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Anti-personnel landmines: a modern day scourge

by Frank Faulkner

Frank Faulkner comments on the dilemmas of security and development and points to the enormous human cost of a pernicious weapon.

In an uncertain world, characterised by the lack of any central, governing body, the global trade in armaments continues to impact heavily upon attempts to establish durable development and security regimes. Arms expenditures, despite declining from a peak approaching US$1000 billion in the late 1980s,(1) still divert huge amounts of global wealth for military purposes -- an estimated US$744 billion for the year 1995.To consider the developing countries' share of this total, they are estimated to have spent US$114 billion on defence-related materiel during this period.(2) Significantly, approximately 800 million people in developing countries suffer malnourishment to some degree, and about one-third of the total population, or 1.3 billion people, live in absolute poverty.(3)

The worldwide preoccupation with militarism is perhaps no better exemplified than by the trade in antipersonnel landmines. Since the onset of the Second World War, more than 400 million anti-personnel mines have been sown, of which an estimated 65 million plus have been deployed since the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons. Conservative estimates suggest that there are 110 million landmines currently infesting 64 countries, mostly in the developing world, with approximately 100 million stockpiled and awaiting future use.(4) The problem grows progressively more acute with between two and five million more landmines being deployed annually.(5)

Whilst the sheer scale of global landmine proliferation alone is the subject of some disquiet, the statistics reveal the proportions of a humanitarian catastrophe when casualty figures are introduced. Up to 1995, there were at least 250,000 landmine-disabled persons in the world; the number of reported landmine-related incidents reveal that there are roughly 26,000 new victims each year.(6) Of these victims, the majority are unarmed civilians, including significant numbers of children.(7) Landmines as a weapons system are, arguably, unique; with every other armaments type available in the military inventory target selection allowing discrimination between soldiers and civilians is standard practice. Landmines, however, are incapable of making such choices, primarily because once deployed, they are effectively divorced from any human agency, and will inflict death or serious injury, irrespective of military or non-combatant status.

Serious inhibition

Over and above issues of discrimination, these devices also seriously inhibit an affected country's ability to recover from the ravages of war; this particularly applies to the civil wars or counter-insurgency operations which account for most modern conflicts, and which are typified by a lack of standard military discipline usually associated with fully professional, national armed forces. In far too many of these instances, landmines stay in the ground long after a cessation of hostilities. To put this problem into proper perspective, Russia still mounts annual mine-eradication exercises during the spring and summer, to clear ordnance laid by the Germans during the Second World War; in Laos, farmers and their families are still being killed by landmines scattered by US aeroplanes twenty-five years ago.(8)

Landmines fit into two categories -- anti-tank and anti-personnel-but this article will focus on the latter, of which there are three distinct types:

* Blast Mines. The most common type of mine they operate by means of a pressure-actuated plate that directs explosive-initiated energy towards the target. The effects of the blast are usually accompanied by fragments of the mine casing and surrounding debris, parts of the the victim's footwear and bone shards, which often exacerbate the injury. Fragmentation, however, is usually a secondary feature of this type of device, as the target invariably initiates detonation by direct contact.

* Fragmentation/bounding mines. With this type of weapon, the effect is reversed: the blast is employed to shatter the mine casing, the objective of which is to hurl shrapnel and pre-formed metal objects over as wide an area as possible. Several models of this type are tripwire-activated, and mounted on stakes above ground level to maximise effect. To achieve greater lethality, many mines feature serrated casings or pre-cut razor wire. Bounding mines, which rely mostly on a fragmentation effect, have a cylindrical body usually mounted in a short pot, or barrel assembly. Activation detonates an explosive charge which forces the mine body upwards, usually to about a metre above ground; at this juncture, an anchor cable secured to the barrel ejects a pin from the fuse on the body. The main charge then detonates, showering fragments at ballistic speed over a wide radius -- much more so than with a buried, or surface mine.

* Directional mines. As with the above, this type of mine, often referred to as a `Claymore', employs the fragmentation method. Directional mines propel pre-configured metal pieces over a set arc to maximise lethality; these weapons have been described as the military equivalent of the sawn-off shotgun.

Post-conflict priorities

In any given post-conflict situation, priorities include: reviving decimated economies; maintaining an efficient healthcare apparatus; attending to the diverse societal requirements of the population, and providing for the needs of repatriated refugees and displaced persons. None of the preceding objectives can, of course, be achieved without the establishment of a workable and comprehensive security regime, which provides for individual needs through to the national interest. Before examining security and development issues in greater depth, it will be worthwhile, at this juncture, to analyze the military efficacy of anti-personnel landmines and the rationale behind their continued deployment.

Most armed forces spokesmen would argue that mines have a number of clearly delineated and customary roles in combat situations:

* to protect military establishments and other important installations (as a `security guarantor')

* to channel or canalise enemy forces into areas that tactically favour oneself, for example to surprise or ambush hostile patrols

* to deny routes and tactical ground to the enemy

In a conventional, inter-state conflict, where the accepted military situation perceives the enemy as an organised, uniformed, and formally-structured force, mine-laying strategies would normally follow laid-down procedures; in other words, minefields should ideally be mapped and recorded for subsequent removal on completion of the various operations. The prevailing thinking behind this practice is twofold: firstly, and by far the most important consideration from a military viewpoint, removal of minefields after completion of a localised operation ensures the safety of friendly forces, especially during the ebb and flow of combat. The second and markedly subordinate reason concerns the welfare of innocent non-combatants, who may be attempting to go about their daily lives, or perhaps travelling to a place of relative safety.

Turning point

The majority of conflicts since the end of the Second World War have not been of an inter-state nature. Indeed, that global conflagration might be considered to be a turning point, the years following being notable for post-colonial and Cold War proxy encounters. `Though the vast majority of wars in the first 40 years of the century were of an international nature . . . of the 97 wars fought between 1945 and 1969 only 15 were `interstate conflicts", while 67 were "internal, anti-regime" and 15 were "tribal"'.(9)

Wars that are confined within the borders of a state are usually described as being of an insurgent, guerrilla or terrorist nature, and may be de facto civil wars; that is to say military activity termed by conventional forces as not conforming to the accepted norms -- in several instances this may imply that the insurgents have less resources at their disposal, although such movements may actually command more popular support. In addition, when one considers the US campaigns against Laos and Cambodia, the Soviet incursion in Afghanistan and the Iraqi persecution of the Kurds, such operations may be perceived as a more acceptable way to describe an illegal prosecution of a war against civilian populations. It is these types of activity that have resulted in the most inhuman and persistent mine dissemination strategies:

* random and widespread mining of agricultural and community land

* deliberate use of mines as an anti-morale or terror weapon targeting civilians

* mining of villages, water sources, religious shrines, as examples. The justification for these types of mine warfare appears to involve the perception of the enemy hiding in the community; the prevailing logic therefore dictates that, in order to eradicate or neutralize the perceived threat, the community itself becomes a legitimate target. Also, the use of mines by irregular or paramilitary forces can effectively amount to a programme of terror or population control, as has been demonstrated by the Khmer Rouge in certain regions of Cambodia.

Obvious conclusion

In a global system bereft of an overarching security regime, the establishment of an essentially national framework of military protection from outside aggression becomes imperative. However, as international relations analysts and others have been at pains to elaborate, one of the main bones of contention has involved arriving at a comprehensive and workable definition of the term `Security'. Let us assume, however, that security is the `assurance of future well being'.

For 45 years after the Second World War, well being was largely determined by developments that ran on an East-West axis; that is to say, global security concerns were preoccupied with the economic, military and invariably ideological struggles of the two super-powers. However, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dismantling of the Warsaw Pact as a collective security mechanism, the emphasis has shifted from East-West to (potential or actual) North-South conflict. Future trends in security and development are likely to be influenced by relations between nations at the economic core and those described as being situated on the periphery -- the traditional First and Third World scenario. As the world moves towards the next millennium, Paul Rogers identifies three factors that might be central to problems facing global equilibrium:

* the acute polarisation of areas enjoying relative prosperity, against much larger regions of the globe that are characterised by turmoil, chronic poverty and deprivation

* a global problematic concerning environmental pressures: water shortages, desertification, the scramble for depleting natural resources and the economic migration that often results, as examples

* finally, the ongoing dilemma of militarism, bearing in mind the post-Cold War search for new `threats' to confront.(11)

It would seem, and bearing the above in mind, that a radical shift in current thinking is in order if future conflicts on a North-South basis are to be avoided.

Devastating impact

The impact that anti -- personnel mines have on communities -- particularly in the impoverished, less-developed nations of the South-is often devastating and persistent. Landmines seriously cripple a country's ability to recover from the effects of war, and also effectively prevent efforts to achieve reasonable levels of development. They do so in a number of ways.

Landmines predominantly affect the poorer nations of the world. Yet to achieve positions of advanced industrialization, these countries must rely heavily on their ability to make effective use of the land. In a growing number of instances, affected states are prevented from developing due to the often indiscriminate and random strewing of these devices which, as often as not, render highly-fertile, prime agricultural land unusable and uninhabitable.

The impact on rural communities can be devastating, as landmines attack several activities vital for sustaining the population. The grazing of livestock has its attendant hazards in heavily-mined areas; domesticated animals tend to migrate in search of the best available feeding grounds, which can often lead herds into unmarked minefields. Not only does this imperil the people (including children) charged with tending herds, but livestock depletion inevitably removes part of a vital resource. The practice of mining water sources also presents its own problems; in some countries, clean water may be several miles away, which means that children and women (those sections of the community usually responsible for carrying out these tasks) may have to run the gauntlet of suspect tracks, wells and streams in order to provide for the community's needs.

High-risk occupation

Possibly the highest-risk occupation of all is the collection of firewood; this requires community members to forage in dense undergrowth, usually in areas left undisturbed for long periods. This occupation leads to high fatalities, largely due to the fragmentation mines laid in densely-wooded areas. Children are often the disproportionate victims of these weapons, because parents are too heavily-laden with produce to control them effectively.

The situation in urban areas also provides further evidence of the general economic malaise suffered by countries affected by landmine pollution. As part of an overall military strategy, key economic installations are frequently targeted for mining operations. The objective may not necessarily be to destroy any such asset, but rather to deny its use by the enemy. Any military advantage to be gained, however, is often in inverse proportion to the damage inflicted on civilians. The end-product is the comprehensive breakdown of the national infrastructure; powerlines are isolated, and bridges, water-treatment plants, and transport systems are also systematically mined, denying regular maintenance and repair. For these countries, landmines represent an ongoing catastrophe, from which they cannot hope to recover until the problem is eradicated. As an example, during the Second World War, nearly 2.8 million hectares, or 87 per cent, of Libya's rangelands were rendered unusable by landmines. By 1980 approximately 1.8 million hectares, or only 67 per cent, could be declared safe for use.(12)

Current campaign

The current campaign to bring about an outright ban on landmines was prompted by non-governmental organization physicians working in affected areas who, appalled by the scale of death and injury caused by these devices, were motivated to try to raise public awareness of the problem. From a broader viewpoint, relatively small-scale issues such as the landmine problem had tended to suffer from a distinct lack of exposure when set against Cold War strategic considerations, notably the global threat presented by nuclear weapons. However, landmines pose a real and ongoing dilemma, particularly for front-line physicians tasked with coping with the tide of civilian casualties of these weapons.

In some instances, notably with the `Ranger' scatterable landmine produced by Thorn EMI of the United Kingdom, there is a cruel logic behind the effects of the system on human beings. According to Physicians for Human Rights, it is a mine deliberately designed to have `a limited effect for sinister reasons because a wounded soldier will be a noisier and more morale-sapping distraction for his comrades than a dead soldier, and a burden to his own side's medical and logistic services'.(13) The same logic equally applies to innocent non-combatants, who may not have access to the same medical back-up as a soldier.

The impact of landmine detonations on the human body is physically and mentally traumatic, and is carried by the victim in perpetuity. Different mines have different capacities to inflict lethal and non-lethal injuries. In the case of blast-actuated mines, plastic, metal, soil, vegetation, bacteria and other debris are driven into the body of the victim. The degree of injury is, of course, largely determined by the yield of the explosive charge. At the very least, one may expect to lose a foot, with small children sustaining greater injury due to their lesser stature and body weight.

Intolerable burdens

The problems facing developing nations, where these types of incidents are more likely to occur, include inadequate or severely debilitated healthcare infrastructures. In many instances, the numbers of mine-related injuries are far greater than almost any of these countries can withstand. Care costs are prohibitively expensive, largely due to the fact that victims require intensive-care treatment for protracted periods of time. Follow-on and out-patient treatment for amputees places intolerable burdens on an already overstretched medical service.

For refugees, and those displaced by regional conflict, the overriding consideration is to find a place of relative safety. The problems of refugee status are not, however, confined to the logistics of moving from one place to another; there is also mounting international concern over the numbers of people involved. At the end of 1991, the United States Committee for Refugees determined that approximately 15 million people were international refugees, and about 15 to 20 million more were internally displaced.(14)

Assuming that some measure of stability has returned to their homeland, many refugees still view repatriation with a degree of trepidation. Security remains a dubious concept, as they cannot know if the route back to their home village is free of landmines. Safe arrival brings its own attendant hazards. Their absence from the traditional family environs means that returnees will not know the location of minefields laid during the conflict; for these people, subsequent attempts at immediate -- and necessary -- subsistence farming to provide for the needs of the family may end in tragedy. Such is the gravity of the post-conflict situation, that many returnees have not received mine-awareness training, and death and serious injury often result.

Obvious requirement

In mine-infested regions of the world, there is an obvious and compelling requirement for immediate and substantial aid from the international community, bearing in mind that the majority of these areas are languishing on or near the margins of survival. The afflicted populations need to be in receipt of assistance that basically takes two forms: economic, development-related assistance and mine-eradication programmes.

The detection, removal and safe disposal of landmines is, by any known criteria, a difficult and dangerous undertaking. On average, one disposal expert is killed, and two injured, for every 5000 mines that are cleared.(15) The degree of complication is due, in no small measure, to the wide disparity between mine manufacturing technology and the primitive techniques associated with ordnance disposal. Indeed, the most effective way of detecting landmines is by prodding the ground with a metal spike -- the only known means of achieving a 99.99 per cent eradication rate. Nothing less is acceptable on humanitarian grounds.

Some basic blast mines can be purchased for as little as $3 per unit; de-mining, on the other hand, averages $1000 per mine cleared. It therefore follows that the cost of a global de-mining programme would be astronomical -- estimates go as high as $300 billion to rid the Earth of these weapons. The chronic dilemmas presented by landmines are perhaps put more into perspective when related to individual countries. Cambodia has been described by Oxfam as a textbook case of a country crippled by uncleared landmines. To rid the country of its mine menace, according to UNICEF, Cambodia would need to divert all its Gross Domestic Product to mine clearance for the next five to seven years. Therefore, if a concerted international effort to resolve the problem is not forthcoming, the Cambodians will do it themselves-one leg at a time.

Development aid

Programmes mounted by non-government organisations and others are exclusively for the purposes of helping countries which, for whatever reasons, are not in a favourable position to help themselves. In certain nations ravaged by war and internal conflicts, humanitarian aid projects are persistently hampered by the presence of landmines. Because of these weapons, the quality and quantity of aid does not always reach desired levels.

The logistics of instituting relief programmes are, in themselves, wide-ranging and complex. Teachers, agriculturalists, builders, plumbers, pilots and many others need to be assembled, if the intended outcome is to be achieved. In addition, these experts need to be accompanied by vital materials: food, blankets, clothing, seed, medical supplies, and so on. Mounting an aid effort is not cheap, and many non-governmental organisations rely on charitable grants and donations from the public. Such funds that are available need to be utilized to the maximum effect. Landmines tend to exacerbate the drain on aid budgets, which results in gratuitous waste. In Bosnia, there have been occasions where humanitarian relief convoys, intent on evacuation ventures, have had to re-route due to heavily-mined roads. In Angola, in 1988, the cost of delivering one tonne of relief supplies from Cobito to Municipio overland was 106 Swiss francs. Because of the ubiquitous minefields in the area, the supplies had to be airlifted. The cost subsequently spiralled to 2600 francs per tonne, or roughly 25 times the cost of the overland route. But, because of the safety dimension, there was no other option.(16)

The costs are not, of course, purely financial. Aid workers themselves become victims of landmines; Susan Ruel, a UN employee, recalls one such instance:

An incident last April graphically

illustrates the terrifying randomness

of mines. A World Food Programme

plane flying over Angora

was hit by rebel fire, but its pilot

managed, with extraordinary skill

and considerable luck, to land the

plane. The crew got out of the

plane, but stepped on a mine, leaving

the flight engineer dead and

the pilot severely injured.

Angola's post-war attempt to restore peace, security and some semblance of democracy has also been severely compromised because of landmines. The registration of voters for the 1992 elections was rendered extremely hazardous by heavily-mined roads. Were it not for the mines, disruptions would have been minimized, and transparency would have been more apparent; Savimbi's subsequent claims of alleged vote-rigging would therefore have been impossible to substantiate, therefore saving the country from another round of warfare and unprecedented levels of mine-laying.

Unique weapon

Landmines are a uniquely pernicious type of weapon. They continue to kill and maim civilians long after the cessation of hostilities, and wreak havoc with a war-torn country's attempts to achieve sustainable development. Security, from the personal through to the national, is effectively compromised by the presence of these weapons. From a security viewpoint, for example, a subsistence farmer cannot enter his or her fields to plant new seeds or gather in the harvest, as to do so may cost him or her life or limb. In certain rural economies, the annual (or seasonal) harvest is, by definition, highly labour-intensive, and landmine incidents inevitably remove part of a valuable local asset, the labour pool. It also places extra burdens on the community as amputees are people who consume, but do not produce. Children cannot indulge in activities that their contemporaries in the West take for granted, such as playing outdoors and helping their parents during the holidays and at weekends; this is largely owing to the presence of these devices. Also, a child's natural curiosity may lead it to pick up a landmine and attempt to discover what might be inside.

Urban populations are similarly disadvantaged, as they cannot indulge in everyday commercial and social activities, again because of the presence of these weapons. No individual or group can assume that life will fulfil expectations of a secure environment, as landmines are designed and deployed to catch unawares the unobservant, the young, the old, and the unlucky. As a result, whole societies are effectively paralyzed, unable to enjoy the security that others take as their right. Post-conflict societies are unable to achieve acceptable levels of development; these countries have been confined to a future of penury, disease, malnutrition and ignorance, not least because of the enduring legacy of landmines

The economic infrastructures necessary to achieve sustainable development are unable to function to any realizable degree, as the apparatus to do so has been heavily targeted during mining operations, and the cost of freeing these structures is proving to be disproportionately expensive. Those international organisations dedicated to helping stricken regions to revive themselves and progress are similarly hampered, and will continue to be so until the necessary funding to eradicate landmines is available. Minimal social security and national welfare projects are essentially non-viable, because much of the national wealth has been diverted to care for mine victims, despite already chronically over stretched healthcare systems. In some cases, safety nets designed to catch the poor, sick and unemployed simply cannot take the strain. Clearly, urgent measures by the international community to address this lamentable state of affairs are required, at least to alleviate the immediate security and development problems of mine-plagued peoples.

Since the Second World War more than 400 million anti-personnel landmines have been laid, of which a quarter remain in the ground. These latter extract an on going toll on the citizens of their mainly Third World countries, with 26,000 new victims each year. The landmines have a devastating and persistent impact on communities and can cripple a country's ability to recover from the effects of war. But their removal is difficult, dangerous, and costly: $1000 per mine to lift as opposed to $3 to lay. Urgent measures are needed by the international community to find the resources necessary to eradicate this problem.

NOTES

(1.) P Rogers and M. Dando, A Violent Peace (London, 1992), p.17.

(2.) C. Kegley and E. Wittkopf, World Politics, Trend and Transformation, 5th ed (New York, 1995), p.379.

(3.) Ibid., p 132.

(4.) S. Roberts and J. Williams, After the Guns Fall Silent: The Enduring Legacy of Landmines (Oxford, 1995), p.3.

(5.) B. Boutros-Ghali, in Landmines: A Humanitarian Disaster (London,1994), p.7.

(6.) Roberts and Williams, p.3.

(7.) Physicians for Human Rights, Landmines:A Deadly Legacy (New York, 1993), p.4.

(8.) R. McGrath, Landmines: Legacy of Conflict (Oxford,1994), p.2.

(9.) P. Davies, War of the Mines (London,1994), p.127.

(10.) B. Buzan, People, States and Fear (Hemel Hempstead, 1991), p.17.

(11.) G. Tansey, K. Tansey, and P Rogers A World Divided: Militarism and Development After the Cold War, (London, 1994), pp.2-3.

(12.) Physicians for Human Rights, p.117.

(13.) Ibid., p.86.

(14.) P. Brogan, World Conflicts, 2nd ed (London, 1992), p.8.

(15.) I. Doucet, in Indiscriminate Weapons: Landmines (London, 1993), p.311.

(16.) Physicians For Human Rights, p.139.

Frank Faulkner graduated from the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford. He is currently undertaking a PhD research programme with the Nottingham Trent University, specifically examining the roles of landmine manufactures in relation to the problems caused by these weapons for civilian populations, taking into account the legislation on inhumane weapons in international law.

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