By
Rajesh
Mehta
SARD & IIPDEP Conducted
an "AWARENESS WORKSHOP" beyond Nairobi
Summit (Anti Personnel
Landmines) on 22nd December
2004 at Shimla, titled
-
Indian
Campaign to Ban Landmines.
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COMMIT
TO A GLOBAL BAN ON THE PRODUCTION,
STOCKPILING, TRANSFER AND
USE OF ALL
ANTI-PERSONNEL
MINES.
An Anti-personnel mine is an explosive
device designed to maim or kill
the person who triggers it. Mines
are indiscriminate in terms of
target and time. They go on killing
and maiming - soldiers and civilians,
men and women, adults and children
alike - decades after the fighting
has ended.
Millions
of mines are scattered over 70
countries in Africa, Asia, Europe,
the Middle East and the Americas.
Every single month at least 2,000
people are killed or injured =
one victim every 20 minutes.
Mines are increasingly used to
terrorize the civilian population,
especially in internal conflicts.
Scattered in their thousands, they
bar access to farmland, irrigation
channels, power plants and roads.
Millions of people have to choose
between farming in fear, going
hungry, or leaving their homes.
Targeting civilians in this way
is a violation of international
humanitarian law.
Mines continue to wreck havoc long
after wars end. Their cost goes
far beyond the initial tragic toll
in human suffering. All of society
pays, over and over again; farming
and transport services grind to
a halt; the presence of mines makes
the reconstruction of rail and
road networks , power lines and
waterways slow, dangerous and costly;
treating mine victims puts a great
stain on the country's overburdened
health care system.
Landmines are powerful and unforgiving
devices. Unlike other weapons
of war, most of which must be
aimed and fired, anti-personnel
landmines are 'victim' actuated.
That is, they are designed to
be detonated
by a person stepping on or handling
the device, or by disturbing
a tripwire attached to it. Once
in place, anti-personnel
mines are indiscriminate in
their effects and, unless removed
or
detonated, long lasting.
Even today, landmines laid during
the Second World War continue to
be discovered and, on occasion,
to kill or wound, more than 50
years after the end of the conflict.
Landmines cannot
'distinguish' between the soldier
and the civilian. They Kill or
maim a child playing football just
as readily as a soldier on patrol.
Especially in post coflict societies,
it is most often the civilian going
about his or her daily activities
that is the unfortunate victim.
While all war wounds are horrific,
the injuries inflicted by anti-personnel
mines, are particularly severe.
These weapons are designed to
kill, or, more often, to disable
permanently their victims. They
are specifically constructed
to shatter limbs and lives beyond
repair. The detonation of a buried
anti-personnel 'blast' mine rips
off one or both legs of the victim
and drives soil, grass, gravel,
metal, the plastic fragments of
the mine casing, pieces of the
shoe, and shattered bone up into
the muscles and lower parts of
the body. Thus, in addition to
the traumatic amputation of the
limb, there is a serious threat
of secondary infection. As wounds
such as these are not often seen
by civilian doctors, treating a
mine-injured patient can be a challenge
to the most competent surgeon.
In
addition to the devastating impact
on individual lives, mines also
have severe social and economic
consequences, particularly for
a country attempting to rebuild
after the end of an armed conflict.
The presence of mines can leave
large portions of the national
territory unusable.
Mine clearance, although essential,
is a slow, dangerous and expensive
process.
Mines have increasingly been used
as part of a brutal and systematic
war against civilians, especially
in the bitter internal conflicts
that have come to characterize warfare
in the late twentieth century.
It is these tragic realities which
make the anti-personnel mine a particularly
abhorrent weapon and which has
led many organisations
and individuals to call for its prohibition
and stigmatization.
While the negotiation of the Ottawa
treaty is an historic landmark in
the battle against the scourge of
landmines, a tremendous amount of
work remains to be done before the
threat of these weapons and their
appalling humanitarian consequences
are effectively tackled.
Regrettably, even
formal adherence to a treaty in force
is not always enough to guarantee
that all of its provisions will be
fully respected.
Although countries from all regions
of the world supported the Ottawa
process, some of the world's major
landmine producers, exporters and
users did not actively participate
in the negotiation of the Ottawa
treaty and have not yet signed it.
Mines
= Death + Suffering + Mutilation
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