Sunday 1 January 2023

LANDMINES, ONLY $6.75

What can you buy for six dollars and seventy-five cents? Tell me . . . I'll tell you what you can buy for six dollars and seventy-five cents. You can buy an anti-personnel land mine. Since most people who come across one don't get chance to examine them, I'll describe one for you. They are about the size of a Sony Walkman with a synthetic skin of shagreen leather, or Naugahyde. They come in designer colours to blend in with any terrain — swamp or shingle, desert sand, or even camel dung. The pressure plate is covered with neoprene and has a gentle resistance to touch, just like a computer keyboard, a designer mine. With merely eleven pounds of pressure required to set them off, only small animals are safe. 

These mines contain just thirty grams of high explosive, rather than kill outright they are designed to create complex medical problems, research — research? has shown that a severely wounded soldier requires far more resources and attention than a dead one does. Conveniently, they are stamped 'this side towards enemy', unfortunately the 'enemy' is more often a child at play or a peasant trying to eke a living from the only decent farmland around, farmland that has been systematically seeded with death.

 There are two types of anti-personnel mine; the blast type and the more gruesome fragmentation type, the latter loaded with tiny ball-bearings or shards of steel, either one will remove limbs or turn insides out.

 This subject may shock you, it's not a very pleasant one, but I'm going to tell you something even more shocking. How many land mines do you think there are around the world in the ground waiting to be stepped on? Go on take a guess. I'll tell you; the U.S. State Department estimates that all told, there are between 65 and 110 million land mines in the ground today.

 Where? In every country or region that has had a war  in the last few decades, especially a civil war. This amounts to one out of every three countries, Cambodia and Afghanistan being the worst afflicted. They are discovered there by children, an arm or a leg at a time. They were laid indiscriminately in Cambodia where there are estimated to be four million, two for every member of the population, just boggles the mind doesn't it. Whole villages were mined, they surround the rice paddies and litter the jungle floor.

Land mines were first developed shortly after the First World War, to counter the growing threat on battlefields of the tank. But these were large cumbersome things, easily spotted and disposed of, so to prevent their disarming they were surrounded with many smaller, easily concealed anti-personnel devices. These were extraordinarily successful, consequently mine-producing companies have never looked back, and fortunes have been made. So effective are these terrible weapons, in the recent civil war in El Salvador 90% of military casualties are attributed to land mines. They are cheap and easy to use, simply spread around and leave, silent soldiers. In theory minefields are supposed to be mapped, but this rarely happens as often the only purpose is to deny land use for food production.

 In Afghanistan they were dropped by the thousands from soviet aircraft. In Vietnam they were dropped by the thousands from U.S. Aircraft, and casually referred to as garbage — some garbage.

 Maybe you are thinking this isn't our problem, don't be so sure, not in these days of world trade. When all industrialised countries have a part in armament production, Canada too. In Vietnam and Laos, the land mines are American, in Kurdistan they are Italian, and in Somalia they are from everywhere — Belgium, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Italy.

 Italy of all places is one of the most aggressive exporters, interestingly two of its three landmine producers are 50% owned by the giant car company fiat, remember the slogan 'the family car with the sports car spirit', I used to own one. How do these people sleep at night?

 What can be done about these terrible weapons? International agencies are reluctant to take on the task of clearing them. Mine clearing technology lags so far behind, that nations are unwilling to risk the lives of highly trained disposal experts. Even now, today, they are probably being laid at a greater rate than they can they be cleared.

 The United Nations has estimated the cost of clearance at between three hundred and one thousand dollars per mine. In the aftermath of the gulf war, a wealthy country like Kuwait can budget seven hundred million dollars for mine clearance, more than has been spent on mine clearance in the rest of the world put together.

 Even so it is difficult to do. For instance, the poor terrain of the Falkland Islands makes it so difficult that the British government has abandoned all attempts. Leaving beaches and grazing land off limits. The Falklands must have been one of the last places to expect minefields.

Meanwhile the killing and horrible maiming continues. Why? There is no easy answer. The real enemies are invisible; they meet in hidden boardrooms where production and profits are planned, where souls are sold, over and over to keep smiles on the faces of shareholders, and do you know where your money is invested?

 What can I do? What can you do? What can anyone do? I despair at man's inhumanity to man. It's said that for evil to triumph all it takes is for good people to do nothing. What to do? I don't know what to tell you — become an activist, join amnesty international. Will it help? At least it's doing something.

 More than anything, be thankful for where we live, and be aware, question leaders who tell you a war is justified. At what cost? Ask them. More land destroyed, more parents mourning the senseless loss of another child. Simply another six dollar and seventy-five cents worth of blood on the bottom-line.

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May 12 1994

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