Abandoned IEDs and Landmines: Citizens’ lives still at risk
Even as the peace process in the country moves ahead quite smoothly, the government and the Maoists seem to have overlooked the problem caused by landmines and other explosives left carelessly by the rebels and the security forces.
There have been calls from several national and international groups in the last six months of ceasefire for initiating process for safe disposal of landmines, Improvised Explosives Devices (IED), Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) and other explosives left out during 11-year long civil war. However, neither the government nor the parties and the Maoists have given enough attention to this issue so far.
“Unless both the sides pay attention to the immediate need for safe disposal of all landmines, IEDs and UXOs scattered around the country, political agendas are not all that helpful in establishing peace and security,” says general secretary of Informal Sector Service Centre (INSEC) Kundan Aryal.
According to INSEC, 12 persons have been killed in the country after the announcement of the ceasefire by the government and the Maoists in April this year. In 41 such explosions during this period, over 71 people were injured or affectedly directly.
Most of these accidental blasts are attributed to the Maoists as they mostly took place in private residences where they stored the explosives, but army base camps are not exceptions in this regard. Children are most prone to the hazard, as they are found touching or playing with explosives mistaking them as plaything. Considering the growing cases of accidental blasts the Maoists even formed a committee to investigate the explosion in Banke where one child was killed and another was seriously injured. Last week, three children died in Terathum when a blast reportedly left behind by the Maoists went off.
Mid-western region has been the most affected area of explosives, recording the highest toll during the insurgency.
The Maoists and the seven parties have signed five agreements so far but none of these agreements state anything about collection and disposal of the landmines and other kinds of explosive materials. This signals sheer ignorance on the part of the concerned sides about the harms of landmines and IEDs.
Coordinator of the Ban Land Mines Nepal (BLMN) Purna Shova Chitrakar says her organisation has asked the Peace Committee and Speaker Subash Nemwang, who is the chairman of the House Declaration Implementation Committee, to give attention to this issue. The BLMN has prepared the charter of commitment for banning production, transportation, use and storage of such explosive materials and it has already been signed by nine major parties. Chitrakar said the Nepal Government must ratify the Ottawa Treaty, which bans production, transportation, use and storage of all forms of explosives. Coincidentally, few days back the UN passed a convention that makes it mandatory for the states, which have gone through insurgency, to clear the landmines and other explosives immediately or pay the cost for all kinds of losses caused by the explosives.
Deputy commander of Maoist People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Barsha Man Pun Ananta told Nepalnews that the recently concluded central committee meeting of the party has passed a resolution to launch a campaign to clear the sites where such explosives have been stored or left out during the civil war. According to him, the Maoists have planted the explosives mostly in roadsides, around the army camps or around the town areas. He said party volunteers would reach all these places including the battlefields to dispose the explosives by the time party joins the interim government.
He said the peace accord being prepared would include provisions to clear the landmines, IDE, UXOs and other explosives immediately.
Spokesperson of the Nepal Army, Brigadier General Ananta Bahadur Thebe, said though the army never left such explosives in the battlefield or outside the barracks even during the period of insurgency, it is ready to work for disposal of the explosives. He said if situation arises that army barracks need to be shifted, they would dispose all the mines planted around and if they could not do so, residents around the barrack would be given information or be notified about the dangerous places.
After all, it is the government and the Maoists who should take the responsibility of clearing the explosives and guarantee that citizens are not posed to risks. Political agendas and arms management are issues certainly have impact in our future, but IDEs, UXOs are taking lives of people now right now.
Some facts about landmines, IDEs, UXOs and other explosives
* Single IED and landmine cost US$3 to 10 to manufacture, but costs US $ 200 to 1000 to destroy it.
* It needs US$ 3500 to 5000 for a landmine victim for his/her medical care, prosthetics and rehabilitation.
* Every year around 26,000 people are injured by it of which 30 to 40 percent are children. The existing ratio of landmines is 1 to every 12 children.
* In Cambodia alone, more than, 35,000 people have been maimed and more than one person in every 200 victims of landmine are amputees.
* Every year approximately 5 million mines are produced and 2.5 million are laid on the ground of which only 1 million are deactivated or destroyed.
* Around 11 billion landmines are laid in more than 60 countries across the globe.
* According to the estimation, 5 million mines were laid in former Yugoslavia after the conflict began there.
* Tens of thousands mines were planted in Rwanda during its conflict in 1994.
* Countries worst affected by landmines include Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Kuwait, Mozambique, Somalia, Sudan and former Yugoslavia.
* Main countries producing and exporting Landmines are the USA, China, Belgium, Bulgaria, former Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Italy, former USSR, UK and former Yugoslavia.