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Hidden Killers 1998: The Global Landmine Crisis Chapter VI: The International Response

"The landmine crisis is not an unbeatable challenge."
                                     -- Yasushi Akashi, Former UN Under-Secretary-General
                                     for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency
                                     Relief Coordination, February 1998

The international community is now focused on the global landmine crisis and its level of response is rising dramatically. The December 1997 Ottawa Convention's call for the destruction of all emplaced APL within the territory of each State Party to the Convention no later than 10 years after its entry into force helps provide the incentive for a systematic international demining effort to eliminate this threat. The United States supports the Convention's objectives and is committed to the international effort to eradicate the threat of landmines to civilians. In October 1997, Secretary of State Albright and Secretary of Defense Cohen launched a Presidential initiative setting a deadline of 2010 for achieving this goal.

The President's "Demining 2010 Initiative" recognized that two factors would be key to accomplishing this objective. First, the total level of investment in humanitarian demining worldwide would have to increase nearly five-fold to roughly $1 billion each year. Second, effective international coordination of demining and assistance activity would be required.

These were the considerations guiding the agenda of the Washington Conference, hosted by the United States on May 20-22, 1998. The Conference served to advance the consensus on international coordination developed in earlier conferences in Tokyo, Bonn, and Ottawa. It gained endorsement from the major donor governments and international organizations for the UN's new policy for coordinating humanitarian demining and a related donor consultation mechanism. The Conference also began to define how the enhanced international coordination could be used to improve and accelerate mine action in mine-affected countries through systematic data collection, development of country and regional demining strategies, and more effective application of demining technology. Information compiled for the Conference illustrated a dramatic growth in the resource level for humanitarian demining, particularly between 1997 and 1998 (see Table 5). Many governments, international organizations, and NGOs are contributing generously to humanitarian demining.

Table 5. Major Donors.

Global Humanitarian Demining Conference,

Washington, D.C., May 20-22, 1998*

Country/ Program	Demining	R&D	Victims Assistance	Demining Contributions (USD)			Remarks
				1996	1997	1998
Australia	X	X	X	$4.83M	$4.77M	$3.78M	$46.2M allocated for period 1998-2005.
Austria	X	X	X	$350K	$883K	$3.3M
Belgium	X	X	X	$1.02M	$3.91M	$1.22M	R&D budget $1.76M over 6 years.
Canada	X	X	X	$4.2M	$3.91M	See note 1	$69.8M to be committed over next 5 years.
Denmark	X	X	X	$6.54M	$4.95M	$2.0M	As of 5/98. Since 1991, $19.2M contributed to demining programs.
Finland	X	X	X	$849K	$5.04M	$22.0M	1998 total to be distributed over 4 years.
France	X		X				Has contributed $19.7M since 1994.
Germany	X	X	X	$10.7M	$9.0M	$28.1M	Contributes approx. 28% of EU demining budget.
Ireland	X		X		$1.71M
Italy	X	X	X			$9.6M	$10.5M contributed 1995-1997.
Japan	X		X	$3.39M	$4.74M	See note 2	To contribute $80M over next 5 years.
Netherlands	X	X	X	$10.0M	$10.0M	$10.0M
New Zealand	X		X			$1.39M
Norway	X		X			$12.0M	Will commit $120M during period 1999-2004.
Portugal	X		X	$150K	$20K
South Africa	X	X	X	$319K	$2.38M
Spain	X		X	$164K	$1.15M
Sweden	X	X	X	$13.0M	$15.0M		Has contributed $54.2M since 1991.
Switzerland	X	X	X			$3.7M	$17M contributed since 1993.
United Kingdom	X	X	X			$8.4M	Has contributed $55.2M since 1991.
United States	X	X	X	$32.8M	$44.5M	$91.8M	Has contributed $236M since 1993.
European Union	X	X	X	$42.0M	$47.0M	$62.0M	Does not include bilateral contributions. 1998 figure is estimate.
UN Trust Fund/Mine Clearance						$26.5M	Total expenditures and obligation 1994-1997.
UNDP CMAC Trust Fund						$24.0M	Exclusive of overhead and of cash and in-kind contributions 1994-1997.
Afghanistan Mine Program						$68.6M	Includes in-kind contributions 1994-1997.

NOTES:

1. Canada has contributed $12.6M since 1993.
2. Japan has contributed $31.54M since 1989.

* Data, as of June 8, 1998, have been derived from responses to Hidden Killers 1998 and OSCE questionnaires. We cannot guarantee their accuracy.

International Coordination

There are now many different entities involved in the global demining effort at all levels. The United States and the other 20 major donor governments listed in Table 5 are contributing nearly $300 million to demining assistance in 1998. Although it is impossible to quantify, there is also a great deal of financial and in-kind assistance coming from private sources. These public and private resources finance bilateral government programs, UN and other international programs, and the work of NGOs, which are primary implementers of mine action programs, including mine awareness training, landmine removal, and mine victim assistance.

International and regional organizations are also key elements in the worldwide structure for humanitarian demining assistance, acting in concert with donor governments, NGOs, and the mine-affected countries to organize and implement mine action strategies on a country and regional basis. The OAS, for example, serves as the coordinator of demining programs in Latin America. In 1991, the OAS established a regional Demining Assistance Program for Central America with the technical support of the IADB. In November 1997, OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria announced a vision and goal for the Program: the elimination of all landmines deployed on Central American soil by the year 2000, using an approach that integrates training, demining, emergency medical facilities, mine awareness, and rehabilitation programs. The OAS also intends to support integral development of rural areas that have been cleared of mines.

The EU has played a vital role in organizing and channeling the large contributions from European countries to humanitarian demining. In 1996, the EU's Council adopted a Joint Action committed to the total elimination of APL and made a financial contribution to international mine clearance. In 1997 and 1998, the Council expanded both its financial contributions and the range of mine action undertaken, to include victim assistance, mine awareness education, training and technical assistance, and the pursuit of new demining technologies. The European Commission established an R&D program at its Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy, to support humanitarian demining. One of the Centre's promising developments is a Land Mines Information System (LMIS) to store and disseminate information relating to demining issues. Three databasesC target signatures, environment signatures, and demining informationC are at the core of the LMIS, scheduled to be operational in early 1999.

Over the past year, the international community has developed important new mechanisms for coordinating their humanitarian demining efforts on a global scale. Most significant is the new UNMAS, established within the UNDPKO to serve as a focal point for all landmine-related activity and to facilitate UN interaction with the rest of the international community, including donor governments, NGOs, and mine-affected countries. Among other things, UNMAS is responsible for developing mine action assessment priorities, mobilizing resources, developing technical and safety standards, and managing mine-related information. To facilitate coordination within the UN at the working level, the Chief of UNMAS chairs an Inter-Agency Steering Committee on Mine Action, composed of representatives from all the UN agencies engaged in mine-related activities. At the senior management level, the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations chairs an Inter-Agency Coordination Group on Mine Action that determines UN policy governing mine-related activity.

UNMAS also manages the UN VTF for Assistance in Mine Clearance, which was established by the Secretary-General in 1994. The UN VTF for Assistance in Mine Clearance finances:

• overall coordination of UN mine action;

• conduct of assessment missions to determine the scope of the landmine threat in individual countries and programs to deal with it;

• initiation of new mine action activities and programs; and

• bridging funding delays in existing programs to ensure continuity.

To date, donor governments and other sources have contributed or pledged approximately $49.7 million to the Trust Fund and, as of April 22, 1998, more than $33.5 million had been disbursed or committed to mine action programs and related activities. (See Annex C, Table C-1 for the list of VTF donors.) In 1995, the United Nations also set up two separate funds, the Trust Fund for Demining Activities in Angola with contributions from Switzerland, and the Trust Fund for Demining Activities in UN Peace Forces with contributions from Japan for demining projects in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. In 1998, the Government of Slovenia announced its intention to establish a Trust Fund to assist Bosnia-Herzegovina in a wide array of demining initiatives. The United States will match up to $28 million to support the Slovenian initiative.

In support of UNMAS, Switzerland has established an International Demining Centre in Geneva to provide information management services, to facilitate communication with local mine action centers, to provide management training for deminers, and to promote access to demining expertise. In March 1998, the Swiss government hosted the first annual consultation in Geneva between UN agency representatives and representatives from local mine action centers.

Several agencies share responsibility within the UN for humanitarian demining programs and sit on working-level and senior management-level inter-agency committees:

• The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) ensures that humanitarian needs are met in the overall demining effort; helps mobilize resources through the Central Emergency Revolving Fund; and coordinates the Consolidated Appeal Process. In February 1998, OCHA published an excellent four-country survey on humanitarian demining capabilities with a template for developing and evaluating indigenous mine action capacity. (footnote 1)

• UNDP is responsible for addressing the socio-economic consequences of landmine contamination and for removing the obstacles they pose to normal economic activity, reconstruction and development. In situations where the landmine problem is not a humanitarian emergency, UNDP has primary responsibility within the UN for the development of indigenous mine action programs.

• UNICEF provides a focal point for mine awareness education and promotes comprehensive rehabilitation of landmine victims.

• The UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS), with a mandate to work with all UN agencies, is a principal service provider within the UN system, providing continuity of implementation for integrated mine action and capacity building programs.

• UNHCR attends to the needs of refugees and IDPs, with particular responsibility for mine awareness programs in refugee camps. UNHCR is concerned with landmine contamination in areas to which displaced people are being returned.

• WFP, with its mandate to provide food assistance, is concerned with the clearance of roads for speedy and efficient delivery, clearance of land for safe repatriation of displaced populations, and clearance of land for agricultural use to promote local food production.

• WHO is responsible for developing standards and promoting health service capacity building for victim assistance through the Ministries of Health in mine-affected countries.

• The Department for Disarmament Affairs (DDA) is responsible for landmine-related disarmament issues, including the Ottawa Convention.

In late 1997, Norway convened a Mine Action Support Group (MASG) with representatives from the 20 major donor countries at the United Nations in New York. The MASG facilitates consultations among donors, between donor governments and the UN, and with mine-affected countries to assist the UN coordination mechanism for mine action. Meeting periodically in New York, the MASG addresses specific issues and developments requiring international coordination.

With the establishment of these new international coordinating mechanisms, attention has turned to the task of improving coordination at the country level to develop strategies for accelerating humanitarian demining in the most heavily mine-affected countries. As a first step, UNMAS is conducting multi-disciplinary assessments and will set priorities for Level-I general surveys to assist the development of comprehensive mine action strategies. A Survey Contact Group, composed of representatives from several NGOs, UNMAS, and donor governments, was formed at the March 1998 Ottawa Mine Action Workshop to refine the standards for Level-I surveys and to develop a plan for their implementation. It is hoped that the surveys can be completed in the dozen or so most heavily mine-polluted countries by the end of 1999 to facilitate intensified mine clearance programs in those countries.

The United States and the EC, in collaboration with the UN, reached agreement at the Washington Conference on a joint program for coordinating the more effective application of existing and prospective technology to humanitarian demining. The three major elements of the program are development of standards for end-user requirements (SORs) for demining equipment, identification of an international network of test and evaluation centers, and development of "demonstrator" projects for new technology. Other demining technology producers have been invited to join the U.S.-European Commission (EC) cooperative project, which will be advanced at the EC-sponsored Ispra Conference in the fall of 1998. The assumption underlying this effort is that more effective application of technology to humanitarian demining is critical to meeting the goal of 2010.

The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations

NGOs and private foundations are integral to the search for a cure to the landmine epidemic. They provide enormous resources in addition to those from public sources, and they are a primary repository of expertise and human resources for implementing mine action programs. The groundswell of public attention to the landmine crisis stimulated by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines created an even greater flow of private resources into demining efforts.

Many charitable organizations are dedicating substantial funds to mine action projects. The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund convened a kickoff meeting in April 1998 to identify local projects that address rehabilitation, employment training, reintegration of landmine survivors, and support to their families. The UN Foundation, which administers the $1 billion pledged to the UN by CNN founder Ted Turner, chose two mine-related projects worth $2.6 million in its first round of grants to UN agencies. These projects will provide for the integration of landmine survivors in Angola, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodia, Laos, Mozambique, and Somalia and for mine awareness education in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Carnegie Corporation of New York is providing grants to NGOs to work on mine awareness and UXO training. The Rockefeller Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation are contributing to landmine survey work and victim assistance. The Mine Victims Fund, a new international fund with offices in the United Kingdom and United States, was launched during the Ottawa Conference in December, 1997 to provide long-term funding to international organizations working on behalf of mine victims and other disabled persons.

Inspired creatively by the U.S. "Adopt-a-Highway" program, which engages local citizens in cleaning national highways, the United Nations Association of the United States (UNA), a national network of 30,000 members, and its Council of Organizations with 143 NGOs, launched its "Adopt-a-Minefield" program in late 1997. By creating a public education program with cities, states, schools, civic groups, and other local organizations, the UNA expects to raise substantial resources for a special Mine Clearance Trust Fund to clear mines in adopted minefields. Through a Memorandum of Understanding, the UNA has engaged UNOPS to identify appropriate candidates for this program in the mine-affected countries and to contract the UNA-funded mine clearance services. "Mines to Vines" was conceived by a group of U.S. vintners as an integral part of the UNA program, aimed specifically at demining land for vineyards or other agricultural use.

The many Red Cross and Red Crescent organizations around the world are also a major source of private funding for mine-related assistance, particularly for survivor assistance and rehabilitation and mine awareness education. The ICRC launches annual appeals to support its landmine victims programs and mine awareness education centers around the world.

In addition to raising financial resources, NGOs are also heavily engaged throughout the world in mine awareness programs, victim assistance, and mine clearance. They work hand-in-hand with governments and international organizations to implement programs. At Annex D is a list of NGOs and international organizations involved in one or more aspects of humanitarian demining. Where available, the organization's mission statement or objective is included as a means of identification.

U.S. Humanitarian Demining Programs

U.S. concern with the landmine crisis dates back several years, as documented in previous editions of Hidden Killers in 1993 and 1994. President Clinton was the first world leader to call for a ban on APL in his 1994 address to the UN General Assembly. The United States has provided humanitarian demining assistance to mine-affected countries since 1993, expanding these programs substantially in recent years. In 1998, the United States is providing humanitarian demining assistance worth nearly $92 million to 21 countries in Asia, Africa, Central America, and Eastern Europe**. In 1997 alone, some 300 U.S. military and civilian personnel trained more than 1,200 local deminers in these regions in mine awareness, mine clearance techniques, emergency medical care, and how to establish a national mine action center.

The Department of State has been funding humanitarian demining assistance programs since 1993, including support for the establishment of MACs in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Cambodia. In July 1995, the State Department helped organize and fund the first International Meeting on Mine Clearance in Geneva, Switzerland. This meeting solicited contributions to the UN VTF for Assistance in Mine Clearance and was the first conference of its kind to promote the work of the UN and international cooperation for mine clearance.

In 1997, the Congress established a new source of funding for humanitarian demining in the Nonproliferation, Anti-terrorism, Demining, and Related (NADR) Funds account, administered by the Department of State, to supplement the long-standing DoD humanitarian demining program. The FY 98 NADR appropriation of $20 million allowed U.S. demining assistance to expand considerably into new areas of activity and into additional countries. Although not assured, continued funding of NADR will be critical to achieving the goal of 2010.

The USAID Patrick J. Leahy War Victims Fund, which has operated for nearly a decade, will dedicate some $7.5 million in assistance to landmine victims in 1998. The War Victims Fund has supported program activities in 15 countries with a total investment of more than $50 million worth of technical and material support for a variety of programs that benefit civilian victims of war. The Fund works through international organizations and NGOs in providing direct service to beneficiaries and to build human and institutional capacity for long-term, sustainable service delivery. Data available to USAID show that the Fund provides more than 20,000 limbs in an average 12-month period. Hundreds of medical professionals and technicians have received training to improve their assistance to disabled people.

The DoD continues to pursue a vigorous demining program that spans a wide range of inventive and imaginative endeavors, demonstrating the valuable contribution that military expertise makes to humanitarian demining. U.S. military technology and instructional bases have continued their robust response to the demands for expanded U.S. demining capabilities. For example, the U.S. Army Engineer School's Countermine Training Support Center, Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, established the Humanitarian Demining Training Center in April 1996. (footnote 2) Its mission is to be the U.S. Army's training and information center for both countermine and humanitarian demining operations. Using lessons learned, tactics, techniques, and procedures, and actual mines from around the world, the Center teaches mine awareness and demining training. The first student class graduated the two-week course in December 1996. Already partnered with the UN, MACs, and others, the school is now developing a pilot course on demining training for NGO and foreign military personnel. The Naval School Explosive Ordnance Disposal, Indianhead, Maryland, is investigating the feasibility of developing a course of instruction on UXO to coincide with the U.S. Army's Humanitarian Demining Training Center program of instruction.

In July 1996, the Humanitarian Demining Information Center (HDIC) at James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia, was initiated with DoD funding. The HDIC has already become an accredited member of the international demining community by applying university expertise to humanitarian demining challenges. It developed medical and mine awareness materials for Cambodia; built a customer outreach service; facilitated demining information collection, processing, analysis, and distribution; hosted inter-governmental agency workshops and symposia; published an electronic landmines journal and created a worldwide web page; and developed a GIS/GPS catalog. The HDIC continues to expand its global information reach into those specific areas that serve both the DoD and demining organizations worldwide.

The Humanitarian Demining Technologies Program Office in the Countermine Division of the U.S. Army Night Vision Electronic Sensor Directorate has sponsored more than 120 demining R&D mechanical and technical applications for mine detection and clearance, of which 21 have been selected for development. In 1998, this organization will be managing $16.6 million in demining R&D. In May 1997, the DoD created the Unexploded Ordnance Center of Excellence at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, to coordinate the requirements and technologies for detecting and clearing UXO, including landmines. In October 1997, DoD established the Joint UXO Coordination Office, the action arm of the UXO Steering Committee, to share expertise and data in cooperative multinational exchange programs.

In 1997, the United States also initiated a series of DoD-sponsored survivor assistance medical programs that have begun to materialize in 1998. Among the more significant are:

• A community-based rehabilitation project in partnership with the WHO, the UNHCR, and the Moss Rehabilitation Hospital, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for mid-level health care workers attending amputees and the brain-injured.

• A course of instruction, Surgery for Victims of Conflict, at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland, designed to address patient management of casualties of bomb fragments, ballistics, and mines. Instructors and speakers from the ICRC and from other internationally recognized disciplines will participate.

• Blast Resuscitation and Victim Assistance (BRAVA), is a three-phased, 18-month project to survey landmine incidence and demography (Phase I); train host-nation first responders in field stabilization, resuscitation, and evacuation of the mine-injured (Phase II); and deploy surgical teams to host-nation hospitals to work with indigenous medical personnel providing intensive care to mine victims (Phase III).

• The Sri Lankan Surgical Rotation, a five-year-old program deploying a team of U.S. military medical specialists to that country to assist in the care of blast victims from the Tamil insurgency. The program will be expanded from one three-week rotation per year to one four-week rotation every three months.

• The continuation of R&D at the Institute for Surgical Research, San Antonio, Texas, to advance new composite boot materials, and to evaluate their effect on energy dispersal of mine blasts to lower extremity soft tissue and bones.

• An instructional module, the Emergency Response Medical Training for Indigenous Deminers. Instruction includes treating leg, arm, eye, and facial injuries; traumatic amputation of the hand and wrist; and instructor and participant guides for combat lifesaving students, and bleeding and shock for medical specialists. The DOD-sponsored DSS contains this medical module.

Future plans include test and evaluation of expanded telemedicine and telehealth concepts and networking.

One of the visible U.S. successes in humanitarian demining support is focused training aids. The United States sponsored the evolution of the DSS now in use in Bosnia, Honduras, Jordan, Laos, Mozambique, and Rwanda. This rugged, transportable computer system provides lesson plans, posters, video demonstrations, and other training materials to support a structured demining and mine awareness program. "Superman and the Deadly Legacy," a comic book jointly sponsored by the Department of Defense, UNICEF and Time-Warner DC/Comics for the Bosnian MAC, has been followed by a second-generation version, "The Hidden Killer," featuring Superman and Wonder Woman, published in Spanish for Central American countries. A Portuguese version of the comic book is now being contemplated for distribution in Mozambique and Angola.

Additionally, based on first-hand observation of the UXO problem in Laos, OASD(SO/LIC) tasked the Naval EOD Technology Center to develop an unclassified ordnance database focusing on both U.S. and foreign ordnance that was dropped, fired, or emplaced in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam conflict. This CD-ROM database is the first of its kind to provide an aid to international deminers in identifying, recovering, and disposing of 2,030 unexploded ordnance items from 43 countries that jeopardize demining operations. This inaugural effort is currently being revised to capture similar information on more than 5,000 ordnance items. Similarly, "Mine Facts," first published by DoD in hard copy in 1995, was converted to CD-ROM in 1997. This unclassified database of the most commonly encountered landmines is a valuable tool to U.S. demining trainers, as well as many national demining program offices and NGOs.

Conclusion

It is clear from the experience of the last few years that concerted international efforts to address the landmine crisis are bearing fruit at an accelerated pace.

• In Afghanistan, the overall decline in landmine accidents during the past four years is a result of a combination of clearing high-priority areas and increased emphasis on mine awareness education.

• In Cambodia, CMAC and NGOs have made considerable progress in reducing casualties through mine awareness education. Casualties in Kampot Province were reduced from an average of 30 per month to nearly zero within one year after the deployment of two CMAC mine awareness teams in 1996.

• UNICEF reports that in the area of operations for The HALO Trust in Angola, the casualty rate in 1995-1996 fell from an average of one mine victim per day to only two or three per month. During this two-year reporting period, accidents decreased from 108 to 32 in Bie Province, and from 34 to 6 in Huambo Province. The factors that contributed to these dramatic changes were the UNICEF mine awareness campaign in both provinces, mine clearance operations, and the knowledge acquired on the location of mines that altered risk-taking behavior.

• Namibia, with the assistance of the United States, has succeeded in becoming mine-free during 1998. Central America, with widespread international support, is making good progress toward its goal of mine-free status by 2000.

As the 12 country profiles in this edition of Hidden Killers illustrate, there is mounting proof that the landmine crisis can be successfully overcome, if the countries suffering mine pollution are determined to tackle the problem, and if the international community can sustain and coordinate its investment in eradicating the landmine plague.

**23 receiving assistance: Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodia, Chad, Costa Rica, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Guatemala, Honduras, Jordan, Laos, Lebanon, Mozambique, Namibia, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Somalia, Swaziland, Vietnam, Yemen, and Zimbabwe

Several other nations are currently being considered for demining assistance in accordance with the U.S. Government's Humanitarian Demining Strategic Plan.

Footnotes

1.UNDHA, Study Report. The Development of Indigenous Mine Action Capacities with four associated country reports (Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, and Mozambique), February 1998.

2. Another center is the U.S. Army School of the Americas, Fort Benning, Georgia, which is revising its "train-the-trainer" countermine course, taught since 1993 to Latin American military personnel, into a humanitarian demining course; 29 students will attend this new course in July-August 1998.

[End of Document]

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