward to its deployment in support of our troops." He would not comment further. In a January statement e-mailed to reporters to announce the planned deployment of Matrix, Picatinny said the system was meant for "firebase security, landing zone security, remote offensive attack and both infrastructure and check point protection." "The system is user friendly and a soldier will require a minimal amount of training in order to safely employ and use the system," Army Maj. Joe Hitt, the Matrix project's leader, said in the prepared statement. Military analyst John Pike of Globalsecurity.org believes the system could be used to attack enemies who are encroaching on a base but are too far away to hit with sniper fire, which he says can only reach out about a mile. "You can see much farther than that. If you wanted to set up a perimeter security so that the enemy could not sneak up and mortar you, you could do it by putting out a mess of these things," he said. "And then with motion detectors or something, if somebody's sneaking up on you, you can look up in their direction." Added Pike: "If you've got 500 of these mines out there, trying to figure out which one you want to detonate, when the clock's ticking, well that could be a brain teaser." The Matrix system is an offshoot of a more ambitious smart-mine program called Spider that would incorporate other types of munitions. But Spider is not expected to be fielded for a few more years. When Army officials saw what could be done with the Matrix system, they said, "This is good enough for right now. Let's get it fielded," Alliant's chief executive Daniel Murphy said in a conference call with Wall Street analysts in February. He said the initial order is "not in excess of $10 million, I don't believe," but added: "I think they're both (Matrix and Spider) going to be deep programs over the long haul." Copyright 2005, The Associated Press. All rights reserved http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/04/12/remote.control.mines.ap/ Charges against Rafique Al Islam dropped! Author(s): Sylvie Brigot and Fred Lubang
Following a worldwide campaign undertaken by ICBL members and the international peace and human rights movement, with crucial support from several States Parties to the AP Mine Ban Convention, the Bangladesh court dropped the charges against peace activist and ICBL member, Rafique al Islam, for lack of evidence. Rafique Al Islam The Bangladesh district court handling the case of Rafique Al Islam dismissed the charges filed against him for lack of evidence. The court failed to prove Rafique’s involvement in a case of ammunition and explosives smuggling in August 2004, which Rafique and the ICBL had asserted from the beginning was not true. “It is a victory of the nonviolence work, the peace movement, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines community and of the people who believe in the work for peace”, Rafique described yesterday's decision. During Rafique's detention for several weeks last year, the ICBL movement and international peace and human rights organizations vigorously called for dropping all charges against Rafique and for his unconditional release. Several States Parties to the Anti-personnel Mine Ban Convention also provided crucial support following Rafique’s arrest on 21 August 2004. The ICBL would like to express its deepest appreciation, once again, for the support of all organizations and governments which undertook actions and made appeals to the government of Bangladesh in support of Rafique. These efforts helped to keep him unharmed during his detention and ultimately secured his release and the dropping of these unfounded charges. For more information For information about the landmine situation in Bangladesh read the last Landmine Monitor country chapter for Bangladesh “Too Many Years”: A Benefit CD for Clear Path International The Vietnam War ended 30 years ago on April 30th, 1975, but bombs and landmines left over from that conflict continue to injure and kill on a near daily basis. At Clear Path, we work to address the needs of survivors of such accidents. Over the past few months, we have joined forces with a number of great musicians and other friends to put together a benefit CD to help raise much needed funds to continue our work in Vietnam and other parts of Asia. We're pretty proud of the result. Not only does this CD feature the ever-popular NATALIE MERCHANT and alternative-rock icon JULIANA HATFIELD, but also the legendary JORMA KAUKONEN of Hot Tuna and Jefferson Airplane. We have jam band giants WIDESPREAD PANIC covering The Doors live and THE STRING CHEESE INCIDENT with a song written in collaboration with one of the Grateful Dead’s longtime songwriters. Breakout artists THE JIM GILMOUR BAND and RICK
REDINGTON & THE LUV MACHINE offer up AN HOUR IN TEXARKANA and
MOTHER EARTH, two new songs which are fresh and unforgettable. Bluegrass fans will love the old and the new with THE NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND’s track off the classic WILL THE CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN album followed up by bluegrass’s hottest band the YONDER MOUNTAIN STRING BAND. Grateful Dead fans will be stunned by THE DARK STAR ORCHESTRA’s dead on cover of EYES OF THE WORLD and fans of THE SAMPLES will be happy to see we have included Sean Kelly’s lamentation of war in his classic “OCEAN OF WAR”. Finishing this CD is world renowned composer PHILIP GLASS on piano with FOG OF WAR. The title track off the Oscar Winning documentary profiling Vietnam-War-Era Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. Special thanks to legendary Bay Area artist Stanley Mouse for providing the cover art. Due to licensing agreements we can only produce a limited number of these CDs. A rarity to add to your collection, on top of being a phenomenal collection of music for a worthy cause. ALL proceeds from this CD will benefit Clear Path International. Too Many Years is dedicated in memory of Marla Ruzicka the 28-year-old founder of the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) who gave her life helping civilian victims of war in Iraq on April 17, 2005 and to the families CPI serves in Vietnam. To order go to: http://www.cpi.org/toomany.php “Approaches to the Recovery and
Reintegration of Survivors of War-Related Injuries” For more information, please visit www.landminesurvivors.org OR www.survivorconference.org. To REGISTER, please send an email to christine@landminesurvivors.org. Registration ends on Friday, May 6th. The conference
is FREE to all who register. Please share this invitation with your
friends and colleagues. Landmines Blow and the Cambodian Association of Illinois present “Missing Peace”, a benefit for refugees, landmine survivors and the communities in which they live. The event will take place at The Cambodian American Heritage Museum and Killing Fields Memorial at 2831 West Lawrence Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, from 4:00 to 6:00 PM on May 5th 2005. A cocktail reception will follow from 7:00 to 9:00 PM at the Hard Rock Hotel, 230 North Michigan Avenue. Speakers include Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams and renowned author Loung Ung. Keynote speaker Jody Williams received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work to eliminate antipersonnel landmines. International organizer and activist, teacher and writer, Williams is an eloquent speaker on human rights and international law, the role of civil society in international diplomacy, and individual initiative in bringing about social change. Ms. Loung Ung is a Survivor, Cambodian Genocide; Author, First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers, winner of the 2001 Asian Pacific American Award for Literature and Spokesperson for the Campaign for a Landmine-Free World. Ms. Ung will release Lucky Child, the sequel to her first book and do a book signing at the event. Landmines Blow President Alison Bock said: “Our objective for this event is to raise awareness of the global landmine crisis, the plight of refugees and the Killing Fields Memorial. It is the only museum in the United States dedicated to the Cambodian genocide. At the end of the day, our goal is to make a difference.” Landmines Blow aspires to raise awareness of landmines, educate and engage youth and rebuild communities on cleared minefields. The Cambodian Association of Illinois aims to enable refugees and immigrants from Cambodia residing in Illinois to become self-sufficient, productive participants in U.S. society while preserving and enhancing their cultural heritage and their sense of belonging to the community. Tickets go on sale April 1st. For event and ticket information contact: 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 To stop receiving these updates and action alerts, please write to landmines@fcnl.org from the email address that receives the newsletter and ask us to take you off the list. |
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