Anti-personnel landmines (APLs) A Socio-economic and Humanitarian Perspective

Anti-personnel landmines (APLs): A Socio-economic and

Humanitarian Perspective

Imtiaz Ahmed*

*The author is Senior Research Fellow, Department of Strategic and Regional

Studies (DSRS), University of Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, India – 180006.

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse the Socio-economic, Ecological and Humanitarian

impacts of Anti-personnel landmines and holds that landmines are

indiscriminate and have led to global humanitarian crisis especially in

developing countries. It led physical and psychological trauma in victim’s life

and tear up social fabric of nation. APLs deny access to community resources,

led to soil contamination, loss of productivity and threat to food security, loss

biodiversity. They threat not only to present but also the future generation.

Where there is fighting, one expects that people will be killed; however, in

many parts of the world where fighting once took place and has since ceased

people continue to be killed by discarded weapons of war. Anti-personnel

mines which are described as buried terror and ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction

in slow motion’ recognize no cease fire and after ‘they maim or kill the

children and also grandchildren of the soldiers who laid them.’ Landmines,

although typically not categorized with Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD),

are believed to have killed more people than nuclear and chemical weapons

combined. In strictly military terms, landmines are cheap weapons. But a

mine that originally costs US$3, can require between US$300 and US$1000 to

clear, and adds to enormous cost in humanitarian and environmental

damage.

Key words: Anti-personnel landmines (APLs), Humanitarian crisis, Weapon of

Mass Destruction (WMD), Non State Actors (NSAs), Unexploded Ordinance

(UXO)

Landmines are indiscriminate and pernicious weapons

killing more civilians, innocent women, children and farm

workers after a cease fire than during actual conflict.

Landmines render the region infested by them useless for

human habitation and activity. They displace population;

create demographic pressure which destabilizes

neighbouring regions. More over the victim of landmines

have a greater problem of survival in agony and uncertain

rehabilitation. Yet another ramification of the issue of

landmines is their indiscriminate use by Non State Actors

(NSAs) like insurgent, terrorists and extremist groups.

Innocent are being terrorized, in the process denying

them their fundamental right to work in their farm and

fields without fear.1

The facts on the immense and unjustifiable human

suffering caused by these ‘hidden killers’ are stark:

Every year about 25,000 people are killed or

maimed by APLs, in most cases years after the end

of hostilities;

Nine in ten victims are civilians;

Every third victim is child;

Those who survive will most likely never be able

to live a normal life due to amputations,

blindness or other serious lasting injuries;

Thousands of square miles of productive lands for

agricultural production cannot be used due to

danger of mines;

Social and economic development is severely

hampered in mine affected countries;

A simple mine cost less than $3, its clearance

however requires $300 to $1000 making demining a

very costly and slow process.2 Landmines have been

used in warfare in the beginning of 20th century,

designed to explode remotely or after being

activated by the unwitting soldiers, jeep, tank

etc. however, much like small arm, landmines have

become victim of their own success.

Relatively cheap and versatile, landmines

proliferated in later half of the 20th century. They could

be used to protect bases from the attack, to add an extra

line of defence on the frontline, or to hold territory

without a large contingent of soldiers, who could then be

deployed to other area of interest. However, removal of

landmines when fighting was over was not a priority in

many of the war torn countries around the world. As a

result, civilian casualties due to left over landmines

began to mount at an alarming rate.

By the end of the 1990s, expert estimated that

between 20,000 to 25,000 new causalities were incurred by

abandoned landmines each year. Landmines are strewn some

75 countries, many of which do not have people and land

to spare. As with other weapons, the cost of landmines is

actually greater when its victim survives.

Medical expenses to repair or replace damaged or

amputated limbs; wages that the person lose in the event

they cannot be employed due to their injuries, the wage

of the family members who must attend the victims of

landmines rather than work; and the lost production of

swath of land that are infested with abandoned landmines,

all take the toll on the struggling nations. Farmers

using contaminated land are usually already among the

poorest of their society, hence they have no choice but

to take the risk of using land ever, in many cases when

they know that land is contaminated.

The wide use of APLs has created a global

humanitarian crisis. Attempts to estimate the number APLs

in the ground around the world have been made by

countries reporting under the ‘Ottawa Convention’. But

counting the number of mines in the ground does not

accurately measure the problems that landmines cause.

The most meaningful measure of landmines' effects is

the amount of high-priority land where mines are hidden.

This land could be farmed, is socially and economically

valuable, or is vital to the movements of people nearby.

Risk of death or injury limits its use, and the community

cannot use a field whether it hides two mines or 10,000.

Any attempt to count the number of mines laid around the

world can only be an estimate, so Mine Action Group (MAG)

now focus on the humanitarian crisis that landmines

cause.

The deadly seriousness of the landmine story is in

the numbers of people affected by landmines, especially

the estimated tens of thousands of new direct and

indirect victims each year. Landmines cause huge barriers

to social and economic development in some of the world's

poorest countries.

Since 1975, there are estimated to have been more

than a million landmine casualties mostly civilians, and

many among them children. Landmines that do not kill

immediately, instead severely maim their victims, causing

trauma, lifelong pain and often, social rejection.

Worldwide, some 300,000 to 400,000 landmine survivors

face terrible physical, psychological and socio-economic

difficulties.3

Impact of Mine blast injuries: Mines/Unexploded ordinance

(UXO) injuries have two maim impact. First, they affect the

lives of the causality and their family; secondly they have

impact on the medical infrastructure of the affected

countries. The main economic affect on the victim is the

limiting of the ability to earn income to support

themselves and their family. After suffering an injury

the ability of injuries, the causality may suffer

psychological damage. Female causalities are regarded as

particular vulnerable as the extensive physical damage

can severely limit their chance of marriage. Even when

married at the time of accident, organizations

specializing in mine victim assistance report that it is

common for husband to desert the causality.

The effects are not limited to their causality or

their victim or their immediate families. Treating

landmines injuries drains the local medical

infrastructure of developing countries, as these sort of

wounds inevitably become infested and usually require 2-3

operations to debride the wounds of debris and necrotic

tissue. Traumatic amputation of one or both legs will

require prosthesis or a wheel chair if they are to regain

their mobility and in case of prosthesis, will need an

intensive physiotherapy to learn how to use the

artificial limbs. Furthermore, amputees will require new

limbs every 2-3 years as the old wear out. When the

casualties are children, the situation is exacerbated as

growing children will need their limbs adjusted or

replaced several times each day. The United Nations

estimated that the minimum average cost of lifetime

rehabilitation of landmine victim is US$3000. For the

people of developing and underdeveloped countries which

are victim of landmines contaminations like Cambodia,

Afghanistan, Laos etc this is far beyond from his or her

dream. For 40,000 people in Cambodia, means an added $120

million in just paying surgery and rehabilitation.

A nation already struggling to provide basic health

care service, cannot take the extra burden on intended

national resources.4 The landmines effect includes the

denial of land for production, the destruction of

irrigation canals and ditches, ponds, rivers. These areas

are key strategic places for heavy mining. The loss of

domestic animals to mines in many cases most families own

are just one or two animals, their whole livelihood is

wiped out in just one blast. The denial to orchids and

wooded areas reducing access to fruits, food, firewood,

building material, loss of land for housing or old

residential areas, causing further displacement of

peoples and homelessness contribute to that age old

development concept of rural-urban migration. Schools are

closed as a result of mined playground accident. Bridges,

roads, railways, airstrip, power lines and rendered

completely useless, especially as they are the key

targets of mining in any way of situation.

In countries likes Cambodia rural development are

indirectly affected. Demining is considered to be the

first stage of their development programme both in

budgetary and international donors have had to be

convinced that demining in mine contaminated countries is

as much as development objectives as basic health care,

education, clean water and food security. The mines apart

of social fabric of families, loss of parents result in

increase in street children. These children in turn are

much more likely to be sexually assaulted, exploited,

sold in prostitution or recruited for the military right

way (Child soldiers).

Although the effects of landmines are relatively

easy to outline, they are less easy to quantify. Keeping

accurate statistics is one of the least urgent of

concerns to a country in conflict or barely recovering

from it. However, with the renewed focus on the problem

of landmines, efforts are increasingly being made to more

systematically analyze the impact of landmines. Most of

the countries contaminated today by landmines are

countries with the fewest resources available to respond

to the socio-economic consequences of that contamination.

For the most part, the most severely affected countries

are also rural and agricultural societies. Within those

societies, it is the subsistence farmer, nomads and their

herds, and fleeing refugees and the displaced who most

often are affected, those sectors of the society who must

rely most on their physical fitness for basic subsistence

and who can least afford the care necessary to treat

landmine injuries.

Landmines generally cause extensive injury. The

majority of nonlethal casualties results in traumatic or

surgical amputation. Mine explosions injure either by the

blast itself or by driving dirt, bacteria, clothing, and

fragments of the mine deep into the wound, often causing

severe secondary infection. The shock of the explosion

and the debris pushed high up into the tissue and bone

can result in higher amputations than the actual site of

the wound itself. Mine casualties generally require more

time in the hospital, more operations, and more blood

than other types of war related injury. Injury is

frequently caused to other parts of the body, including

the genitals, arms, chest, and face.

The economic impact on landmine victims and their

families is profound. In Cambodia, for example, where

most social services are theoretically free, the majority

are now provided on a fee for service basis. Mine victims

reported having to pay for transportation to the

hospital, an admission charge, bed charge, and fees for

medicines and blood. The family must also attempt to

overcome the loss of earnings both for the mine victim

and whoever takes care of the casualty during the stay in

the hospital. Over half the families interviewed in a

landmine survey in villages near LoC (J&K) reported going

into debt as a result of the accident. Families reported

having to exchange or sell gold Jewellery, bicycle, land,

tree or animals to pay for costs related to landmine

incidents.5

The war wounded, particularly landmine victims,

place an inordinate drain on human and material

resources, which only adds to the generalized

disequilibrium that occurs between preventive and

curative medicine during armed conflict. Evidence

indicates that diseases that may have been under control

before the conflict may be reintroduced during conflict

because preventative measures often collapse during the

fighting. Widespread sowing of landmines can make it

impossible to carry out vaccination campaigns and other

preventative health care programs.

Landmine victims place an inordinate strain on what

are usually bare minimum medical services throughout the

developing world; for those who survive the blast and

require rehabilitative services, the cost to societies

with limited resources is staggering. Without assistance,

the cost of an artificial limb for most amputees is

prohibitive. The ICRC reports that an adult's prosthesis

must be replaced every three to five years; for a child,

still growing, it must be changed every six months. Thus,

a 10 year old child with a life expectancy of 40 or 50

more years would need 25 prostheses at a total cost of

$3,125. Even where international agencies provide

prosthetic devices without charge to mine victims, often

the family cannot afford the time and effort to take the

amputee for rehabilitation.

The impact on the individual victim and on the

family is life changing. When multiplied by the hundreds

or thousands or tens of thousands as in countries

severely contaminated by landmines such as Afghanistan,

Angola, Cambodia, or Mozambique, the life of the

community and the society at large is also forever

changed.6 Yet the socio-economic impacts of landmines are

more far reaching than the obvious direct effect of the

maiming or killing of those who trigger landmines. When

an entire country becomes the theatre of battle and much

of the population the target, landmines sown by the tens

of thousands over a national territory leave a deadly

legacy. The mining of agricultural and grazing lands can

lead to dislocation and increased malnutrition as

populations are no longer able to provide for their own

survival.7

In Afghanistan, 37 percent of families interviewed

in a survey reported that they would be able to grow more

crops if it were not mined; the total additional land

that could be cultivated is 135 percent of the area

currently under cultivation. For nomad families, 63

percent report having lost at least one animal to

Landmines; the number killed is equal to 53 percent of

current flocks. Another study found that 361,135 animals

have been killed by Landmines in Afghanistan; the total

direct value of the loss of the animals, not including

the loss of productivity resulting from their having been

killed, is over $60 million.8 Similar are the situation on

border area of India especially with Pakistan, severe

situation is on LoC which is yet to be demined.

Refugee resettlement, and that of IDPs, is also

affected by landmines because the mining of road systems

can impede and endanger repatriation and resettlement.

Even when mined roads are cleared so that people can

return home, the problems continue. For example, in

Cambodia, the U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)

repatriated more than 330,000 refugees without a mine

related casualty. Yet landmines still had an overwhelming

impact on the repatriation process. UNHCR's original plan

called for each family to receive two hectare of land so

that they would, hopefully, be self sufficient in the

newly rebuilding society. After several land availability

surveys, because of the severe contamination by landmines

in the four provinces near the border with Thailand to

which the majority of refugees wished to return, the

UNHCR had to redraft its plan for repatriation. By March

of 1992, when the movement of refugees actually began, it

announced that land had been found for just 5,500

families, eight percent of the refugee population.

Ultimately, less than half that number actually received

land. Over 85 percent of the returnee population received

cash grants and food support for 400 days.

The mining of transportation systems can also

disrupt the flow of goods and services. The mining of

dams and electrical infrastructure can seriously reduce

the ability of a country to generate power. The main

power plant in Mozambique, and one of the most important

in Southern Africa, is located at the Cabora Bassa Dam in

Tete province. The power transmission lines were damaged

in the war and many of the pylons mined. The

impossibility of repairing the mined electrical lines

reduced its output to less than one percent of capacity

and forced an increase in the country's imports of

electricity from $1 million in 1980 to $10 million in

1988. In short, the extensive mining of a country affects

the right of its people to development. Landmines and

cluster munitions causes injuries that have extremely

serious physical, psychological and social consequences.

The Human Impact

In 50 percent of cases the traumatic consequences are

fatal. The damage done to the body by these weapons is

not only caused by the explosion itself but also by the

earth, bacteria, pieces of clothing and fragments of

metals and plastics that find their way in to body

tissue. Not only they lead to amputation of the limb(s)

affected but they may also cause permanent damage to

hands, arms, genitalia, face, eyes and ears especially

among children because of their short stature. Mutilation

may limit person’s physical capacities, which in turn

prevents them from playing a part in social life of their

community.

Survivors encounter physical difficulties

following the trauma.

Disability reduces the person’s chance of getting

married, having children and finding work. Also

the negative social attitudes towards disabled

people lead to exclusion.

Local communities are scared to use fields and

roads or send their children to school.

Communities often have to choose between poverty,

starvation and dehydration or risk their lives by

cultivating dangerous fields.

The number of peoples with disabled increases in

already impoverished countries.

The return of refugee and IDP is hindered.9

Being disabled the survivors face a loss of

income. If they were earner, the whole family may

face extreme poverty. Relative may also have to

stop working to look after him or her.

Most survivors cannot afford expensive medical

treatment. Families may face the dilemma i.e.

receive no treatment or sell their possession

(property).

The Impact on Socio-Economic System

The presence of landmines and UXO prevent

communities from using their land, restricting

agricultural production and rural development.

The national economy is also affected as countries

face an increased need for medical and

rehabilitation services and decrease in accessible

farmable land.

They also lead to a lack of economic development,

as trade with in rural communities, between urban

centre and country side and between neighbouring

states is disrupted when their borders are mined

or contamination with cluster bombs.

They obstruct to natural resources, raw material

and development of transport network.10

Impact of Antipersonnel landmines (APLs) and other

Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) on children

Where there is fighting, one expects that people will be

killed; however, in many parts of the world where

fighting once took place and has since ceased people

continue to be killed by discarded weapons of war.11

Landmine and other ERWs represent ‘an insidious and

persistent danger’ to children affected by war, says a

new UN report on the impact of armed conflict on

children. Landmines are killing, injuring children and

sometimes even making them orphans. Children account for

one in every five landmine victims in many mine affected

countries. According to the research work done by ICBL

about 15,000 to 20,000 people are killed or maimed by

landmines every year. In Cambodia alone children account

for up to 50 percent of landmines casualties, according

to the Cambodian Red Cross. The 2003 LIS says that in

Somalia children account for more than 55 percent of

total Landmines victims. On LoC in J&K children accounts

about 20 percent of the victims. Children are often

miraged by the intriguing and colourful appearance of

landmines and other ERWs. Children are far more likely to

die from landmine injuries than adults. Adding more to

the misery, it is estimated that about 85 percent of

child victims of landmines even die before reaching the

hospital. Children, particularly those living in refugee

camps and displaced children returning home, are always

in particular danger of landmines because they are most

likely to be unaware of the dangers of playing in or

traversing hazardous areas and fell prey.12 Landmines

causes gut wrenching injuries. Children may lose their

sight or hearing; lose fingers, toes and limbs; suffer

injuries to their genitals. They also suffer

psychologically from the trauma of a landmine injury.

Without adequate medical treatment, children injured by

landmines are often pulled out of school. They face

limited future prospects for education and employment and

are often perceived as a burden to their families.13

Landmines devastate the lives of children by killing

or maiming their parents or caregivers. When mothers are

maimed or killed, children are less likely to receive

adequate nutrition, to be immunized or to be protected

from exploitation. When fathers fall victim to landmines,

children are often forced out of school and into work to

supplement family income.

The cost of providing long-term care for child

landmine victims can be prohibitive. Rehabilitation

clinics are often too far away or too expensive to

access. Uncleared landmines prevent access to reconstruct

homes, roads, schools, health facilities and other

essential services.

Landmines and UXO violate nearly all the articles of

the ‘Convention on the Rights of the Child i.e. a child’s

right to life, to a safe environment in which to play, to

health, clean water, sanitary conditions and adequate

education.14

Long Term Social Consequences of Landmines

1, The Impact on Families: Where the victim has been the

principal family breadwinner, the family economy will

rapidly run down and desperate measures begging,

prostitution, or crime may be invoked to maintain

survival. The injury of any family member will divert

attention from the daily struggle for existence and will

reduce the capacity of the family to respond to change

and, within their milieu, to retain some measure of that

control basic to health. Despair is not a characteristic

commonly attributed to rural subsistence societies; the

grinding demands of daily labour require a steady

courage, but a sudden and major decline in family

fortunes and a threat to its resilience is inevitable in

the face of a land mine injury. It is necessary to

recognize what the presence of landmines ‘does

psychologically to whole communities that are used to

providing for themselves, used to being independent, who

have lost the ability to provide for themselves, to

provide for their families and to be part of the larger

community.’

2, Public Health Burdens: At a regional level, the

diversion of scarce resources to the succour of mine

victims reduces the potential for long term health

improvement and promotion whether immunization of

infants, safe sex campaigns, malaria control programs,

construction of safe water supplies, or training of

village level health personnel. The cost in Afghanistan

of providing prostheses over a period of 40 years for a

child injured at age 10 has been estimated as almost half

of a normal lifetime income for a worker in that country.

Even in the absence of landmine injuries there are

significant social and public health consequences.

Infectious diseases move freely (e.g., in Cambodia up to

one quarter of the population were infected with malaria

and a similar number with tuberculosis, but health teams

are restricted to safe areas. The forced removal of wide

tracts of arable land from productive use further lowers

standards of living, reinforcing latent fears and

contributing to population displacement with all its

attendant risks of local hostility and disruption. The

reconstruction of railways, bridges, and roads following

cessation of conflict is impeded; internal markets fail

to function effectively; prices remain abnormally high;

schools remain closed.

Landmines infestation increases the likelihood of the

following.

1. Water born diseases, when access to safe drinking

water is cut off by mines;

2. Malnutrition, when mine block access to arable land;

3. Infectious diseases, because vaccination teams avoid

heavily mined areas;

4. Due to scarcity of resources and equipment to test

blood supplies in mines-affected countries, they are

not always free from infectious agents;

5. The increased frequency of blood transfusion favours

the spread of syphilis, malaria, hepatitis and HIV.15

After leaving the hospital, a mine survivor will need to

rebuild his or her life. To do this, the mine survivor

will first need to recover his or her mobility, and then

reintegrate society and the economy. Physical

rehabilitation and socio-economic reintegration are

closely linked needs. Enabling a person with disability

to walk and move about is in itself a great achievement.

But it is also an indispensable condition for the

person’s participation in family and community life, work

and education.

Physical rehabilitation involves physiotherapy and

fitting with artificial limbs (prostheses) or with

devices to support a malfunctioning limb (orthoses), as

well as providing other orthopaedic appliances such as

crutches and wheel chairs. Disabled mine survivors

require physical rehabilitation for the rest of their

lives.

A child that steps on APLs today may need up to 35

prostheses in his or her lifetime. Yet few mine affected

countries have self sufficient and sustainable physical

rehabilitation facilities for persons with disabilities.

Existing physical rehabilitation centres are often

located in capital cities far from the areas where mine

injuries occur. Travel to the centres may be too

expensive or too insecure for those in need of services.

In some countries, large numbers of amputees have never

received rehabilitative care.

In others, when an artificial limb is broken or no

longer fits, the patient can wait months or even years

for its replacement. This experience can be as traumatic

as losing one’s leg all over again. Socio-economic

reintegration can enable the disabled person to resume

his or her life as a full member of the community. The

psychological trauma and loss of self esteem that

disabled mine survivors experience can be eased through

family and psycho-social support, community acceptance

and employment, restoring a person’s feeling of

productivity and dignity. Mine survivors consistently say

that their top priority is to become productive community

members and contribute to supporting their families.

Vocational training and the creation of employment

opportunities are therefore crucial tools to help mine

survivors rebuild their lives.

Yet most mine survivors live in low income countries

that have few or no resources for employment programmes

aimed at persons with disabilities, let alone for psycho-

social support. In some communities, disabled persons are

socially stigmatized, making their prospects for

reintegration even more difficult. In too many cases,

patients leave physical rehabilitation centres to become

beggars and to be neglected by their families and

communities.

Like all persons with disabilities, mine survivors

should benefit from legislation and public policies that

protect disabled persons. Legislation and public policies

should protect mine survivors and other disabled from

discrimination and ensure that they have equal access to

public facilities, social programmes and educational and

employment opportunities. Victim assistance is more than

just a medical or rehabilitation issue; it is also a

human rights issue. But many affected states lack

adequate legislation to protect the rights of mine

survivors and other disabled.

Additional challenges to ensuring functioning health

and social services systems for war wounded and other

persons with disabilities in mine affected countries

include the lack of accurate data on the number of

victims and where they are located victim surveillance

through data collection is a useful tool to indicate the

scale and nature of casualties, in order to manage

assistance effectively. The fact that large numbers of

victims live in rural areas where access to health

facilities is limited or non-existent. The inability of

assistance agencies to reach mine victims and other war

wounded due to insecurity caused by ongoing threats,

conflicts or tensions. The lack of priority given to

health care in many mine affected countries, leaving

health care systems weak, with little or no planning or

capacity building, and no systematic training of first

aid and hospital staff.16

3, Environmental Impact of landmine

The risk of over cultivation in unmined areas is high.

Forests are felled and cleared in a desperate search for

alternative sources of income when traditional

agricultural areas cannot be used. Health, economy, and

environment are intimately linked. Not only is land

rendered unsafe to cultivate through the use of

landmines, but the very structure of fragile soil may be

impaired. An assessment of the use of landmines in the

Gulf War revealed irreversible damage to ecosystems,

including prolonged direct damage through shattering or

displacement of soil and increased vulnerability to wind

and water erosion. The severe and long term effect of

landmines on land usage, on water supply and on

infrastructure make them the most toxic of all

manufactured pollutants.17

Landmines are one of the most environmentally

destructive aftermaths of war facing the world today. The

barely chronicled global landmine problem has transcended

both humanitarian and sociological concerns to bring

about environmental damage. Disruption of land’s

stability, pollution and loss of biodiversity constitute

major ecological repercussions of landmine crisis. This

qualitatively integrates ecological, social, economic and

political variables that play a role in creating and

perpetuating a serious land degradation problem in

landmine-affected regions. The complexity of the landmine

problem and interrelationships between the issues

surrounding the degradation and management of landmine-

affected environments is highlighted below.

The former Secretary General of the UN, ‘Boutros

Boutros Ghali,’ acknowledged the scourge of landmines as

one of the most atrocious global problems of our times.

Landmines stand out from other forms of warfare, because

of their very persistent, indiscriminating and

uncontrolled nature. The global landmine calamity has

transcended both humanitarian and sociological concerns

to bring about environmental damage.18

Categorization of Landmine Effects

1, Economic impact

On the wider scale, the health care systems of countries

with a landmine problem are severely stretched. Many

countries do not have enough trained surgeons to cope

with the workload. This results in inadequate treatment

of the wounds and subsequent additional mortality and

long term disability from amputation stumps that will not

support prosthesis. Victims of anti-personnel mines

account for 25 percent of the war injuries seen in

hospitals. Of the landmine injured, 85percent require

amputations, and over 80 percent of the lower limb

amputations performed as a result of all war related

injuries is due to landmines. Landmine patients also

require more blood transfusions, more surgical procedures

per patient and remain in hospital longer than patients

with gunshot or fragment injury, adding to the cost and

requiring a disproportionately large amount of surgical

time. Children often require stump revision as growing

bone protrudes through the skin. There are an estimated

36,000 landmine amputees in Cambodia out of a population

of 8.5 million, one in every 236 Cambodians has lost at

least one limb to Landmines.

This represents a major public health and economic

problem. Rehabilitation of patients involves a huge

demand for artificial limbs. The cost of these devices is

beyond the means of the majority of patients, and is

largely borne by NGOs.

Prosthetic workshops have been established in areas

of need, training local employees to manufacture limbs

from locally available material to keep the costs down.

In 1991, the ICRC workshops produced 7876 artificial

limbs worldwide, the vast majority for landmine amputees.

Despite these massive efforts, there is still a huge

backlog of patients waiting for limb fitting. HI

estimates that only one in eight Cambodian mines amputees

have so far been fitted with artificial limbs.

Replacement prosthesis is needed every 3-5 years for an

adult and every 6 months by a child, ensuring that the

costs will continue for decades to come. Use of local

rubber and wood instead of more robust western synthetic

materials means that although the prostheses can be

produced cheaply, they have a shorter life span and

require more frequent replacement The cost of providing

a 10 year old child with a lifetime of artificial legs is

estimated by the Red Cross to be $3125. Without

postoperative support, physiotherapy and effective

rehabilitation, saving the patient in the operating

theatre merely condemns him to a life of misery.

Amputees in a peasant agrarian society become an

unproductive burden on their families. Women amputees are

less desirable as brides because they cannot work in the

fields. The incidence of vagrancy and petty crime among

amputees is thought to be higher than in the able bodied

population. The threat of mines hinders relief operations

by preventing access to certain areas by aid agencies,

disrupting road networks and necessitating the

implementation of landmine clearance operations which are

vastly expensive both in financial and human terms. It

costs $6000 dollars per year to employ a local landmine

clearer, and up to 30 times this figure to employ an

expatriate demining expert to train and supervise the

locals. In 1994, $27 million was spent by the UN on mine

clearance. Many areas are laboriously cleared, which

yield a very small number of devices, but owing to the

threat, every inch of the ground has to be assumed to be

harbouring a mine until proved otherwise. Approximately

one mine clearer is injured for every 2000 mines cleared.

Despite all the effort and expense, mine clearing efforts

are barely scratching the surface of the problem.

2, Ecological dimensions

The impacts of landmines on soil, flora and fauna, and

people are felt at different levels of the ecological

system, whether the mines have detonated or not. The ways

in which landmines cause land degradation are broadly

classified into five groups: access denial, loss of

biodiversity, micro-relief disruption, chemical

contamination, and loss of productivity Access denial.

All the study pointed out that the most prominent

ecological issue associated with landmines presence (or

fear of) is access denial to vital resources. It is

estimated that landmines have denied access to or

degraded 900000 km2 of land, globally. For their military

purpose, landmines guarantee that people and their

movements are channelled away from strategically

significant sites, and prevent military incursion. But

the use of landmines is not by any means confined to

military establishments or sites of military

significance. The fear of presence of even a single

landmine can deny people access to land that they

desperately need for agriculture, water supply or to

undertake conservation measures, and for technical teams

engaged in pest control. Landmines are used in large

quantities around arable lands in Lebanon, Angola,

Mozambique, Cambodia; pasturelands in the Sinai, Kuwait

and Iraq, forests in Nicaragua and the DMZ between North

and South Korea, coastal areas in Kuwait and Egypt,

borders, infrastructures (bridges, roads, electrical

installations, canals and water sources) and nearby

commercial and public centres in Vietnam, Zimbabwe,

Eritrea and Ethiopia, and residential areas in Serbia.

Access denial was indicated as being able to retard or

stop development activities altogether. When Landmines

restrict access to arable or pastoral lands, the people

who depended on those lands are pushed to use or abuse

marginal resources, or move into refugee camps or urban

centres, depending on the availability of alternatives.19

Moreover, declining availability of land was found to

increase the need for practicing more intensive

agricultural production systems that rely on heavy

application of mechanical, chemical or biological

supplements for production on the safe land. At the most

basic levels, some of the ways these practices could

endanger the health of the soil include:

1. Rapid exhaustion of the soil’s mineral nutrient

stock due to continuous cultivation with no fallow

or rotations;

2. Mechanically intensive agriculture and

3. Excessive uses of chemical supplements and their

consequent accumulation in the ecosystem.

On the other hand, access denial has been observed

to have ‘positive’ effects when the mined areas become

‘no-man’s land’. It is that, during limited anthropogenic

interference flora and fauna get a chance to flourish and

recover. Formerly arable and pasture lands in Nicaragua

were turned into forest and forests remained undisturbed

after the introduction of landmines. However, it need to

be pointed out that, these benefits would only last as

long as animals or tree roots do not detonate the mines.

In addition, in land of lesser quality, long fallow

periods could potentially end up creating or exacerbating

loss of productivity.

3, Loss of biodiversity

The impact of landmines on different plant and animal

populations is considered to be a foremost environmental

concern, next to access denial. As long as they receive

enough mass to activate those landmines do not

differentiate between human beings or other life forms.

Landmines can threaten biodiversity in a given region by

destroying vegetation cover during explosions or

demining, and when animals fall victim. Landmines pose an

extra burden for threatened and endangered species.

Landmines have been blamed for pushing various species to

the brink of extinction. Although it is widely believed

that landmines destroy vegetation and kill untold numbers

of animals every year, this is unfortunately one of the

areas where there is hardly any numerical data to

determine how many individuals of a species or where and

how they fall victims. The very little data that exists

on animal population is also highly biased towards

domesticated animal and little is known about the impacts

suffered by wild populations.20

Some of the animals that regularly fall victim to

Landmines include brown bears in Croatia; barking bear,

clouded leopard, snow leopard and royal Bengal tigers and

Kashmiri stag (Hangul) in J&K (India) and gazelles in

Libya. Landmines are accused of threatening extinction of

elephants in parts of Africa and in Sri Lanka, and

leopards in Afghanistan. Additionally, almost four

percent of the very rare European brown bears were

reported killed by landmines in Croatia between 1991 and

1994 alone. Mines have killed one of the very few

remaining mature, male silver backed mountain gorillas in

Rwanda and virtually eradicated gazelles from Libya. With

regards to domesticated animals, studied the social costs

of Landmines in 206 communities in Afghanistan, Bosnia,

Cambodia and Mozambique and reported that more than 57

000 animals were killed due to landmines, over 35000 of

which belonged to the Kuchi Nomads in Afghanistan.

Another study also reported that more than 125000 camels,

sheep, goats and cattle have been killed in Libya in

between 1940-1980.21 Many of the biodiversity loss

hotspots of the world are severely affected by landmines.

Nacho’n referred to biodiversity data from the World

Conservation Monitoring Centre and identified a large

number of species that are threatened or endangered due

to many factors, including the presence of landmines in

their habitat or migratory paths. Moreover, landmines are

used for poaching endangered species of wildlife, and

refugees and IDP further contribute to loss of

biodiversity when they hunt animals for food or when they

destroy their habitat in order to make shelters for

themselves.

Landmine impacts on plants are even less

documented. Landmines affect plant populations by causing

slow-death of trees when they sustain shrapnel injuries

or abrasions of their bark or roots when fragmentation

mines detonate, providing an entry site for wood-rotting

fungi. In regions where arable and pastoral activities

turn out to be impossible due to landmines, forests

become the last resort for food, fuel wood and shelter.

Valuable forest products, including fruits and timber,

from previously avoided sensitive, endangered ecosystems

are exploited by affected populations looking to start

new livelihood somewhere else. Moreover, wood destined

for lumber becomes unsafe and troublesome when metal

fragments are embedded in it. Demining activities also

influence biodiversity in many ways. Domesticated animals

are frequently used for mine clearance purposes,

especially dogs, sheep and cattle. These animals are let

loose in minefields as easy and fast means of clearance.

Furthermore, demining operations demand clearing all the

vegetative cover, including forests from mine suspected

areas, usually by using fire. The result is removal of

litter that plays crucial roles in infiltration,

protecting soil from erosion and the impact of rain

drops, and providing organic matter that is important to

biota and stability of soil’s structure.22

4, Micro-relief disruption

Landmine detonation causes damage to the soils’ stability

by shattering the soil structure, and causing local

compaction, and increasing the susceptibility of soil to

erosion. Deterioration of soil structure due to

explosion, compaction or burning can be a slow and

insidious progression, but their combination results in

long term changes that have significant, sustained

impacts on moisture availability, erodibility and

productivity of the land. When a 250 gm APL detonates, it

can create a crater with a diameter of approximately 30

cm.23 The explosion is described as having the ability to

facilitate removal and displacement of topsoil while

forming a raised circumference around the crater and

compaction of soil into the side of the crater. The level

of the impact can vary depending on the physical

conditions of the soil; the type and composition of the

explosive and how many landmines detonate in the

vicinity. The impact is greater in dry, loosely compacted

and exposed desert soils but is less severe in humid

soils that have vegetation or physical protection.

Susceptibility to reduced infiltration, flooding and

erosion is also higher in areas with steep slopes. In

such cases, transported soil increases sediment load of

drainage systems. When soil is compacted due to external

forces, its resistance to penetration by plant roots and

emerging seedlings increases, the exchange of oxygen and

carbon dioxide between the root zone of plants and the

atmosphere is also retarded. Generally, as long as

repeated explosions do not occur in the same location,

the crater can develop into a stable element of the

landscape when runoff or wind erosion washes soil to its

bottom. In warm and humid regions, however, it has been

reported that the crater may hold water, turn into a

marsh and serve as breeding ground for mosquitoes. Around

20 percent of the respondents highlighted that demining

activities result in micro-relief disruption by affecting

the soil’s biochemical and physical quality.24 A

particularly harmful practice reported after the Gulf War

is the use of fuel explosive bombs. These bombs are

dropped from the sky, creating heavy shock-waves that are

propagated into the ground seeking to cause buried

landmines to detonate. In addition, a lot of organic

pollutants get into the soil during this aerial demining

process. Fires are used to facilitate demining, thus

modifying the amount, form and distribution of biomass,

organic matter and essential nutrients with in the soil

profile. The high temperature of burning causes more

rapid than ‘normal’ humus loss. Similarly, the

temperature increase can cause pH of soil to become more

alkaline and nutrient elements may be converted into more

bio-available forms, or are lost from the soil by

volatilization into the atmosphere, and transfer of ash

with water or wind erosion.

4, Chemical contamination

Landmines interfere with the ability of the soil system

to serve as a geochemical sink for contaminants.

Depending on density of mines per unit area; the type and

composition of the mine; and the length, amount and

degree of exposure of resources to the mines, landmines

can pose a serious pollutions threat, accumulation of

non-biodegradable toxic waste of casings or unexploded

remnants. Moreover, after conflicts, many regions are

left with a massive volume of exploded and UXO that ruin

the aesthetic quality of the area. Landmines are made of

metal, timber or plastic casing and are filled with

2,4,6 Tri-nitrotoluene (TNT), Hexahydro1,3,5trinitro1,3,5

triazine (RDX or Cyclonite). Landmines can also introduce

other non-biodegradable and toxic waste, such as depleted

uranium. These compounds have been known to leach into

soil and underground water as cosing of the mines

disintegrates. Specific contaminants have unique

consequences the effect depends on many complex factors.

In laboratory experiments with rats, TNT and RDX were

found to be carcinogenic, causing tumours’ in the bladder

and male reproductive systems, and congenital defects,

skin irritation, and disruption of the immunological

system.

Landmines, to a lesser extent, also contain

additional compounds including iron, manganese, zinc,

chromium, cadmium, nickel, copper, lead and mercury, of

which iron, manganese, zinc, copper and nickel are

essential micronutrients in the plant soil system. Soil

contamination with heavy metals is observed in areas

surrounding mines when the mines decay or explode. In

extreme cases, contaminations can be detected in as much

as 6 Km from the site of an explosion. Even higher

concentrations of the heavy metals are found at the

centre of the explosion site. Many of the organic and

inorganic substances and compounds that are derived from

the explosives are long lasting, water-soluble and toxic

even in small amounts. The contamination can be delivered

directly or indirectly into soil, water bodies,

microorganisms and plants with drinking water, food

products or during respiration.

These pollutant compounds can leach into

subterranean waters and bio-accumulate in the organs of

land animals, fish and plants. Their effects can be

mortal to some mammals and aquatic macro and

microorganisms by acting as a nerve poison to hamper

growth. A significant landmine related chemical

contamination threat is lead toxicity. Lead can have

continuum of toxicity, meaning it can be harmful even at

very small amounts, and its effects rise with increasing

concentration. In human beings lead (Pb) toxicity can

result in kidney damage, sterility, miscarriage, and

birth defects. Moreover, high levels of mercury (Hg) can

result in neurological disorder; while cadmium (Cd) can

cause kidney failure and Osteomalacia softening of bones

and multiple bone fracture.25

5, Loss of productivity

Landmines affect resource productivity whether they have

detonated or not. Low availability of land (access

denial), degradation of the soil (micro-relief

disruption, chemical contamination), combined with loss

of flora and fauna diversity add up to land degradation

reduction in productivity of previously productive land.

Landmines have restricted agricultural production on

a land area equivalent to 6 percent of the 1474 million

ha of land cultivated globally.26 Landmines for being

partly responsible for decreased agricultural

productivity and lowered food security in mine affected

countries. In 2000, it was reported that in the absence

of the landmine crisis the productivity in Afghanistan

could have increase by 88-200 percent, 135 percent in

Cambodia, 11 percent in Bosnia and 36 percent in

Mozambique compared to pre-war levels.

As agricultural and other important lands are taken

out of production, the socio-economic state of affairs of

the segments of population that were once self sufficient

suffers. When people cannot get access to their land

resources because it is no longer safe to enter a whole

host of problems are created. Land degradation leads to

many complex socio-politico-economic problems, including

but not limited to, exploitation of available resources

beyond their ecological carrying capacity, unemployment,

poverty, social marginalization, desperation, and aid

dependency.

Socio-politico and economic dimensions of the ecological

crisis

Generally, the socio-politico-economic dimensions of the

landmine problem as those that affect or result in

community health, poverty, social marginalization and aid

dependency, especially in developing nations that have

limited resources and capacity to deal with calamity,

landmine effects are experienced in environments already

experiencing effects of wars, unfavourable climatic and

economic conditions, and governments’ uncertain

commitment to the environment. It is essential to note

that, even without the additional burden of landmines,

70000 km2 of farmland, which is mostly in the developing

world, is abandoned because of ecologically degrading

factors such as exploitative agriculture, deforestation,

overgrazing and so on.27

1. Community health

Long after the troops have withdrawn and all the guns

have been silenced ‘landmines remain in the ground as

brutal reminders that successful peace building and

development are still beyond the horizon.’ Landmines

cannot be recalled by the military when a ceasefire is

declared. Each and every mine must be individually

disarmed or destroyed. Even decades after cease-fire

children, farmers, nomads, herders, returning refugees

and IDPs continue to fall victims to landmines when the

only choices they have are:

1. Take no risk and starve or

2. Risk deaths while trying to survive

In the absence of coordinated mine clearance operations,

desperation causes communities to employ their own means

of risk assessment that is mostly based on rumours or

local knowledge.

As a result, 100 percent of peacetime victims are

civilians, compared to 90 percent overall. Children face

a particular risk because of their limited vision of the

ground ahead and because of their tendency to mistake

landmines for toys. These realizations cause

psychological trauma and keep populations in a state of

persistent fear that is manifested by refusal to

cultivate their fields, and to return to their homelands.

Furthermore, continued militarization of former

battlegrounds and denial of access to resources have been

observed to perpetuate power struggles and cause even

more conflicts.28

2. Poverty and Social Marginalization

Landmines are weapons of social cataclysm that have a

subtle multiplier effect with the ability to drain

societies’ resource potential and bring misery for

generations.29 The danger created by landmines frequently

makes subsistence and sustainable development difficult,

if not impossible. Landmines contribute to perpetuations

of underdevelopment by killing or injuring a community’s

sources of income, inhibiting effective cultivation or

control of pests and scaring away tourism and other means

of income. Most landmine victims are adult men, the bread

earners and heads of households.

The loss of more than 57000 animals due to

landmines is equivalent to a minimum annual market value

of roughly US $200 per household. It is assumed that

Afghanistan, Bosnia, Cambodia and Mozambique alone have

suffered more than 6 million US dollars loss due to

landmine’s effect on animals.30 For the nomadic

populations in North and Eastern Africa and the West Asia

loss livestock reared for production of dairy, meat,

leather products or subsistence farming activities have

had significant socio-economic effects. At a larger

scale, and mines and their impacts become added burdens

to the already overtaxed economies and over stretched

resource bases of struggling nations. Fragile financial

systems of developing nations become more susceptible to

failure as funds are diverted away from development, to

take care of disproportionate health bills of victims.

Landmines interfere with economic development.

Figure 1: Compounding of landmine effects to result in loss ofproductivity and associated socio-politico-ecological problems.

Figure: 2 Triangular relationships between landmines,ecological degradation and          underdevelopment.

Landmines in Vietnam hindered the construction of a

new major North-South highway, while demining activities

drained the resources of the community in Mozambique to

the point that there were no funds left to restore de-

mined roads. Furthermore, with growing land scarcity the

poor, women and minorities are disadvantaged.31

3. Aid Dependency

When the land becomes off-limits or disrupted and its

productivity is reduced the rural, subsistence

populations are forced to live with aid from different

humanitarian institutions. International aid for landmine

assistance is critical, but when it is ineffectively

handled it has the capacity to inadvertently cause more

harm than good by undermining local strengths and

endorsing aid dependency. Fear of returning to previously

mined areas along with an unhealthy dose of aid

dependency created problems of under reporting in

Mozambique, while efforts were made by communities in

Cambodia in an attempt to delay the departure of demining

teams. Some field researchers also reported similar

events where demined communities have been accused of

laying new mines in order to attract other mine action

programmes to their areas. It is plausible to point out

that repeated problems of such kind can lead to donor

fatigue, in which case the affected communities would be

left to fend for themselves.

4. Sustainable Development in the Aftermath of

Landmine Crisis

Combined effects of landmines have tremendous influence

on development activities. Narrating the rhetoric of how

environment and development are particularly interweaved

in a cause and effect chain becomes particularly

necessary here because this linkage puts Landmines,

ecological degradation and underdevelopment in a

triangular relationship. Land degradation occurs as a

result of complicated feedbacks, while consequent

underdevelopment causes simultaneous degradation of

societies and their natural resources. The triangular

representation (fig.2) demonstrates the complexity of the

environmental effects of landmines and shows how the

variables in the different corners of the triangle are

related to each other, and can lead to a vicious cycle of

destruction.

To describe the causal link of landmine induced land

degradation with development one can give the examples of

deforestation and landmine effects on animal migration.

Deforestation has been accelerated by extensive use of

landmines. Where arable and pasture lands have been mined

to such a degree that forests become the only source of

livelihood, the long term consequences of selling old

forests and fruit trees gives way to immediate survival

pressures. Cascading effects from deforestation can

affect the surrounding areas. Moreover, minefields in

migratory paths of some terrestrial animals can cause

more harm than just death or injury. As it is noted that

after a large number of elephants perished in the

minefield of Southeast Asia, others learned to avoid that

area, instead moving into agricultural areas they

previously avoided causing crop damage along their newly

acquired migratory paths, which has led to local people

hunting the animals to prevent further damage.

This landmine induced cycle of degradation continues

by triggering socio-economic problems including loss of

income, poverty, migration, and social marginalization of

affected populations.32 Communities usually receive

international humanitarian aid for demining and

rehabilitation. But if the aid is provided in ways that

fail to consider the real causes of the problem and the

needs of the society it has tendency to foster aid

dependency. In more extreme situations, landmines then

drive populations to mine cleared areas in order to

attract aid, or resource limitations leads to conflicts

that reintroduce mines to the area, thus maintaining the

triangular link between landmines, ecological degradation

and underdevelopment. In most cases, land users and

managers are aware of the inherent potentials and

constraints of their land, and they do develop

appropriate systems of management that suit the quality

of their resources. However, when these populations are

forced to move to other areas their traditional resource

management systems can become unsuitable or inadequate

leading to inappropriate land use (excessively intensive

cultivation, overgrazing and deforestation in the mine

free lands). Moreover, refugee populations usually have

the dream of returning home and the settlement areas are

perceived to be temporary; they strive to make the best

out of the time they stay there. Refugee populations,

more often than not, do not consider long term

investments or the effects they have. Desperation, not

ignorance or stupidity, leads to abandonment of rational,

sound resource management bringing about a collective

disorder tragedy of the commons. Regardless of who laid

the mines and for what purpose they were placed,

landmines promise to be impediments to development for a

long time to come. Landmines change the natural

environment in so many ways and make it hard, if not

entirely impossible, for societies to achieve sustainable

development that they might otherwise have attained.

Landmines cause multifaceted and interconnected

ecological and socio-politico-economic problems. Landmine

use is at best unchivalrous, but is a practical

necessity. Landmines threaten the fragility of the

natural environment by changing the quality and cover of

land, and through abuse of biotic resources and habitat

destruction. Landmines pose lose-lose situation because

they will cause land degradation whether landmines are

left in the ground or detonated. Moreover, it is clear

that there can be no blueprint for sustainable

development in mine affected regions.33

Conclusion

Landmines are devastating to all level of society i.e.

individual, family, community, and nation. The social-

economic and other humanitarian impact of landmines have

outweighed their military utility in warfare. They tear

up the social fabric of nation, threatening not only to

present but also the future generation. They hinder the

development process, led to loss of biodiversity, soil

contamination and threat to survival by denying access to

the resources. Landmines utility can in no way justified

because of their everlasting and indiscriminate nature.

References:

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12 Report of the UN Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict,26      November 2002,       submitted pursuant to paragraph 15 ofthe Security Council      resolution 1379 (2001).13 Frank Faulkner, “Kindergarten Killers: Morality, Murder and the Child Soldier     Problem,” Third       World  Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 491-504, August 2001,     Available at http://www.jstor.org/ stable/399335314  UNICEF, “Children and Landmines a deadly legacy,” Availableat http://www.unicef.org/spanish/protection/files/Landmines_Factsheet_04_LTR_       HD.pdf.15 Tony D’ Costa, “Impact on Africa”, in Christhoper. S. Raj (ed.)Stalking Terror     Landmines in       Peace and War, Delhi: Wordsmiths, 2000,p.152.16 ICRC, “Caring for landmine victim,” June 2005. Available athttp://www.icrc.org.17 Ian Maddocks, “Antipersonnel mines: A Long Term Burden on GlobalHealth     Medicines and Global Survival,” Vol. 5, No.1, 22-25,January 1998, Available     at     http://www.ippnw.org/pdf mgs/5-1-maddocks.pdf.18 International Convention to Ban Landmines, “Environmental Aspects of theInternational Crisis of Antipersonnel Landmines and the Implementation of the 19     97 Mine Ban Treaty,” Available at http://www.themonitor.org./index.php/publicatio   ns/display?url=lm/2000/appendices/environment.html19 Bob Eaton, “Crisis, Containment and Development: The Role of theLandmine     Impact Survey,” Third World Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 5,October     2003, pp.909-    921, Available athttp://www.jstor.org/stable/3993649.20 Buenker MA, “Landmines: A Threat to Wildlife and Sustainability,”World     Conservation, Vol. 1,  pp.19-20.21 Andersson N, da Sousa CP, Paredes S. 1995, “Social Cost ofLandmines in Four     Countries: Afghanistan, Bosnia, Cambodia, andMozambique”, British Medical     Journal, Vol.311, pp. 718- 721.22 Claudio Torres Nachon , “The Environmental Impact of Landmines” inRichard A     Mathew, Bryan MC Donald, Kenneth R Rutherford (ed.)

Landmines andHuman Security: International Politics and War Hidden Legacy, State Universityof New York press Albany, pp.191-204.23 A. A. Berhe, “The Contribution of Landmine to Land Degradation,”Land      Degradation Development, Vol. 18, pp.1-15, 2007, Available athttp://www.interscience.wiley.com.24 Ibid.25 International Physicians for the Protection of Nuclear War,“Landmine Fact in      Brief,” Available athttp://www.ippnw.org/MineFacts.html.26 A. A. Berhe, “The contribution of Landmine to Land Degradation,”Land      Degradation       Development, Vo18, pp.1-15, 2007.27 Ibid.28 Jeffery V Rosenfeld, “Landmines: The Human Cost ADF Health,” Vol.1, No.1,      pp.93-98,  September 2000.29 A. A. Berhe, The Contribution of Landmine to Land Degradation,Land       Degradation Development,      Vol.18, pp. 1-15, 2007.30 Andersson N, da Sousa CP, Paredes S. 1995. “Social cost of landmines in four      countries: Afghanistan, Bosnia, Cambodia, andMozambique,” British Medical     Journal, Vol. 311, pp.71- 721.31  Jody Williams, “Landmines: A Global Socioeconomic Crisis,” SocialJustice,      Winter 1995, p.97.32 Eoin O’Brien, “Clearing the Killing fields”, Journal of the Royal Collegeof      Physicians of London,  Vol.29, No.4, July- August 1999.33 A. A. Berhe, “The contribution of landmine to land degradation,” Land      Degradation Development,  Vol. 18, pp. 1-15, 2007, Available athttp://www.intersciencewiley.com