LAND MINES - GLOBAL UXO

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@igc.org>]

MINES - UXO ON A GLOBAL SCALE

In my work with community groups and others working to clean up 
U.S. military bases, we often work hard to get the military to 
remediate impact ranges littered with unexploded ordnance (UXO). 
("Ordnance" is, most simply, a military term for weapons or 
munitions.) This remains a critical task, but quantitatively it pales in 
significance when compared to the global impact of land mines.

The Department of Defense, in developing and perfecting 
technologies to detect and remove UXO from the surface of its past 
and present impact areas, could come up with technologies which 
might help "cure" this deadly international explosive plague.

Lenny Siegel

The following information is taken from a special issue of IDOC 
INTERNAZIONALE, published in Rome, Italy.

Between 65 million and 110 million land mines contaminate at least 
62 countries in the world. Concentrations are found in countries 
with recent conflict, such as Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia, 
Cambodia, Nicaragua, and Zimbabwe.

Each month, 800 people are killed and 450 are injured by mines. 
Children are particularly vulnerable. Millions of acres of otherwise 
productive land have been placed off limits by concentrations of 
mines.

Land mines are so widespread because they are cheap - from $3 for 
a simple version to $41 for the devastating Italian-made Valmara 69 
jumping mine. They require no sophisticated technology to produce 
or to deploy. At least 43 countries, including all major powers, 
manufacture land mines.

Even when a conflict is over, and the fighters go home, the land 
mines usually remain. It costs about $1,000 to clear a mine. The 
time it takes to lift and disarm a mine is about 100 times as long as 
it takes to place it. "At the current rate of manual demining, it would 
take 4,300 years to clear mines from just 20% of Afghanistan." "To 
clear Cambodia of its mines it would take the entire Gross Domestic 
Product of the country for three years to pay for the process."

More than 100 non-government organizations from a wide range of 
countries are now active in the International Campaign to Ban 
Landmines, formed in 1991. Several U.S. groups, including the 
Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, are active.

The Campaign advocates a total international ban on the 
production, trade, use, transfer, stockpiling, and research of land 
mines. It also promotes "humanitarian mine clearance," which 
differs from military breaching. The purpose of breaching is to clear 
a path through a minefield. The objective of humanitarian mine 
clearance is "to decontaminate mined land by locating and 
destroying all mines, and make essential land 100% safe for the 
community."

Technically, humanitarian mine clearance does not differ 
significantly from restoring impact ranges. The enormous cost of 
restoring such lands, particularly to a standard that would permit 
them to be sold or otherwise transferred, has caused the military to 
invest substantial effort in research and development on UXO 
investigation, remediation, and disposal. With not much more 
additional effort, that research and development could make 
humanitarian mine clearance better, faster, cheaper, and safer too.