Decade after Diana campaign, few use landmines

[rodeodance]

Source: reuters




FEATURE-Decade after Diana campaign, few use landmines
16 Jul 2007 07:04:54 GMT
Source: Reuters


By Peter Apps

LONDON, July 16 (Reuters) - Ten years after the death of Princess Diana and the first global treaty against antipersonnel landmines, experts say only a handful of rebel groups and perhaps one state dare use what has become a pariah weapon.

Hard to detect, difficult to clear and often designed to maim rather than kill, antipersonnel mines can linger in the soil for decades. Activists estimate mines still kill or injure perhaps 15,000 to 20,000 people a year -- mainly civilians in countries now at peace.

Landmine clearance agencies say it will likely take another decade to clear probably the world's two most affected countries -- Angola in southern Africa and Cambodia in Southeast Asia -- both the scene of long-running but now ended civil wars. Ongoing conflicts delay clearance in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

But fewer are now being laid and many activists have moved on to a campaign against cluster munitions in the aftermath of last year's Lebanon war, which left much of the country's south seeded with small unexploded bomblets.

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L13920373.htm

[glowing]

1. No, now it IED's...

[struggle4progress]

4. a.k.a. "Things you can do with those old landmines"

Weapons harvested from Iran-Iraq war fuel insurgency entering its fifth year
The Associated Press
Published: March 3, 2007

MUNTHERIA BORDER CROSSING, Iraq: Mud roads crisscross green hills between palm groves. Snowcapped mountains rise in the distance across the Iranian border. Donkeys stroll along footpaths, carrying the region's harvest — land mines.

Risking their lives, Iraqi shepherds are increasingly venturing into these deadly fields to dig up mines planted during the Iran-Iraq war two decades ago, according to U.S. soldiers, who say insurgents then use the mines to fashion roadside bombs that kill American troops.

With Iraq's economy still struggling, shepherds need the money. And the insurgents are looking for more sources of weapons and explosives as the war enters its fifth year.

"They're going out there and farming them," said Capt. Jesse Stewart, who runs a training school for Iraqi border guards at this border station 145 kilometers (90 miles)northeast of Baghdad. "Shepherds are digging them up and selling them on the black market." ~snip~

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/04/africa/ME-GEN-Iraq-Old-Weapons.php

[Hekate]

2. Bless that woman, she really had a heart.The thing that impressed me about Diana...

She was doubtless uncommonly beautiful to look at, and she described her limited education as being due to her being "thick as a brick"-- but she had a heart and a desire to make some difference in the world.

The cause of landmine eradication found her, and she took it up. She used what she had to offer: her prominence and her beauty, the glamor that made so many notice her.

And she made a difference.

Mother Theresa died the same week, and her funeral was overshadowed by Princess Diana's overwhelming send-off. I thought about both of them and the difference they each made in the world. Mother Theresa was a saint, and is now well on her way to being formally given that title by the Church she served in. Princess Diana was no saint. But in the end, they both made a difference.

Hekate

[LeftishBrit]

3. I agree...

I was never a Diana worshipper, but she deserves a lot of respect for the landmine campaign.

[Toucano]

6. And her work with AIDS charities

I will always remember when she visited an AIDS facility and touched a patient. People just didn't DO that back then.

She was a candle, indeed.

[daleo]

5. You still hear plenty about cluster bombs

They seem a lot like landmines from the air.