Maslen Weighs into Turkey Demining Debate

Stuart Casey-Maslen of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines weighed in on the debate in Turkey about how to clear its minefields along its Syrian border. (Click here to read the whole article).

Much of the debate has focussed on whether to use foreign commercial companies to conduct clearance. (See this previous Political Minefields post).  However, Maslen said the Turkish government had not adequately considered the option of using international NGOs.  Another Turkish newspaper reported that HALO Trust “were aware of the debate in Turkey and might be interested [to help] if asked.”

Research by Political Minefields in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Sudan has suggested that using humanitarian NGOs rather than commercial companies can often be a better move for demining programs. International NGOs are often safer and better able to communicate with the local population.

Casey-Maslen also questioned plans by the government to give long-term leases on the demined land to commercial companies that cleared it.  He said the government must consider the property rights of the land’s owners.

Turkish Opposition Opposed to Using Foreign Demining Companies

Turkish opposition parties have called into question government plans to tender clearance of minefields along the Turkish-Syrian border.  Citing security concerns, they do not want the contract to go to a foriegn company.  They are particularly concerned that Israeli companies might win such a contract.

The Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has criticized this as xenophobia and the “result of a fascist mentality.”

“The opposition is blocking the efforts without proposing an alternative. We are losing time,” he said.

For more information on the issue of mine contamination in Turkey, click here.

ICBL Has Spiffy New Website

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) has launched a new, revamped website.  It looks very swanky. Check it out.

ICBL Condemns Taliban Mine-Laying in Pakistan

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) condemned yesterday the Pakistani Taliban’s use of antipersonnel landmines in the Swat Valley.

“The humanitarian situation in northwest Pakistan is already extremely tense and the civilians are struggling to protect themselves and their families. We are appalled that recently laid landmines come as an additional threat in the region,”said Raza Shah Khan, Director of the Sustainable Peace and Development Organization (SPADO), ICBL member in Pakistan. 

“Not only does landmine use pose an immediate and direct menace to civilians, but it will also have long-term consequences on these populations.”

IBCL member Human Rights Watch has been conducting investigations into violations of humanitarian law in the Swat Valley, including use of human shields and indiscriminate use of artillery.

“The Taliban’s use of landmines and human shields is a sorry addition to their long list of abuses in the Swat Valley,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “They urgently need to let civilians leave areas of fighting.”

 To learn more about the landmine situation in Pakistan, click here.

Willoughby Lauds Aid Workers

Following his receipt of the Burns Humanitarian Award, Guy Willoughby, director of the demining NGO HALO Trust is calling for more recognition of aid workers who spend their careers working in dangerous and difficult places.

“I feel strongly that aid workers who spend 24 months or more in dangerous malaria ridden conflict/post-conflict countries should get some form of recognition,” Willoughby told Political Minefields. He said he would try to help organize such an award, “even if it takes years.”

Earlier, Willoughby told the Scotland on Sunday that, “If you serve with the military you get a campaign medal after 30 days, but many aid workers sacrifice years of their life for very little in return.”

“At the moment the only sort of recognition is in the form of OBEs and MBEs that are only awarded to a very select number, far later in their career.”

Two Million Mines in Sudan!?

I just ran across this claim by the Sudanese Government in April that Sudan was contaminated by two million mines. Surely this can’t be right? First of all, it is practically impossible to estimate how many mines are in the ground.  Second, the ongoing Landmine Impact Surveys indicate that the landmine problem in Sudan has been overestimated. 

Perhaps a good indication of what this is about is the rest of the statement: “the de-mining process is very expensive, it needs a lot of funding.”  Exaggerating the extent of the mine problem in Sudan has often been used as a fundraising strategy — to learn more, read the “Sudan’s Expensive Landmines” report.

Maybe some of the people on the ground in Sudan can post a comment or two to verify whether this number has any basis in reality.

HALO Founder Wins Burns Prize

Guy Willoughby, founder of the Scotland-based HALO Trust, one of the world’s largest humanitarian demining NGOs, was given the Robert Burns Humanitarian Award in recognition for his service to people living in war-torn communities. The annual award recognizes “a group or individual who has saved, improved or enriched the lives of others or society as a whole.

“He has tirelessly driven forward work to rid the world’s most impoverished communities of deadly war debris and saved thousands of people from being killed or severely maimed by landmines or bombs,” said Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond, who presented the award.

Willoughby is famously willing to express controversial criticisms of the mine action community, prone to making provocative statements on the use of demining dogs, campaign conferences and misallocation of aid. Indeed, shortly before receiving his award, Willoughby told Scotland’s Sunday Herald that Princess Diana — the glamorous late patron of the mine action community — would have been “flipping irritated” with the “plethora of organisations and bureaucracy into the world of mine clearance.“

To see The Observer’s profile of Willoughby, click here.

Despite his formidable reputation, Willoughby has been a strong supporter and friend of Political Minefields — even opening HALO’s archives to assist with the “Sudan’s Expensive Landmines” report.  Political Minefields wishes him a hearty congratulations!

Report Criticizes Blurring Civil-Military Lines in Humanitarian Aid

A recent report by CARE employees Stephen Cornish and Marit Glad criticizes the blurring of distinctions between military and humanitarian efforts in conflicted regions. They show how efforts by civil-military Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan have been “costly, wasteful, lacking in quality and often not taking into account community needs.”  They also argue that using aid for politico-military objectives means that assistance is not always guided by need.  Thus aid goes to those who are considered more ‘politically valuable’ than those most vulnerable. Finally, they show how blurring the lines between aid workers and military actors has put aid agencies at greater risk of retaliation by other factions.

While focussed on the broader humanitarian and development community, the authors’ conclusions mirror those of Political Minefields’ Afghanistan report, “Goldmine.” The Goldmine report argued that the merging of US aid and security policy in Afghanistan reduced neutral ‘humanitarian space’ for mine action, putting deminers at risk.  Read the Goldmine report here.

Angola: Countries Involved in War Should Pay for Demining

Angola’s social welfare minister, Joao Baptista Kussuma, said yesterday that the countries which had been involved in Angola’s civil war — such as the USA, Russia, Cuba and South Africa — should pay for demining Angola.

“We are doing this alone when there were 11 or 12 different armies that mined our country,” he told Reuters.

His statement was somewhat misleading, given that Angola has received $19.8 million for mine action in 2007, $4.6 million of which was from the USA. In contrast, the Angola reported no contribution of its own to the mine action budget in 2007. Just a couple weeks ago, the EU promised Euro 20 million over four years for Angolan demining.  So Angola is hardly on its own.

Nonetheless, Angola still has a major mine and UXO problem, with over 200 casualties between 2005 and 2007. (For more recent information on Angola’s demining program, click here). And Kussuma brings up a valid point: Why is it that Russia and South Africa, both major contributers to the landmine crisis in Africa in the 1980s, are not stumping up cash to clear them up? 

People, including myself sometimes, like to point an accusing finger at the US for its unhelpful mine and cluster munitions policy.  But at least the US contributed nearly $70 million to mine action in 2007, more than any other country. Russia gave no such funding in 2007 and a piddly $107,000 in 2006. It’s time countries like Russia accepted their responsibility and provided compensation to countries suffering the impact of mines they exported or transfered.

Former US Mine Action Czars Call on Obama to Join Ottawa and Oslo Treaties

Two former Special Representatives to the US President and Secretaries of State for Global Humanitarian Demining, Donald Steinberg and Karl F. Inderfurth, have called on President Barack Obama to sign the treaties banning anti-personnel landmines and cluster munitions.

Calling the US a “conspicuous holdout to both treaties”, they wrote that they “see no compelling reasons for the U.S. not to sign these treaties now” in an opinion column for the Baltimore Sun.  They said former President Bush’s arguments against signing the treaties were “unconvincing” and that Obama should chart a new course.

They recognized that Obama has “many urgent issues on his plate and does not need a contentious fight with the skeptics.”  Steinburg and Inderfurth thus recommended setting up a “commission to consider U.S. adherence to these two treaties….”

“It will take some changes in military doctrine and practice, but the benefits will be manifold,” they said. “Chief among them is the powerful signal it will send to the world of the new president’s commitment to re-engage with the international community to address global problems. Equally important, it will help permit future generations to walk the earth without fear.”

To read their article, click here.