Landmines - Current Issues

While the Ottawa Convention was a significant achievement for both NGOs and states, landmines still remain a threat in many countries. Landmines are extremely difficult to both regulate and track, and in some countries accurately calculating stockpiles of landmines is an arduous task. In addition, because most government centers and healthcare facilities are located within major cities, victim assistance and landmine clearance in rural areas are scarce. A case-study of Colombia clearly exemplifies the aforementioned problems.

According to "La Compaña Colombiana Contra Minas" (The Colombian Campaign against Landmines), Colombia is the most mine-affected country in the Western Hemisphere. The organization also reported that approximately 15 percent of Colombia’s territory contains at least 100,000 landmines. In addition, Colombia is the only country in Latin America where new mines are being both produced and implemented on a regular basis.

Landmines are most widely used by two leftist guerrilla insurgencies: Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, (FARC, or in English: Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces Army), and the Unión Camilista-Ejército Nacional de Liberación Nacional, (UC-ELN, or National Liberation Army). Both groups are recognized by the U.S. Department of State as foreign terrorist organizations.

FARC and ELN were founded in the early 1960s in an attempt to push communist ideals, give power to the poor working class, and to oppose the influence of the West, specifically the United States. Both groups operate mostly in rural areas outside of the major cities, making it difficult for the Colombian government to effectively monitor their activity. It should be noted that FARC and ELN are not partner organizations; in fact, they are rivals.

Both FARC and UC-ELN use landmines to defend territories where they traffic drugs and kidnapped persons, in addition to where they maintain base camps. Minefields may also be placed in front of points of strategic interest, such as oil pipelines. A 2001 U.S. Department of State report on human rights in Colombia notes that the two aforementioned groups combined have laid approximately 50,000 mines in rural areas, with even more in undetermined locations.

The guerilla groups are not the only ones who employ landmines. The Colombian government has been accused of producing landmines at the Industria Militar facility, and has since been ordered to cease production and destroy the mines. The Colombian Army has laid around 20,000 landmines, and is currently in the process of destroying them. However, the use of landmines by FARC and ELN makes it difficult to determine the exact number of landmines in Colombia, and their location. This poses a threat to Colombian society as a whole, for, as a result, most threats of landmines go unverified until it is too late.

As of 2002, at least two people a day are dying as a result of landmine explosions. 50 percent of the non-military victims of landmines in Colombia are children - who suffer from loss of limbs, or either immediate or slow and painful death. Beyond physical pain, children are often unable to attend school; either as a direct effect of the placement of minefields, or because their family's livelihoods are destroyed and they are forced to relocate several times.

Most mine clearance efforts are conducted by the military. There is a serious lack of humanitarian aid where it is needed most - in rural areas. Due to the fact that most mine accidents occur in rural areas, it is extremely difficult for survivors to seek appropriate medical help in time. Furthermore, even when internal combat in Colombia ends, landmines will still exist, and the government will face the large and arduous task not just of rebuilding a society after decades of conflict, but of identifying and clearing mines to further protect the safety of its citizens.

Organizations involved with the ICBL and the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines have made a great deal of progress lobbying for legislation that would eradicate the use of landmines, obtain a higher quality of victim assistance, and help countries comply with the standards of the Ottawa Convention. In 2006, Senators Patrick Leahy (VT) and Arlen Specter (PA) introduced the Victim-activated Landmine Abolition Act. The act would prohibit efforts by the Pentagon to produce the first U.S. victim-activated antipersonnel landmines in almost a decade. Mores specifically, according to the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines, the act would "ensure that all new U.S. munitions can only be detonated in response to an intentional act by a person." This is certainly a step in the right direction; however, munitions detonated in response to an intentional act by a person essentially includes small arms and light weapons. Despite this, U.S. policy has tended toward the guidelines set forth in the Mine Ban Treaty, and the development of new victim-activated antipersonnel landmines would be a grave deviation from past and present policy.

This legislation would no doubt be an impetus for change in that not only would the U.S. be committed to banning production of victim activated landmines, but will help highlight the issues of landmines in the hopes that other countries will soon follow suit.