Postcard from Africa - Big Bucks in De-Mining - The removal of Millions of deadly Land-mines in Africa becomes a new commercial source for Industrialised Countries and unscrupulous businessmen....<BR>21 March, 1999

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BIG BUCKS IN DE-MINING

Only 12 African countries have signed and ratified the Ottawa Treaty on the ban on anti-personnel landmines which came into force Monday, the 1st of March, 1999 according to the Regional Office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Dakar.
Abdou Latif Mbacke, programme officer at the ICRC Office. in Senegal named these states as South Africa, Benin, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Guinea (Conakry), Equatorial Guinea, Lesotho, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Senegal and Zimbabwe.

Angola, which is part of the group of states having adhered to the treaty which they are yet to ratify, is the world’s most notorious record-holder in terms of the number of people amputated as a result of landmines. About 1.5 percent of the population is affected by landmines in Angola, where there is one amputee person in each 334 inhabitants, according to the statistics of the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO).
In Mozambique, the second most seriously affected African country, after Angola, 87 percent of families say that their daily activities are thwarted by landmines, said the same sources.

In total, out of the 134 countries that have signed the Ottawa treaty, named after the Canadian capital where it was formally signed in December 1997, following an inter-governmental conference which was convened three months earlier, 65 countries have ratified the instrument. The 69 others only signed it.

The Ottawa convention, which bans the production, sale, stockpile and use of anti-personnel landmines, did not get the adhesion of major powers like China and the United States.

It cost between 3 and 30 US dollars to manufacture one landmine while it cost 1,000 US dollars to neutralise the same mine. The destruction of potentially active landmines in the world will cost about 33 billion dollars.
From 1994 to 1998, the European Union funded anti-personnel landmine destruction programmes to the tune of over 128 million dollars world-wide, according to European sources.

The major obstacle in the eradication of landmines in Africa however, is not entirely in the signing of the treaty or its ratification..
African governments simply do not have the finance to carry out de-mining exercises therefore the pace of the removal of landmines programmes depend on the charity of the industrialised countries.

In Zimbabwe for example where Zimbabwe Defence Industries Chief Executive, Colonel Dube estimates that at least 3 million. Landmines have to be cleared, the European Union came up with a package of about 30 million Euros for one portion in the North east of the Country.. Tenders were floated in March, 1998 at a cost of US 1,000 dollars for the tender forms, retired former United Nations De-mining Officer, Mr. Blagden was brought reportedly to ensure that European companies benefit from the package.
Zimbabwe Defence Industries put a condition that whatever European company won the tender should jointly work with and pass on de-mining skills to the locals in order that in future they may be able to clear the landmine menace themselves.
The Governor and Resident Minister of Mashonaland East Province, Mr. Border Gezi was invited to inspect the cleared and audited area after six month of operation. The British outfit which won the tender had not even done a kilometre of mine clearance. A visibly angry Mr. Gezi told the company that if they could not do it they should not waste time or endanger lives by declaring a cleared place safe only to blow up eventually.

Therefore the first snag is the Financiers striving to siphon back moneys allocated for de-mining to their companies and home countries.

The United Nations made a resolution that any company once involved in the manufacture of Land-mines cannot be awarded de-mining contracts which deprives the programme the opportunity to use miners in removing the menace they planted. They know where the mines are. Perhaps with stringent supervision if need be they can assist speed up the programme.

The figures involved in the de-mining exercise are very attractive and there are incidences in Mozambique where de-miners removed mines only to plant them elsewhere in order to create new contracts.
A Zimbabwean de-miner who worked in Mozambique who declined to be named for obvious reasons speaks of an occasion when during the vicinity of United Nations officials mines they had earlier removed and had been stashed away for "destruction" were planted in an area where there had never been any landmines. During the guided tour, the United Nations officials were taken near the vicinity where a goat was blown up and the area was immediately declared no go until the de-miners cleared the mines and audited the exercise.

De-mining has unfortunately become big business first and secondly a danger to human life and development.