Report on the United Nations International Meeting on Mine Clearance

The objective of the meeting was to initiate a co-ordinated action in order to increase the moral and financial responsibility of the international community on the issue of mine clearance by:

• Calling for a better co-ordination between countries having the technical and financial resources to support mine clearance programmes;
• Calling for the political will to restore peace and address the landmine issue in mine affected countries;
• Calling for a global reflection on landmines with a view to ultimately banning them.

US$85 million have been pledged at the meeting, US$20 million being directly earmarked to the UN Mine Clearance Trust Fund.

In their common declaration, the representatives of the NGOs participating in the world-wide campaign to ban landmines mentioned that: "in addition to the trust fund, there is also an urgent need at the national level for expanded research and development on humanitarian demining equipment, technology and techniques. Such research and development should be focused on affordable and sustainable options".

With more than 100 million mines buried in the soil of 64 countries, the present situation has been recognised as being very alarming. In 1993, the international community has spent US$67 million on removing 100,000 mines. At the same time, 2.5 million new mines were laid. Every month, 500 to 800 people (mostly civilians) are killed by mines, and about 2000 are maimed. This blind terrorism is one of the worst undertakings mankind has inflicted on itself.

The UN Secretary General and the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have called for a total ban of production, stockpiling, transfer and use of anti-personnel mines. On the UN and ICRC side, it is hoped that the 1980 Convention on Inhumane Weapons, due to be revised in Vienna in September 1995, will be able to address the issue of anti-personnel mines according to the model of the Chemical Weapon Convention. For the moment, only few governmental delegations (Belgium, Sweden, Norway) have clearly announced their agreement for a total ban.

At the Geneva meeting the main proposals from the governmental delegations can be summed up as follows

• Need to reinforce the international involvement and to develop the local expertise within mine affected countries.
• Need to increase the resources for developing new mine clearance technologies.
• Need to improve the UN capacity to co-ordinate mine-clearance activities.
• Need to reinforce the 1980 Convention on Inhumane Weapons.
• Need to create a verification mechanism for the 1980 Convention on Inhumane Weapons.

It was also emphasized that the presence of mines is a obstacle to the establishment of a durable peace, specially by creating a refugee problem which increases instability in mine affected countries (in Angola, for example, there are 3 million such refugees). NGOs and the private sector are expected to help the UN in this post-conflict task.

Technical meetings

• Panel A: Mine Surveys
• Panel B: Current methods in mine clearance
• Panel C: Training indigenous de-miners
• Panel D: Management of demining operations
• Panel E: New technologies in mine and minefield detection and mine clearance
• Panel F: Treatment and rehabilitation of land-mine victims
• Panel G: Emergency mine clearance - problems and solutions
• Panel H: Education and training in mine awareness
• Panel I: The integrated mine-clearance programme - concept and practice

For each of these panels, the UN had prepared a 4 to 6 page background paper. 4 to 6 panelists present their experience and point of view, before the questions and comments from the audience. Documents from the panelist and from NGOs were made available on tables, but no proceedings will be printed.

Panel B on mine clearance was introduced by the background paper No. 2. In a first step, mined areas have to be located and accurately mapped. Then each and every mine has to be located and identified. Specialists can then defuse the mines so they can be moved for destruction elsewhere. On site destruction is sometimes possible. Some important comments were:

• The criteria for mine detection system are stringent; it needs to be capable of locating 99.96% of all mines, plastic or metal, to an accuracy of 1cm or less, in any varieties of soil and under any conditions of vegetation. Its output signal should give an indication of the size and shape of the object being detected, and it should be usable by local deminers.
• The detection system need to be both vehicle mounted and manpack, and although no one technology currently meets the requirements, it is probable that a sensor system using a combination of metallic, seismic, radar, vapour sampling and infra-red technologies brought together through a single signal processing system might provide the answer to the problem. Significant strides are being made in a number of these technologies, and in the computer processing and presentation of their output signals.
• Research into the technologies discussed above is taking place in many countries. Unfortunately, there is overlap, duplication, competition and potential waste; above all there is no mechanism for drawing together the researchers, even in one country, to achieve collaboration. To get the best result from the scattered resources available, they need to be coordinated. Such coordination should start at national level, but international collaboration should be promoted, possibly using the United Nations as a forum or catalyst. So far, we have not been able to develop the mechanisms for setting up this coordination.

Panel E was more concerned about technological solutions. The UN Background paper No. 5 presents the situation and lists the mine destruction methods:

• Pressure on the ground (removes up to 80% of mines)
  • Rollers: a roller is pushed ahead of a battle tank
  • Flails: a rotary flail beats the ground
  • Prodders: mines are dug out by rake and pushed to the side
  • Explosive pressure: an explosive gas (fuel-air explosive) is spread and detonated. The pressure pulse is frequently too short to detonate mines, and recent mines do not detonate on uniform pressure.
• Activation by heat
  • Fire: useful for burning off the undergrowth, but it often does not destroy the mines
  • Microwave: power requirements are considerable
  • Laser: not yet tried; may work only against surface-laid mines
• Other form of actuation
  • Bullet impact: the detonator must be hit, otherwise the displaced mine may be harder to clear
  • Explosive detonation: a shaped charge is required
  • Chemical dissolution: appropriate acid solves or neutralizes the detonator.

The presentations at the panel have confirmed these points and emphasized the need for reducing the false alarm rate, careful integration of any technologies within the local demining teams, and better coordination of research. Some research exists in Sweden (hand-held sensor combination expected in 3-5 years and helicopter mapping), US (30 projects funded by the DOD for US$10 million in 1995), the European Union (ECU30 million for a 3 year project, with demonstrators in selected areas; most of the present work is done at ISPRA on microwave scanning), and South Africa (dogs and armored vehicles).

Documentation

[Unidir95] "Land Mines and the CCW Review Conference", Unidir Newsletter 28/29, Mai 95, 122p (Palais des Nations, CH-1211 Genève 10, Switzerland).

[UN94] "Assistance in Mine Clearance, Report of the Secretary-General", A/49/357, Sept 94, 55p (UN Dept of Humanitarian Affairs, New-York, NY 10017, USA).

[AV/MCM95] "Autonomous Vehicles in Mine Counter-Measures Symposium", Monterey, April 1995, 690p (US$50+, Undersea Warfare Group, Naval Postgraduate School, USA Monterey, CA 93942, USA.

[SPIE95] "Detection Technologies for Mines and Minelike Targets, SPIE Orlando Conference", April 1995, SPIE Volume 2496, 1020p ($134+ spie@hibinc.no).

[WAPM95] "Workshop on Antipersonnel Mine Detection and Removal", Lausanne, June 1995, 74p (LAMI-EPFL, CH-1015 Lausanne, dubois@di.epfl.ch).

[FOA94] "International Workshop of Technical Experts on Ordnance Recovery and Disposal in the Framework of International Demining Operations", Stockholm, June 1994, 44p (FOA, Dept of Weapons and Protection, S-17290 Stockholm, Sweden).

[CICR93] "Symposium on Anti-Personnel Mines", Montreux, April 1993, International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva (CICR/ICRC, The Scientific Counselor, 19 Av. Paix, CH-1202 Genève, Switzerland).

[Jane94] "Jane's Military and Vehicle Logistics 1994-95" 15th ed, 1994, ISBN 0 7106 1162 5, 745p.

[PHR93] "Landmines, A Deadly Legacy", Physicians for Human Rights, New-York, 1993, 510p, ISBN 1-56432-1134 .

[ICRC95] "Landmines: Time for Action -- International Humanitarian Law", ICRC 1995, 35p (CICR/ICRC, 19 Av. Paix, CH-1202 Genève, Switzerland).

[CICR94] "Mines Terrestres: une action s'impose, Le droit international humanitaire" CICR 1994, 42p (CICR/ICRC, 19 Av. Paix, CH-1202 Genève, Switzerland).

World Wide Web forum on demining technologies: http://www.fourmilab.ch/minerats/

MINWARA (Mine Warfare Association) P.O. Box 7135, Charlottesville, VA 22906-7135, USA. amb2m@virginia.edu.

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