Second symbolic destruction of landmines

As part of its commitment under the Mine Ban Treaty, Afghanistan completed a pilot phase of destroying stockpiled landmines, which started last May in the capital Kabul. In a UN-Government-ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) joint venture, some 1,300 anti-personal mines (APMs) were detonated in three massive blasts on Thursday in northern outskirts of the city. The APMs were collected from 49 stockpiles of the Afghan Ministry of Defence (MoD) in Kabul. “In some respect, this is symbolic but it represents a very important new development in the whole world of mine action in Afghanistan,” Christopher Alexander, the Ambassador of Canada, which is a lead donor nation for Afghanistan's mine action programme told IRIN in Kabul at the demolition site. Afghanistan, which is one of the world’s most heavily mined countries, became state party to the 1997 Ottawa Convention on banning the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of landmines as of March 2003. As a signatory to the treaty, the Afghan government agreed to dispose of all stockpiled mines within four years. The pilot phase was launched in May 2003, whereby a number of APM stockpiles were destroyed in several cities throughout the country. And while the project is so far centralised in and around the capital, there remains a continuing need to identify and destroy hundreds of thousands of land mines stockpiled elsewhere in the country according to the MoD. “There are millions of mines all over Afghanistan with no maps and no means to locate them,” Major General Shir Mohammad Karimi, MoD chief of operations, told IRIN. And though the senior Afghan military official said there were no more APMs in the stocks of MoD, some commanders who he said had yet to be identified, were believed to still have APMs in their stockpiles. “During the DDR [the UN-backed disarmament demobilisation and reintegration of Afghan militia forces] we may be able to get some of the mines in some caches and stores,” he ascertained. Meanwhile, the United Nations Mine Action Centre for Afghanistan (UNMACA) told IRIN that the main phase of the US $2 million plus APM stockpiles destruction project was set to start in the next couple of months after the completion of the pilot phase. The main phase will undoubtedly prove more challenging for UNMACA given the difficulty in identifying hundreds of thousands of stockpiled APMs that have remained in the hands of private militias and warlords. “The big challenge is that the MoD is not aware where all of these munitions are,” Patrick Fruchet, a UNMACA external relations officer said. Afghanistan has one of the highest rates of mine and unexploded ordinance victims in the world. According to UNMACA estimates, more that 200,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed or injured by mines over the past two decades. But progress is being made. Over the last one year mine incidents have fallen from 600 to 100 per month, according to the UNMACA and the International Committee of the Red Cross. The UNMACA is implemented by 15 national and international organisations and with 7,200 Afghans working in mine-clearance programmes, the campaign requires a budget of around US $60 million per year to clear the country of mines in 10 years as required by the Ottawa treaty. One hundred mine-clearance operatives have been killed and 500 injured since operations started in Afghanistan 13 years ago. Most of the mines were laid during the Soviet occupation and the subsequent communist regime between 1980 and 1992. According to a Mine Action technical report, landmines were also used in the internal fighting among various armed groups after 1992, particularly in Kabul city and its outskirts. The problem was exacerebated in October 2001, with newly laid mines and booby traps reportedly used by the Northern Alliance, Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters, from unexploded cluster munitions and ammunition scattered from storage depots hit by air strikes. While there are no exact figures on the number of mines still buried in the Central Asian nation, according to UNMACA so far, 2.8 million explosive devices, including mines and unexploded ordnance, have been cleared from 320 million sq metres of land. Another 815 million sq metres of land has yet to be cleared, remaining a pivotal challenge for the safe return of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees.