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U.S.
Campaign to Ban Landmines Email Newsletter
Documentary Featuring Medical Treatment of Landmine Victims in Afghanistan to Air on PBS Tonight "Afghanistan Year 1380" Premieres September 9, 10, and 11, 2002 at 10 p.m., but visit http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2002/afghanistanyear1380/ for showtimes and channels in your city. Note that some areas have inconvenient showtimes in which case you may want to tape the show and watch it later. Also note, that showtimes may change due to programming related to September 11. Filmed after Sept. 11, 2001, this documentary (whose title refers to the religious calendar year) recounts the continuing challenges for Italian surgeon Gino Strada and medical coordinator Kate Rowlands of the human rights group Emergency. The two joined forces to set up a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2000; the Taliban closed it soon after. In October 2001, they tried to reopen it while the city was still under heavy attack. In their attempts to provide medical and humanitarian support to civilian war victims, they became an extraordinary part of the rebuilding of Afghanistan. The film features powerful images of victims of landmines and continues where film "Jung: In the Land of the Mujihideen" left off. "Afghanistan Year 1380" is a film by Fabrizio Lazzaretti, Alberto Vendemmiati, and Giuseppe Petitto. National Public Radio Show to Re-Air Landmines Debate This Week If you missed it last spring, you can catch it this week: the "Justice Talking" National Public Radio show in which USCBL Coordinator Gina Coplon-Newfield debates Navy Colonel Guy Roberts about US landmine policies. See http://www.justicetalking.org/getshow.asp?showid=214 for more details about the show and http://www.justicetalking.org/tunein.asp for show dates, times, and stations in your city this week. Major Landmine Report to Come Out This Week Later this week, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines will release its Landmine Monitor 2002: Towards a Mine-Free World. Landmine Monitor is an unprecedented initiative by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) to monitor implementation of and compliance with the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, and more generally to assess the efforts of the international community to resolve the landmines crisis. In other words, you can find virtually any up-to-date information you would like to know about landmine use, production, trade, stockpiling, removal, victim assistance, and policy in virtually every country by reading the Landmine Monitor or by visiting it on-line at www.icbl.org. On Friday, September 13 in countries throughout the world, there will be events to promote the release of this extremely well-respected and well-used document. See http://www.icbl.org/news/2002/210.php for more information. Call for Landmine Monitor Researchers Researchers are currently sought for the fourth report, Landmine Monitor Report 2003: Toward a Mine-Free World. To prepare the last report, Landmine Monitor had 115 researchers from 90 countries gathering information. The report is largely based on in-country research, collected by in-country researchers. Landmine Monitor has utilized the ICBL campaigning network, but has also drawn in other elements of civil society to help monitor and report, including journalists, academics and research institutions. Landmine Monitor's researchers represent a wide range of non-governmental professions including law, medicine, humanitarian aid work, human rights, demining, graduate studies, and more. To apply to provide Landmine Monitor research in your country, please complete and return the Research Application Form by September 13, 2002 by visitng http://www.icbl.org/lm/research/call03.html Children
Targeted by Landmines Football manager Mick McCarthy displayed flashes of passion yesterday when he lashed the use of landmines as cruel weapons that maim and kill innocent Bosnian children. "Many are deliberately brightly coloured to attract and injure children as they walk home from school, as they play football in the fields, as they work on their family farms," he told business leaders at a UNICEF charity lunch in Dublin. However, McCarthy was repeatedly questioned about Roy Keane by journalists, but he refused to make any comment on the Manchester United footballer. Since McCarthy's visit to Bosnia last April to draw world attention to the plight of innocent children injured by landmine explosions, 15 Bosnian children have lost limbs. Over one million landmines remain in Bosnia, seven years after the bloody war following the break up of Yugoslavia. McCarthy noted "there's more landmines than schoolgoing children in the country". Landmines cost 4 each to manufacture but 1,000 to disarm. "I wanted to help in any way I could," said McCarthy. "It is very sad and distressing to see young children who have lost limbs. But what is amazing is to see the power of these children and how they get on. They keep smiling and living their lives and that is something we can all learn from." McCarthy, who has been appointed a special patron of UNICEF Ireland, told 200 business leaders who each paid 150 for the charity function: "If my name and my face can help raise money and awareness about this tragic situation, then I will use it and show it. "We all have a responsibility as global citizens, but as leaders in sport, business or entertainment in Ireland we have an added responsibility to show the way." Commenting on his Bosnian experience last Easter, McCarthy said: "Nothing prepared me for the awful reality of this legacy of war. "I sat in a classroom with children as young as seven who were being taught what to do if they spotted a mine. Seven years old. And I met with a young boy called Dejan who lost both his legs while playing football." Over the next three years UNICEF is funding a 500,000 programme which will educate 600,000 school-age children in Bosnia on prevention of mine injuries 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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