On his return from the Inhumane Weapons Convention in Vienna in early October, the British delegate and Foreign Office minister, David Davis, announced that “landmines remain an effective defensive weapon", and that it would not "be right to deny other responsible countries the right to have landmines" (Guardian, 3 October).
The above raises questions. A convention called to debate "inhumane weapons” suggests some weapons are considered "humane", which is absurd—they all kill. Again, what is a "responsible" country? According to David Davis it would include those who ratified the original IWC protocol some fifteen years ago and so including countries like the former Yugoslavia and Guatemala. Can any country, for that matter, which plants landmines, be classed as "responsible"?
Thanks to such "responsible” countries the world is now littered with 100 million landmines. The UN. though, put this figure closer to 200 million! At the top of the landmine league is Africa with 20 million, 10 million of which are buried beneath Angola's soil. Elsewhere in Africa you can step on landmines in Mozambique. Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Libya, Egypt, Mali, Djibouti, Rwanda, Morocco, Western Sahara and Chad. Most of Libya’s 5 million landmines are still active more than fifty years after they were planted. Meanwhile, Mozambique boats the widest variety of mines—32, manufactured in 15 different countries.
Other countries with a high concentration of landmines are Afghanistan, Cambodia, Iraq and the former Yugoslavia. Together they have 33 million mines and a combined population of 57 million— more than one mine per family.
Despite the work done by anti-landmine organisation, some 2 million continue to be planted each year—a figure that flies in the face of UN de-mining programmes that clear only 85,000 landmines per year at the cost of $75 million. The beaches of Kuwait alone have cost $80 million to de-mine and it is estimated that a further $57 billion would be needed to clear every mine in the world.
Mine clearing has become so dangerous, expensive and time-consuming that Britain has now abandoned its operation in the Falklands, preferring simply to cordon off land that contains 20,000 mines. The hills and forests that surround Dubrovnik are so which with mines that experts believe it would take 8 years to clear them.
The UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs recently reported that "if the proliferation of landmines was stopped in 1996, at current rates of funding and clearance it would still take almost 1,100 years to rid the world of all the landmines in the ground" (New Statesman. 4 August).
In the past four years. Britain has donated £16 million towards mine clearance projects, and has "officially” (stop laughing) not exported landmines for 10 years. Mines, however, with the "made in Britain" logo, have been unearthed in Croatia. Bosnia. Afghanistan, Vietnam, Somalia and Mozambique. While the British government does not sanction the selling of landmines it does have a preference for a special type of mine—the "smart” mine, for which David Davis recently commented there lay a "safer future" (Guardian, 3 October).
Not so smart
"Smart" mines are supposed to be able to self-destruct after a number of years and are said to be able to be deactivated from a distance. Critics, however, point out that the failure rate for "smart” mines is between 10 and 25 percent. Furthermore, in Laos people are still being killed by US mines that were supposed to have self-destructed 25 years ago.
Mines have great patience. They recognise no cease-fire and can’t distinguish between a bazooka-laden soldier and a child carrying firewood. This is why they kill and maim 500 people each week. In Poland, as late as 1977, mines laid during World War II were killing up to 40 people per year, and mines planted during that same conflict continue to kill and maim in France, Germany, Belgium, Russia and the Netherlands.
Mines take not only lives. They also wreak havoc on the societies infested with them. UN Secretary-general Boutros-Ghali stated several months ago that "by neutralising essential infrastructures. mines present a virtually insuperable obstacle to post-conflict peace-building" (New African, May 1995).
Mines are often planted around key economic installations such as electricity generating plants, water treatment stations and port facilities, thus hampering their use. They lie buried beneath countless paddy fields and across millions of acres of arable land. In Afghanistan alone half of all land that could be cultivated is not for fear of explosions. Mines drain a community's resources, as victims who are maimed are made economically inactive and require intensive medical care.
As well as over-stretching medical resources, hundreds of thousands of people remain virtual prisoners in refugee camps because their passage home is not safe—putting a further strain on host countries.
It costs as little as $3 to lay a mine and up to $1,000 to remove it later on. All governments are aware of this fact and other mentioned. But the social system they rule over makes the challenge of addressing such contradictions impossible. The quest for profit—macro profit—comes first, and a few million wasted dollars is well worth the gamble for military and economic power.
Stuart Maslen of UNICEF cited a typical counter-argument put to the advocates of a ban on landmines: "If we give in to humanitarian organisations on landmines, they are going to come back and question the legitimacy of other weapons" (Guardian, 5 October).
The argument can be taken further. To campaign for a ban on landmines, presupposes that other weapons are not objected to, such has lasers, which David Davis believes "are vital for the armed forces" (Guardian, 3 October).
Socialists believe not only in the abolition of landmines, but in the abolition of all weapons. We realise, though, that this will only come about when we abolish the motive that necessitates their use—profit; when we make the motive for war— mineral wealth, resources—the common property of the world’s people, and free from private interests, trade routes, overseas markets and areas of influence. Only then can we get down to the task of allocating workers and resources to the clearance of mines, or what the US State Department has described as "Mankind’s most toxic pollution”!
John Bissett
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