| Bangladeshi Campaigner, Children's Art Competition, Mine Survivors in Athens... In this edition. . .
Update: Landmine Campaigner Still Held Under Illegal Detention in Bangladesh *If you have not already written a letter on Rafique’s behalf, please do so by clicking here. Update: Rafique al Islam represents the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) in Bangladesh and is also the country director of Nonviolence International, which works with communities to reduce violence. We have just received word that Rafique has been transferred from the Joint Interrogation Cell in Dhaka to the Coxs Bazaar Police Station closer to his home. His wife has just been able to visit him and deliver needed medicines. Reportedly, however, he is still being held without charges outside the bounds of the law and is still in danger of being tortured. The 44 year old campaigner was detained on orders of the Ministry of Home Affairs on August 21 by the Rapid Action Battalion at his home in Cox's Bazaar, the day after he led a seminar on Mine Ban Treaty implementation attended by members of local governmental and non-governmental organizations, plus some representatives of U.N. agencies. He has not been charged with any offence and is currently being held beyond the legal period for arrest without warrant. “Mr. Al Islam's commitment to ridding Bangladesh of antipersonnel landmines has earned him great respect in government and non-governmental circles worldwide. His unjust arrest and continued detention threatens to destroy Bangladesh's good image as a member of the 1997 Treaty which prohibits this terrible weapon," said Jody Williams, 1997 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, in a letter to Bangladeshi newspapers last week. So far, three Nobel Peace Laureates have made direct appeals to Prime Minister Zia to intervene in the case. We are pleased to report that US Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont has just written a letter on Rafique’s behalf. For more information, including an up-to-date timeline of events, please visit the ICBL Website. Landmine Survivors Go for Gold in Athens Landmine survivors from Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Lebanon will be amongst the athletes from around the world competing in the Athens Paralympics September 17-18, 2004. Afghanistan is sending two disabled athletes to compete in the 2004 Paralympic Games. Both belong to AABRAR (Afghan Amputee Bicyclists for Rehabilitation and Recreation), a member of the Afghan Campaign to Ban Landmines. Qaher Gulam Hazarat, 22 years old, will compete in the 50 km cycling event in the Athens Paralympics. Qaher lost both of his legs to a landmine in his native Afghanistan in 1996. He will compete in the 50 km cycling event (LC3). Qaher is a double amputee. He was injured in a land mine incident in 1996 when he was 14 years old. Sent with his mother to get food from the bazaar, they found the main route blocked due to fighting between the Taliban and Mujahideen. They took another way across the fields. Qaher stepped on a landmine and lost both legs. In 1997, Qaher saw a boy riding a bicycle with one leg, asked him where he learned to do this and the boy led him to AABRAR. Qaher participated in their Bicycle Rehabilitation Program in Jalalabad and has worked as a messenger for AABRAR's Disabled Cyclist Messenger Service since 2001, where he is still currently employed. Qaher is the major provider for his family of 11, including his parents and 8 other siblings... For more information about the other athletes, visit http://www.icbl.org/news/paralympics Call for Submissions: Children's Landmines Artwork Competition The International Campaign to Ban Landmines Mine Risk Education Sub-Working Group invites children ages 8-12 to enter "A Mine-Free World: The Vision of Today's Children... Through the Eyes of our Children," a drawing contest being organized in the lead-up to the Nairobi Summit in November-December of this year. Children are asked to submit drawings addressing the question "What does a Mine-Free World mean to me?" Entries will be exhibited at the UN Conference Center in Nairobi during the upcoming Summit.
Entries should be sent to: For more information, please contact Judy Kitts of the Landmine Resource Center in Beirut, Lebanon at landmine@balamand.edu.lb. Please note that the drawings will not be returned, and the ICBL and the LMRC reserve the right to use them in publications, exhibitions, or as promotional support material. Visit http://www.icbl.org/news/mre_art and http://www.icbl.org/treaty/meetings/nairobisummit/ for more information. UN Calls on Southeast Asia to Halt Child Landmine Deaths August 31, 2004 The United Nations Children 's Fund (UNICEF) is calling on governments in Southeast Asia to redouble their efforts to clean up landmines and other unexploded ordnance (UXO), which were left from decades of war and are continuing to maim and kill children across the region. "Children are particularly vulnerable to landmines and UXO," senior UNICEF official, Patrick Hennessy, said in a statement issued by the UN agency. "They like to explore, they like to play with objects they find and they cannot read signs warning them of danger. Children also frequently undertake household tasks that involve going near or through mine-affected areas. In Vietnam, they account for half of all mine-related injuries and one-third of all deaths," he added. Southeast Asia has some of the most heavily-mined countries in the world, the agency said. Landmines and UXO are a danger to children in nearly half of all villages in Cambodia and nearly one- quarter of all villages in Laos. Up to 800,000 tons of UXO and 3.5 million landmines still cover Vietnam, where over 100,000 people have been killed or injured since 1975. Some 85 percent of youngsters who step on landmines die before they reach a hospital, UNICEF noted. Those who survive are often denied their basic rights. They are excluded from school and left with little chance to marry, find work or contribute to their families and societies. The First World Summit on Landmines will be held in Nairobi, Kenya, from Nov. 29 to Dec. 3, which will focus on clearing/ marking mined areas, educating people at risk, destroying stockpiles, providing assistance to landmine victims and universalizing ratification of the Mine Ban Treaty. The Other Casualties of War – Stories of Injured Soldiers August 24, 2004 NINA BERMAN [a journalist and photographer] was aware of the ever-increasing numbers of soldiers killed in Iraq, but like so many others she wondered about the casualties that were never discussed. What about the wounded? How would those young men and women deal with learning to walk with prosthetic legs, to get dressed with new arms made of plastic, to adjust to blindness, to get around on canes and crutches and wheelchairs, to deal with brain injuries, to live their lives?... The Pentagon hasn't been generous with numbers, but in any war the injured outnumber the troops killed. In Korea and Vietnam, the ratio was nearly 3 to 1. It was 4 to 1 in Iraq through last September. So Berman sought them out, traveling back roads to mobile homes and major highways to Veterans Administration hospitals. The result is her new book "Purple Hearts: Back from Iraq" (Trolley Books; London). In it, Berman tells 20 stories in stark, occasionally ironic photographs and some compelling interviews. These are pictures to make you raise your hand involuntarily to cover your mouth, to make you avert your eyes. There's no gore, but this isn't easy stuff... "I was always considered the pretty boy in high school," says Jose Martinez. "I was always told cute, handsome, whatever. And I always relied on my physical appearance. That's why I think sometimes I'm glad this happened to me because it made me open my eyes."Martinez, 20, was in a Humvee that rolled over a mine. There was a fire. He suffered severe burns to his pretty face, which is pretty no more. Now his face looks rubbery, and despite the determined set of his jaw, he looks fragile. You see just a glint of reflected light in his eye... Alan Jermaine Lewis' truck hit a land mine. He lost both legs. He suffered severe burns to the face, and broke his left arm in six places. "The reasons for going to war were bogus, but we were right to go in there. Saddam was a bad guy," Lewis says. For the full article, visit http://www.banminesusa.org/news/897_injured.htm 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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