Posted on 09/27/2017 4:22:16 PM PDT by Jagermonster
PROGRESS WATCH Two decades after a landmark treaty, and despite an overall increase due largely to Syria’s civil war, the majority of affected countries recorded fewer deaths linked to land mines and cluster munitions.
In January 1997, Diana, princess of Wales, famously walked through an active minefield in Angola to raise awareness of the ongoing threats posed by land mines. During her visit, with the help of a removal expert, Diana detonated one of the remaining mines.
“One down, 17 million to go,” she said while pushing the button.
This year marked the 20th anniversary of the death of Diana, a passionate advocate for land-mine eradication, as well as the 20th anniversary of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. The treaty, signed Sept. 18, 1997, is an international agreement signed by 163 countries (most recently the Marshall Islands) with the goal of creating a mine-free world by 2025.
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) are sister organizations that monitor that 1997 treaty and the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, respectively. And each year, the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, a program within ICBL-CMC, issues reports on international progress.
The Monitor’s most recent reports did highlight some negative trends: 2015 reached a 10-year high with 6,461 mine casualties, and casualties from cluster munitions doubled in 2016 from the year before, to 971 deaths.
All land-mine casualties are unfortunate, says Stephen Goose, director of the Human Rights Watch’s Arms Division, but it is important to remember how far the world has come. Before the treaty in the mid-1990s, says Mr. Goose, it was common to have 26,000 casualties per year, almost ...
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
I don't like the idea of land mines. They stick around far too long after the event. Dog doo is bad enough.< / totally unqualified opinion >
The U.S., Russia, China, India, North Korea, South Korea, Iran, Israel, and a bunch of others are not signatories, so its not like there's a clear divide in 'good guys' vs. 'bad guys' for those who will use them and those who won't.
Also, little tangential, but they have a picture of an elephant with an artificial leg at the link.
If this were 2009 to 2017, this would be reported...
“Land-mine casualties show signs of global decline” > under Obama.
The Burma/Myanmar army uses them extensively against all of the ethnic minorities. One medic in the resistance once performed 7 successful amputations using a Leatherman Multitool. Men tend to lose their lower leg while women and children typically die on the spot. The Free Burma Rangers lost a brave relief worker to the landmines.
The Burma army will burn a village and then plant landmines in the ashes. Sometimes they will post a notice to a tree and then place the landmine in front of it so those who step up to read the note are killed.
Both sides use mines and they will continue to be used because they work.
How hard would it be to develop a landmine with a finite shelf life? Six months, say.
If there’s a market, go for it!
Well of course, eventually you run out of landmines.
“How hard would it be to develop a landmine with a finite shelf life? Six months, say.”
The US has developed self destructing landmines. Self-destructing mines blow themselves up after a given period of time. For U.S. mines, that period could be as little as 4 hours, or could be as much as 15 days. The new types of mines that the United States will develop will have remote control capabilities so they can be blown up on command. Self-deactivation is a back up method, where the battery in the mine gradually loses its charge, eventually causing the mine mechanisms to become incapable of operating.
Countries like Burma who use landmines to terrorize civilians have no reason to use self destructing mines.
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