Eternal Sentinels -
The Legacy of Landmines in Africa

Simon Baynham
Director of Studies, Africa Institute of South Africa

'Of all the tasks involved in setting a nation on a new road to peace and prosperity, perhaps none has the immediate urgency of mine clearance … No attempt to restore a sense of community and security can succeed without effective land-mine removal' - Dr Boutros Boutros-Ghali, United Nations Secretary General, September 1993.

Published in African Defence Review Issue No 18, 1994

INTRODUCTION

In theory, the use of landmines against civilian targets was prohibited by a 1980 United Nations convention on inhumane weapons which came into force in 1983. However, at the last count, just 39 countries had ratified these conditions. In the decade or so since then, tens of thousands of civilians have been killed or mutilated by the estimated 85 to 100 million mines scattered like seeds of death across the globe. Along village paths and riverbanks, in cotton fields and rice paddies, these ubiquitous sentinels of death and destruction continue to shed blood long after the wars end. Landmines are present in an estimated 62 states, from Afghanistan, Armenia and Kuwait, to Cambodia, Colombia and Vietnam. Some 60 companies and government agencies in 35 countries manufacture and export landmines. The leaders are China, the former Soviet Union and Italy. More than a million people, mostly civilians, have been killed or wounded by mines since 1975. In Afghanistan - to take the worst example - 4 000 people are killed by these weapons each year.

ORIGINS AND VARIETY OF MINES

The first modern mines were developed as a response to the battle tank during the 1914-18 Great War. These early weapons were large and cumbersome devices which were easily detected, often being redeployed against the mine-layers' own armour. This weakness led to the development of the anti-personnel mine, designed to prevent enemy troops from removing anti-tank mines. Development of the mine became a priority between the two World Wars, during which period the anti-personnel mine gained acceptance among military strategists as a weapon in its own right. During World War II, mines were widely deployed - for instance in Russia and Poland where literally millions of devices were laid. By the early 1960s, however, random dissemination of mines began (in contrast before this period to the largely controlled deployment of weapons, linked to specific military objectives). Cambodia witnessed the first large-scale, random, use of anti-personnel mines by opposing factions in the civil war.

Large numbers of miniaturised mines can now be 'sown' by helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft, creating an instant minefield in a fraction of the time taken to lay a conventional one. These offer an inexpensive means of inhibiting or inflicting unacceptable losses on enemy forces.

Today, four basic varieties of anti-personnel landmines are in use:

Blast - laid on ground or buried just beneath the surface. Usually detonated by the pressure of footstep on top of device. Upward explosive blast maims or kills victim.



Fragmentation - usually laid above ground, often camouflaged or fixed to stakes. Detonated when person walks into tripwire. Typically projects fragments over 18 metres radius circle.



Directional fragmentation - mounted above ground, packed with steel balls or metal fragments in front of explosive charge. Detonated by tripwire or remote control. Blasts fragments forward. Typical version is the US Claymore which propels balls 45 metres in a 60-degree arc.



Bounding - usually buried. Pressure to tripwire or fuse on top of mine causes small explosion that projects mine upward to height of one metre or more, where main part explodes and spews fragments.

In Africa, which is the most mined region of the world, the worst affected territories are Angola, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Somalia, Sudan and Western Sahara. Up to 25 million mines litter the African continent - and thousands more continue to be planted every month. Roughly every 25 minutes a human being is blown up by mines in the trouble-torn corners of the Third World. Indeed, a quarter of all war casualties are victims of mines; of these, more than a fifth are women and children. Conceived as a local defensive weapon to disrupt advancing armies, mines are now being utilised as a strategic weapon to empty territory, to close food distribution networks and to spread terror. They are, in the view of human rights groups, instruments of mass destruction, in slow motion. And once the wars subside, the mines left-behind keep on killing.

State-of-the-art anti-personnel mines are designed to maim but not kill. The lethal radius of these devices encompasses one or both legs, the genitals, arms, chest and face. According to the December 1991 issue of the British Journal of Medicine, 'Land mines … have ruinous effects on the human body; they drive dirt, bacteria, clothing, metal and plastic fragments into the tissue, causing secondary infections'. It goes on to say 'The shock wave from an exploding mine can destroy blood vessels well up the leg, causing surgeons to amputate much higher than the site of the primary wound. Plastic fragments are difficult to detect by x-ray'. About half of those hit by mines never make it to a clinic or hospital. Even if they do, the medical facilities available are woefully inadequate.

In addition to threatening life and limb, mines pose a serious obstacle to the recovery of countries ravaged by war, disrupting transportation and agricultural production and hampering relief operations and the resettlement of refugees. In the words of Jan Eliasson, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, 'Relief assistance, repatriation and rehabilitation will continue to be seriously hampered unless de-mining is vigorously pursued'. Also, land once fertile and productive is rendered useless until clearance - which is both dangerous and costly - has been performed. Drawing water from wells and rivers has become a daily struggle for survival where water points have been surrounded by mines. In many countries, even individual houses have been mined, a cruel reflection of man's inhumanity to man.

MOZAMBIQUE

Mozambique's civil war ended with the signing of a peace accord in October 1992. Yet an estimated 2 million landmines lie strewn across its countryside, hidden and dormant until a vehicle, a labouring farmer or a child at play sets them off. They have rendered most of the 28 roads in the country impassable. According to an authoritative report released by Human Rights Watch in February 1994, landmines in Mozambique have claimed more than 10 000 victims, mostly civilians - not to mention more than 8 000 amputations - and the casualty toll could increase rapidly as millions of refugees and displaced people return home to roads and fields littered with mines. Particularly at risk are the returnees using bush paths, which are apparently the worst mined areas. Human Rights Watch accused the Mozambican Government, the former Renamo resistance movement and foreign forces of laying the mines. 'The devastation caused by landmines in Mozambique, not only for the many civilian victims, but also to the socio-economic well-being of the nation, is appalling. Clearance of mines could take decades, but so far little has been done', continued the report.

The variety of mine types is almost certainly higher than the 32 varieties of anti-personnel mines and 19 types of anti-tank mines that Human Rights Watch says it has identified in the country. Mozambique does not manufacture landmines: all the mines were supplied from outside, either by manufacturers, governments or arms dealers. In its report, Human Rights Watch identifies 15 countries (including Brazil, China and France) as the sources of the mines. However, the great majority of these weapons appear to be of ex-USSR or East European origin and were used by both Frelimo and Renamo combatants.

Landmines have been planted in Mozambique for more than a quarter of a century. During 16 years of civil war, and a decade of national liberation conflict against the Portuguese before that (1964-74), mines were deposited not only by government troops and Renamo rebels but also by soldiers from Rhodesia, South Africa and Tanzania who came to the assistance of the warring parties. Many of the unexploded devices were scattered over the countryside by the Portuguese colonial authorities in the war against Frelimo.

As previously noted, the destructive effect of these weapons does not come to an end with those actually injured or killed. Mines thwart the resettlement of the millions of Mozambicans displaced by war. They inhibit the gigantic task of restoring the roads, railways, power lines and other infrastructure to catalyse the country's economic prospects and prosperity. In short, a return to anything approaching normal life means getting rid of them. Unfortunately, while there has been slow and steady progress in demobilising Mozambique's rival military forces in preparation for the country's first multiparty elections (due on 27 to 28 October), there has been dispiritingly little progress in the actual clearance of mines and towards more co-ordinated efforts to assist mine victims and their families.

ANGOLA

The problems confronting Mozambique are more than evident in Angola, where some estimates suggest that there are actually more anti-personnel mines than there are people. During more than three decades of war -originally between Lisbon's military forces and a variety of liberation movements; since 1975 between mainly the MPLA and Jonas Savimbi's UNITA - anywhere up to 10 million mines of various manufacture and origin were scattered throughout the countryside, a practice that has left Angola with one of the biggest populations of amputees in the world. Indeed, already one out of every 470 Angolans has had a limb amputated. This is double the level of Mozambicans and a massive five times higher than in Vietnam. As in Mozambique, Somalia, Western Sahara and elsewhere, the threat to life is serious, but the disabling injuries that mines cause put a permanent strain on society and the wider economy. They engender a climate of fear and immobilise large tracts of agricultural land, raising the costs of reconstruction and development. At the time of writing (end July 1994), at least seven Angolan towns have been completely surrounded by landmines, essentially (and successfully) to prevent crops being cultivated and to stop scavengers going out in search of food. But even if the agreement which was supposed to have ended the conflict in 1991 was restored, it is clear that the danger of hidden landmines will continue to lurk on the tracks and in the fertile fields long after peace is achieved.

ZIMBABWE

Fourteen years after independence in Zimbabwe, villagers and livestock in communal lands situated especially on the country's north-eastern border with Mozambique continue to be maimed by landmines planted during the liberation war. In the first six months of 1994 alone, the Mount Darwin hospital, 110 km south of Harare, has dealt with half a dozen cases of people seriously injured after stepping on mines. With the mainly anti-personnel devices remaining uncleared at the conclusion of the war in 1979, the mines have continued to injure and kill peasant farmers and their cattle. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that villagers in a number of areas have lately resorted to stealing fences demarcating minefield boundaries, with the result that children and livestock in particular, stray into the mine-littered fields. Throughout Africa, children have been easy victims of civil conflict. One of the first laws of terror in civil war is the imperative that you have to kill more women and children than your enemy if you want to win.

SOLUTIONS?

From the brief survey sketched out above, it is clear that, for Africa, anti-personnel mines in particular are a crisis of horrific proportions. What is to be done? There are two ways forward. The first route involves banning or restricting the manufacture and export of these devices; the second relates to the clearance of mines already in place.

The December 1993 decision by the UN General Assembly to endorse a (non-binding) worldwide moratorium on the export of landmines is welcome, but it constitutes only a second step on a protracted and painful road. This followed on the 1980 UN treaty prohibiting 'indiscriminate' use of mines which requires mapping of mine fields by those who lay them. But an outright ban faces powerful opposition. Pentagon officials, for example, say the problem lies not in proper military use of landmines but in guerilla abuse. Modern armies, they claim, either deploy self-neutralising mines or clear areas of the devices after conflict.

Nevertheless, Washington has now declared that it is US policy to seek an eventual ban on all manufacture and use of anti-personnel mines. Not only that: America no longer sells anti-personnel mines itself and is urging restraint on others. In the meantime, the European Parliament has called on all West European Governments to impose a five-year moratorium on mine exports; the South African Government announced an immediate ban on the marketing and export of mines in March; and a conference to review the 1980 UN protocol on landmines is to be held later this year or early in 1995.

But tinkering with the protocol is not sufficient, say a number of human rights groups. The International Committee of the Red Cross is so concerned about the estimated 85-100 million mines in place - not to mention another 100 million already manufactured, stockpiled or waiting for customers - that it is demanding a world-wide ban on production and comprehensive measures to curb sales. One delegate at a Red Cross symposium on mines held in Switzerland in April 1993 noted: 'Mines are fighters that never miss, strike blindly, do not carry weapons openly and go on fighting long after hostilities are ended; they are the greatest violators of international humanitarian law, practising blind terrorism'. And in a written report, two other groups, Physicians for Human Rights and the Arms Project (a division of Human Rights Watch), argue that any measure short of an outright ban is an invitation to abuse. Instead, the two bodies call for a total ban on production, sales and use alike. Their hope is that in time, mines might come to carry the stigma that biological and chemical weapons have now.

Apart from the issue of banning the production and sale of mines, there is also the business of mine clearing, a task that is being spearheaded world-wide by the UN and by the Mines Advisory Group (MAG), a British-based humanitarian, non-profit NGO. While the MAG is active along with other agencies for a ban on anti-personnel mines, the primary role of the organisation is to undertake training and clearance of mines. Its global policy and mandate is to establish an indigenous capability to respond to the long-term problems of these devices. This takes the shape of training local teams to survey, mark and clear minefields. With the advent of the UN Co-ordination Office for Assistance to Afghanistan in 1988, the UN was for the first time actively involved in de-mining programmes. Today, UN teams are at work in Afghanistan, Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia and Mozambique, and are training local people in clearance techniques. Plans are under way to institute similar programmes in other African states.

At the moment, the most effective method of de-mining involves a process that combines the use of human beings, machines and dogs. The first problem in mine clearance is the detection of the mines, which may be buried up to a metre below ground level. Electronic devices are deployed to detect the small amounts of metal in mines, usually in conjunction with a method known as 'prodding', where a probe is gently inserted into the ground at an angle, until it touches the mine. Detection by electronic means and by prodding is painstakingly slow and expensive, yet it offers a much higher rate of accuracy than other methods. Dogs detect mines by the smell of the explosives in them. When well-trained, they are highly effective.

Although defence departments are exploring more advanced systems such as infrared sensors and impulse radar, the tangible benefits of these for civilian mine-clearers are years away. For the time being, a Herculean task lies ahead: the tedious, labour-intensive and dangerous process of defusing millions of mines across huge areas of the African landmass. In the meantime, the killing fields continue to be sown with their deadly harvests.