Landmines and Cluster Bombs: a worldwide plague

The comments about landmines apply equally to cluster bombs, which technically skirt the prohibitions against landmines. But these weapons are so frequently defective, leaving a live bomb waiting for a child, that their effects are similar.
For example, the American CBU-58 is designed for a reliability of 95%. With 650 submunitions per bomb, that means 38 possible duds, and 38 legless children.
These effects are so similar to landmines, that I suspect they are intentionally used in that way. Do some countries (you know who you are) intentionally fit "defective" fuzes, so as to act as deniable landmines? I wonder...

These		cause	This
Typical anti-personnel mine	Typical cluster bomblet		Legless Child, Cambodia. Photo: Landmines Blow!

Landmine facts:

• Anti-personnel mines are designed to maim, not to kill. A crippled victim screaming demoralises other people, and needs ongoing medical aid, so depleting an enemy's resources. A dead victim is simply buried.
• Mines are a problem everywhere a war has been fought since the 1960's (and in some World War II theatres also). That includes much of Asia, Africa, Central America and parts of Europe.
• Estimated mine totals: 110 million mines in 64 countries.
• Small mines cost about $1 to make, and $100 to locate and remove (assuming they are found & removed safely).
• Modern mines contain little or no metal: to make detection as difficult as possible.
• At the present rate, it will take 1000 years to rid the world of mines, but
• For every mine located & cleared, 10 more are laid.
• In Cambodia, 1 in 236 people is an amputee. Mines are the reason.
• Mines are 10 times more likely to injure a civilian than a combatant. - UN estimate.
• Mines have destroyed the entire economy of countries such as Afghanistan. Farmers are unable to work their fields, which they dare not enter. The land is as effectively denied to agriculture as if it had been subjected to massive chemical pollution.
  In some cases, desperate farmers have attempted to dig out the mines themselves, using long-handled hoes. Terrorist groups (I refuse to dignify such people with the name "insurgent", still less "freedom fighter") have taken to placing mines upside down, specifically so that a hoe applied from beneath will trigger the fuze.

Mine clearance

Humanitarian mine clearance proceeds in 3 steps:

• Detection
  The traditional electronic "mine detector" is of limited value against modern non-metallic designs. A further problem is the huge amount of other metallic debris (bomb splinters, fired bullets, etc.) which litter a modern battlefield. Some estimates give one real detector "hit" on a live mine to 1000 false alarms.
  Other methods are being tried, including thermal imaging and subsurface radar. But the success rate is still low. In most cases, someone has to walk into the suspected minefield, operating the detector. Casualty rates are high.
• Identification
  Once a suspected mine is found, it must be exposed for examination. The work proceeds like an archaeological "dig", with the surrounding earth slowly removed to expose the mine. This nerve-wracking job can only be performed by hand.
• Disposal
  Once identified, a mine may be destroyed in situ, by firing a small explosive charge near the mine, so detonating its own explosive filling. Alternatively, the mines may be removed and collected, for subsequent disposal in bulk.
  It is essential that the mines are actually destroyed, as otherwise there is a high risk of theft for sale to either regular armies or insurgents. In either case, the same mine will later have to be cleared again.

Links

• Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
• Landmine Action
• Landmines Blow!
• Tim Grants Page
• Landmine Survivors Network
• International Committee of the Red Cross
• Stiftung Menschen gegen Minen: The Humanitarian Foundation of People against Landmines

• Technical

  • Mine-detecting robots
  • Demining Technology Center: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

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