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Types of Mines
There are three main types of landmines:
* anti-tank (AT) mines, which are triggered by the pressure of vehicles; * water or sea mines, which are designed to be detonated by ships; * and anti-personnel (AP) mines, which are designed to kill or injure people. Anti-personnel mines, which can be triggered by the touch of a child's hand, are the main focus of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL).
There are different types of AP mines according to the types of injuries they inflict:
* Blast mines: usually hand-laid on or under the ground or scattered from the air. The explosive force of the mine causes foot, leg, and groin injuries and secondary infections usually result in amputation. * Fragmentation mines: usually laid on or under the ground and often activated by tripwire or other means. When detonated the explosion projects hundreds of fragments at ballistic speed of up to 50 meters resulting in fragmentation wounds. Some fragmentation mines contain a primary charge to lift the mine above the ground (about 1 to 1.5 meters) before detonating which can injure an adult's abdomen and genitals and take off a child's head.
The Problem
* There are approximately 110-120 million anti-personnel landmines in the ground in more than 70 countries around the world. * Leading producers and exporters of AP mines in the past 25 years include China, Italy, the former Soviet Union, and the United States. More than 50 countries have manufactured as many as 200 million AP landmines in the last 25 years. * The countries most affected by landmines are Angola (15 million), Afghanistan (10m), Cambodia (10m), Iraq/Kurdistan (10m), Bosnia (6m), Croatia (6m), Vietnam (3.5m), Mozambique (3m), Eritrea (1m), Somalia (1m), and Sudan (1m). * Based on estimates, there exists one landmine for every 48 people on the planet, or one for each 16 children. * Each year, more than 20,000 people are killed or maimed by landmines. * The majority of victims are civilian men, women and children (an estimated 30-40% of all casualties are women and children). * Every 22 minutes, someone around the world is killed or maimed by a landmine. * What makes anti-personnel mines so abhorrent is the indiscriminate destruction they cause. Mines cannot be aimed. They lie dormant until a person or animal triggers their detonating mechanism. AP mines cannot distinguish between the footfall of a soldier and that of a child. * Mines recognize no cease-fire and long after the fighting has stopped they continue to maim or kill. Mines also render large tracts of agricultural land unusable, wreaking environmental and economic devastation. Refugees returning to their war-ravaged countries face this life-threatening obstacle to rebuilding their lives.
Mine Producers
* More than 100 commercial companies or government agencies in 56 countries have manufactured and exported more than 340 types of mines in the past few decades. In the 1990s, an average of 5 million mines have been produced each year. * The three countries responsible for most of the mines produced in recent years are Russia, China, and Italy (though Italy now claims that it has ceased production.) Several European countries have been large exporters of mines, including Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Hungary, and the United Kingdom. Some developing countries have become significant exporters more recently. These include Egypt, Israel, Pakistan, and Singapore. * Corporations that have been involved in the manufacture of mines include British Aerospace, Thorn-EMI, Ferranti, Nobel, Motorola, and Texas Instruments. Three Italian companies, Tecnovar, Valsella Meccanotecnica, and BPD Difesa e Spazio (formerly Misar), have been the most aggressive exporters of landmines. * Common landmines include the US-made Claymore, the former Soviet-made Butterfly and PMN Blast Mines, the Italian Valmara 69 or "Bounding Betty," and the China and former Soviet-made "Stake Mine." * 28 out of 47 US companies associated with the production of landmine components, including General Electric, still refuse to refrain from their involvement in the landmine business.
New Developments in Mine Technology
* Plastic mines: Undetectable by metal detectors used by deminers. * Remotely delivered (R/D) or scatterable mines: Usually disseminated from aircraft, helicopters, or artillery. Accurately mapping, recording, and marking mines laid in this manner is impossible. * Anti-handling devices: A device intended to protect a mine and which activates when an attempt is made to tamper with or otherwise intentionally disturb the mine.
Mr Cambanda
Is f'ed if he pokes one of those.... curtesy of ... injection molded conglamorates...
(Mine Ban Treaty definition) * Self-destruct (S/D) mines: So-called "smart" mines are designed to self-destruct after a designated period of time. If they fail to self-destruct, these mines are also sometimes designed to self deactivate. There is nothing smart about these mines although, while armed, they cannot discriminate between the footfall of a soldier and a civilian.
Mine Clearance
* Landmines are being laid at a much faster rate than they can be removed: 20 mines are laid for every one that is cleared. * At the present rate of removal, it would take more than 1,000 years to remove all landmines. * While a single landmine can cost $3 to purchase, its cost of removal ranges from $300 to $1,000. * The tools used for mine detection today include magnetic mine-detectors, probing (with bayonet or rods), sensing (dogs), and mine detonating with mechanical devices (flails, roller, etc.). * The lack of properly laid minefields (i.e., mines are scattered randomly), the lack of maps recording the exact position of mines, as well as the lack of any visible signs indicating the presence of mines, are the prominent technical problems associated with the current demining process. * Demining technology has not caught up with the advances in mine manufacturing technology, but a number of processes are now being developed, including the use of ground penetrating radar and passive infrared detection. Such methods may still be many years away from reliable application in the rice paddies of Cambodia, mountains of Afghanistan, and dense vegetation of Mozambique. The main question is whether high-tech solutions will ultimately be cheap and accessible enough to help those who truly need it: the rural poor of the world's developing countries.
Banning Mines
* By March 1997, 53 countries had announced their support for a total ban on landmines, 28 countries had renounced or suspended the use of mines, and 16 were destroying some or all of their stockpiles. * The Mines Protocol to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons of 1980, revised in May 1996, prohibits directing mines at civilians; directs that mines must be cleared by those who lay them; requires that all mines are to be detectable; and prohibits the transfer of non-detectable anti-personnel mines. * By September 16, 1998, the Mine Ban Treaty, which had been opened for signature in December 1997, had been ratified by the 40 countries required to make it a binding international convention. The treaty entered into force on March 1, 1999. * Countries that are continuing to resist the Mine Ban Treaty include the US, Russia, China, India, Iraq, Iran, Cuba, and Turkey, among others.
Adapted from IPPNW's Global Health Watch report -- Landmines: A Global Health Crisis.