Bosnia and Herzegovina (9) -- Analyses -- 2009

About the mines

01.01.2009

The PROM-1 mine is among the most feared types. When triggered, it springs a meter into the air before detonating, inflicting serious face and torso wounds. But in Albania, Connell and his team found mostly "toe-poppers," small devices that detonate under roughly five pounds of pressure and are intended to take off no more than a person's foot. Many mines, in fact, are designed only to maim, not kill, under the premise that wounded soldiers impart greater hardship upon comrades, who must carry them to safety. Landmines are notoriously ineffective as weapons of war. Most landmine casualties occur post-conflict, and statistics from Landmine Monitor show that 70 to 85 percent of landmine casualties are civilians. A 1996 report from the International Committee of the Red Cross recognized that anti-personnel landmines "have little or no effect on the outcome of hostilities." Perhaps the leading problem with landmines is their longevity; they may remain live and active for many decades. Even relatively primitive mines planted during World War I are still producing casualties in parts of Europe and North Africa; in 2009, Tony Connell and his team found live landmines in Albania remaining from World War II. First used as long ago as the American Civil War, landmines are now devastatingly cheap to build. According to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a global network of 70 nations, production costs can run as low $3 per mine, while clearing them runs an average of $1,000 per device. Costs mount through the training of mine-sniffing dogs, hiring personnel, acquiring metal detectors and utilizing explosives to destroy them in post-conflict operations that persist for years. The global effort to create a world free of landmines is accelerating. The Mine Ban Treaty marked a dramatic step forward. At a summit in Ottawa, Canada, on Dec. 3, 1997, 122 nations signed the agreement, and two years later its mandates began to take effect. Today, 156 nations worldwide, including every nation in Europe barring Russia, have agreed to destroy their own stockpiled mine arsenals within four years of signing and clear their own lands or territories of landmines within 10 years. But in Bosnia-Herzegovina, according to a June 2009 report from the Bosnia-Herzegovina Mine Action Center, 220,000 landmines remain unearthed. Casualties since 1992 number in the thousands, though exact counts vary. These accidents have left a sizeable demographic of handicapped survivors, says Ramiz Becirovic, who works with Landmine Survivors Network in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a nonprofit that aids survivors in reentering society as productive members. Becirovic says that more than 7,000 people in Bosnia-Herzegovina have stepped on a landmine and survived; in 2008, there were 39 injuries—19 of them resulting in deaths—up from 30 total the year prior. In 2008, Croatia had nine casualties—three people killed—up from eight in 2007. While most governments in the world are committed to eliminating the weapons from the earth, the United States remains among the 37 nations which have declined to sign the Ottawa Treaty. Though President Clinton announced his firm intention in 1997 that the United States would become a signatory, it never happened. George W. Bush reneged on the commitment and determined in 2004 not to sign the treaty. Accordingly, the task of landmine clearance falls that much more on NGOs and such nonprofits as Roots of Peace, which through a partnership with the University of Zadar has helped plant 25,000 grapevines and 12,500 apple trees on Croatian lands previously planted with mines.

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