| U.S. Campaign to Ban
Landmines Email Newsletter In this edition. . .
Christian
Science Monitor Op Ed Against Mines Another War, Another Round of Land Mines? While UN inspectors are searching for dangerous weapons hidden in Iraq by Saddam Hussein, they must also be wary of American weapons already lurking there. These are not the nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons that President Bush charges Iraq is concealing, but they're equally indis- criminate and dangerous. Antipersonnel land mines emplaced by the US during the Gulf War in 1991, as well as those from the Iran-Iraq war, now continue to kill or maim up to 30 Iraqis each month. Because land mines are such indiscriminate tools
of war - thousands of innocent civilians worldwide are killed each
year — the majority of nations in the world have signed the
Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty… Now, with war impending, the US has
an important policy decision to make: Will it use land mines in
its military operations again? For the rest of the Op Ed, visit 10 Million Land
Mines Lie In Wait Inside Iraq: Troops Also Face '91 War Leftovers U.S. Army Sgt. Dale Vanormer spotted it first, a green, tennis-sized ball on the desert sand: It was an anti-personnel bomblet left over from the Persian Gulf War in 1991, still lethal enough to blow off a leg. Munitions like it have killed 1,700 civilians in Kuwait since the war ended, despite a massive and continuing campaign that has removed one million land mines and 100 tons of unexploded ordnance from the Kuwaiti desert since the war. U.S. troops will face the same threat if they invade Iraq: 10 million land mines sown by Saddam Hussein along his borders, plus unexploded ordnance, or UXO, from 1991 and from the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. “'Kuwait de-mined heavily and people still find them to this day. Iraq never de-mined, so that must be a very dangerous UXO environment,” said an army colonel from an Asian country who worked on Kuwait's de-mining campaign. He spoke on the condition that he not be identified. 1,700 people and injured another 2,300 since the Gulf War ended. For full article, visit The Miami Herald
A U.S. soldier was injured in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday when the military vehicle he was traveling in struck a land-mine, the U.S. military said. The soldier was on patrol near the eastern city of Gardez when the incident occurred. The soldier was taken to an American base farther east in Khost and treated there. “He is currently undergoing surgery at the forward operating base in Khost and is in stable condition,” the military said in a statement from Bagram Air Base, north of the capital Kabul. For full article, click here.
Two teenagers were killed in a landmine explosion in southern Eritrea last week, according to a UN report released Tuesday. Friday's explosion took place at Shilalo, in the Garsh Barka region, close to the border with Ethiopia, which fought a border war with Eritrea between 1998 and 2000. The blast killed two boys, aged 15 and 17. Phil Lewis, who heads the UN's Mine Action Coordination Centre (MACC) in Eritrea, lamented that civilians were less aware of the dangers posed by landmines since the expulsion in August of three European agencies working to remove the devices and educate the public about them. “As soon as you stop the MRE (Mining Risk Education), the people forget it. It is important to continuously inform people, especially children,” Lewis told AFP. According to the MACC, up to 300,000 landmines still litter Eritrean soil. There were 46 landmine accidents in a dimilitarised border zone last year, which caused 21 fatalities. When the Eritrean government expelled Danish Church Aid, Danish Demining Group and Mine Awareness Trust, a British agency, in August last year, the MACC warned the move would create a “void.”
The U.S. Department of State's Office of Humanitarian Demining Programs will match a $25,000 grant from the U.S. Tennis Association to help rid Croatia of landmines. The combined $50,000 will be used to demine a 48,000 square meter area adjoining a once popular tennis court in the village of Mekusje, about 30 miles west of Zagreb. The U.S. Tennis Association's grant was inspired by a February 5, 2003 visit to a mine clearance operation in Croatia by a delegation led by Warren Kimball and Allen Kiel, Chairmen of the U.S. Tennis Association's Davis Cup Committee. The visit, encouraged by U.S. Davis Cup coach Jim Courier and organized by the U.S. Embassy and Croatian authorities, occurred during a trip by U.S. Tennis Association officials who were accompanying the U.S. Davis Cup Team for the United States vs. Croatia Davis Cup first round. Team players planned to participate in the minefield visit but a snowstorm and conflicting practice schedule prevented them from doing so. For remainder of article, click here.
The players are members of the "St. Petersburg Elks," the first ever Amputee Hockey team, organized in 1999 as a result of a partnership program between the St. Petersburg Albrecht Center for Occupational Expertise, Prosthetics and Rehabilitation, and the International Institute for Prosthetic Rehabilitation of Landmine Survivors (IPRLS), Tufts University School of Medicine. IPRLS's Executive Director Mark Pitkin can be reached at mpitkin@lifespan.org. The Russian amputee players along with the teams from Canada, USA and Finland will participate at the First Amputee Hockey World Championship in Lohja/Helsinki, Finland, April 28-30, 2003. For more information, click here. For more information about the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines or to donate on-line, please visit www.banminesusa.org
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