Myanmar, the world's landmine
capital By Clifford McCoy
MAE SOT, Thailand - Myanmar contains along
its insurgent-contested international borders some
of the most heavily landmined areas in the world.
Russia, Nepal and Myanmar are the only three
governments that admit to still using
anti-personnel mines, of which Myanmar's military
is the most extensive user. Casualties from
landmines average about 1,500 per year in Myanmar,
most of them civilians.
These facts alone
should put Myanmar at the top of the world's
most-wanted list of indiscriminate landmine users,
though that is
usually not the case. Such
countries as Cambodia, Afghanistan and Angola
usually earn that dubious distinction. The
low-intensity nature of the various ethnic
insurgencies along Myanmar's borders, the
government's denial that it has a landmine
problem, and the lack of media attention have
conspired to keep the issue out of sight, out of
mind.
In the Thai border towns of Mae Sot
and Mae Sai it is difficult to overlook the
one-legged beggars from Myanmar or the Karen and
Shan day laborers walking to work with the
distinctive limp caused by a prosthesis. The
victims of landmines are even more apparent in the
refugee camps along the Thai border or in the
villages just across the border inside Myanmar.
The Backpack Health Worker Team, a group
of relief workers based out of the Mae Tao clinic
near Mae Sot, provide aid to villagers inside
Myanmar. The group estimated in a recent report
that up to 1,500 people are killed or injured
every year by landmines in Myanmar, with the
caveat that the figure is probably an
underestimate.
A 2004 survey by the group
revealed that 13.4 of every 10,000 people inside
Myanmar's border areas were injured by landmines
that year, though the research was only conducted
in the conflict-ridden areas of eastern Myanmar
that they were able to access. In 2005 according
to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines
(ICBL), there were 845 new landmine-related
casualties recorded in Afghanistan, 875 in
Cambodia and at least 96 in Angola. The ICBL
estimates that there are 15,000-20,000 new mine
casualties around the world every year.
Currently 10 of Myanmar's 14 states and
divisions are contaminated by landmines. Both the
government and ethnic insurgent armies use them.
The highest concentrations of landmines are in
border areas, especially the borders with
Thailand, India and Bangladesh, where the
government has been battling armed ethnic and
political insurgent groups for decades. Insurgent
groups opposed to the Indian government who have
camps across the border in Myanmar also use
landmines to protect their camps.
Landmine
contamination in eastern Myanmar has become so
heavy that farming is often a life-threatening
activity. Refugees in Thailand told Asia Times
Online that when they thought of how heavily mined
the area had become they were afraid of returning
to their villages in Myanmar and working their
land.
ICBL's 2004 Landmine Monitor
reported that Myanmar's Ministry of Home Affairs
sent a mission in 2003 to inspect sites proposed
by Thailand for joint economic development north
of the border town of Malady that were so heavily
mined that "extensive mine clearance would need to
take place prior to any development of the area".
In May, a Thai-Karen engineer working for the
Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand
(EGAT) lost his leg after stepping on a landmine
while surveying the site for the proposed new Hat
Gyi Dam on the Salween River in Karen State.
Myanmar's military regime has not acceded
to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, sometimes referred to
as the Ottawa Convention, and has only attended
one meeting related to the treaty, in Bangkok in
2003. During a vote in December 2005 on the UN
General Assembly Resolution calling for a
universal and full implementation of the Mine Ban
Treaty, Myanmar was one of only 17 countries that
abstained.
Myanmar's opposition National
League for Democracy (NLD), which won the annulled
1990 elections and is considered by many to be the
country's rightful ruler, has stated publicly that
it would make the country's accession to the Mine
Ban Treaty a national priority. Several ethnic
armed groups have also said they would be willing
to halt the use of landmines, but because of a
shortage of funds and intensifying army operations
against their positions they still use them out of
strategic necessity.
In Myanmar's latest
statement on the use of landmines, the country's
ambassador to the United Nations said in October
2005, "Myanmar is, in principle, in favor of
banning the export, transfer and indiscriminate
use of anti-personnel mines." He went on to say,
"At the same time, Myanmar believes that all
states have the right to self-defense ... as no
state would compromise its national security and
sovereign interests under any circumstances. But
at the same time, we oppose the indiscriminate use
of anti-personnel mines, which cause death and
injury to innocent people all over the world."
This statement is at odds with the
military regime's policy of manufacturing and
using ever increasing numbers of mines, not for
reasons of national security so much as for
establishing internal territorial control.
Myanmar's ruling State Peace and Development
Council (SPDC), through the state-owned Myanmar
Defense Products Industries, has produced its own
landmines since the 1960s and, according to the
ICBL, is one of only 13 countries in the world
still to be doing so.
Australian military
analyst Andrew Selth states in his 2002 book
Power Without Glory: Burma's Armed Forces
that a factory was established near Meiktila in
central Myanmar in 1992 with Chinese assistance
for the sole purpose of producing landmines. The
MM-1 and MM-2 anti-personnel mines produced there
are copies of Chinese-made mines and have been
used extensively by Myanmar's army. Selth further
states that China is still believed to be
providing technical assistance, spare parts and
some key components used in the manufacture of the
mines.
The SPDC's arms factories also
produce a copy of the US M18 claymore
command-detonated mine. Under the Mine Ban Treaty,
these extremely deadly devices are only considered
allowable if they remain command-detonated and are
not attached to trip wires that allow them to be
left without human supervision.
Recent
reports by the relief group Free Burma Rangers
(FBR) and the independent Karen Human Rights Group
(KHRG) indicate that Myanmar's military is making
extensive use of a copy of the US-designed M14
anti-personnel mine. These appear also to be
produced by government-run arms factories and are
appearing in increasing numbers.
A former
American military officer who has seen the mines
claims that the markings are different than on the
US-made version, and they are not as reliable or
as well made. Resistance sources claim that the
mines are produced at the Defense Industry No 13
factory, along with, apparently, anti-ship mines
to repel a possible seaborne invasion.
According to the ICBL's 2006 report, "in
November 2005, Military Heavy Industries
reportedly began recruiting technicians for the
production of the next generation of mines and
other munitions." If that is true, then the SPDC
apparently has no intention of halting its use of
anti-personnel mines, but rather is preparing to
produce, and presumably use, even more of the
deadly devices.
Myanmar is also a large
importer of landmines. Anti-personnel mines made
in China, the US, Italy, India, Russia and
possibly Singapore have been acquired directly and
cheaply from these governments or alternatively
bought on the black market. In the ICBL's 2000
Landmine Monitor report it is estimated that an
M14 cost US$5, an M18 $11 and a Chinese Type 72
was $1-$3. And the prices have not risen much
since.
Most of the insurgent groups,
whether or not they have ceasefires with the
junta, have used landmines and maintain
stockpiles. ICBL claims to have identified at
least 17 armed groups that have used landmines in
Myanmar since 1999, although it recognizes that
some of these groups have stopped using them while
other groups have simply ceased to exist.
Insurgent groups that are still fighting
the regime are active users, often because of
shortages of funds that preclude them from buying
proper weapons. This is particularly the case with
the Karen National Liberation Army and the Karenni
Army, both of which have suffered serious
territorial and military setbacks in the past
decade. Insurgent mines are generally home-made,
although some have been acquired on the black
market or captured from Myanmar's military.
Most insurgent groups are capable of
producing simple blast and fragmentation mines,
while some groups have even developed
claymore-type mines. Most home-made mines consist
of a length of bamboo or plastic pipe or a glass
bottle packed with explosives and sometimes metal
shavings, nails or ball bearings. According to
resistance-group sources, most of these are
battery-operated and have a short life span of
about six months.
Mines are used by both
the Myanmar army and resistance groups to defend
temporary and permanent camps and to initiate
ambushes. The army also lays them around
development projects, such as dams, power stations
and roads, that it has recently initiated in
captured territories. For example, a very
extensive minefield was laid along the border with
Bangladesh to prevent the movement of people
across the border except through established,
guarded crossing points.
Military
operations always result in an increased use of
landmines. According to a relief worker who
recently visited the area, the use of mines is
currently more prevalent in Karen and Karenni
states than in Shan state because of ongoing
military operations there, although, he went on to
say, this may change if the SPDC's expected
offensive against the Shan becomes a reality.
According to a former US military officer,
the concept behind the use of mines is very
simple: "They are used to wound enemy soldiers so
that the attacker must slow down or stop to take
care of mine casualties. This causes an extra
burden on the attacker and the hidden nature and
sudden shock of the exploding mine significantly
lowers the morale of the soldiers in the unit."
This is why most anti-personnel mines are designed
to maim rather than kill.
The SPDC's use
of landmines, however, goes beyond military
expediency and protecting infrastructure: the
devices are also often used to target civilians.
Reports by organizations such as the Karen Human
Rights Group, the Chin Human Rights Organization
and the Shan Human Rights Foundation, as well as
international rights monitors such as Human Rights
Watch, have documented the repeated laying of
mines in villages and in rice fields to keep
villagers from returning to an area to harvest
their crops.
Paths that are known to be
used by villagers are also mined to keep them from
foraging for food and to prevent them from fleeing
military-controlled areas. Roads that cut across
territory where insurgent groups operate are often
mined on both sides to prevent not only the flow
of resistance fighters, but also civilians fleeing
army columns and to interrupt supply flows to help
displaced villagers. Insurgent groups say that,
without enough ammunition, they use mines in an
attempt to protect themselves and displaced
villagers from advancing troops as well as to keep
lines of communication open.
No matter how
the devices are used, neither side keeps accurate
maps of where they have laid their mines. Nor are
markers usually left to indicate to villagers
areas that may be mined. Insurgent groups claim
they do sometimes tell villagers that there are
mines in an area, but these warnings are usually
vague so that villagers don't report their
whereabouts to the army.
Insurgent
sources, human-rights reporters and health
officials all agree that most of the casualties
from landmines are civilians. Villagers in areas
where counterinsurgency operations are ongoing are
particularly at risk of stepping on mines laid by
either the army or insurgent groups. Rights
organizations, relief workers and village medics
in areas where no military operations are
happening frequently report incidents where
civilians step on mines while working their fields
or taking their buffaloes to graze.
The
Landmine Monitor report identified at least 51
casualties, two of whom were killed, through May
of this year. The International Committee of the
Red Cross's annual report for 2005 indicated that
3,612 Myanmar nationals, including 3,246 amputees,
received services at ICRC-supported rehabilitation
centers. There were also 1,129 new patients fitted
with prostheses and 125 with orthoses.
According to the ICBL, there are no
mine-risk education programs inside Myanmar.
Surveys to determine the extent of the problem
have been carried out by the ICRC, Mines Action
Group, Handicap International, DanChurch Aid and
Norwegian People's Aid. However, because of lack
of accessibility to the mine-contaminated areas,
these surveys are necessarily limited and very
little action has been carried out on the ground.
Nor are there are any humanitarian
mine-clearance operations under way inside
Myanmar. Soldiers from ethnic armed groups are
sometimes called on to de-mine fields and villages
by hand after army columns have passed through.
Human-rights groups have documented a simpler
method used by Myanmar's army: civilian or convict
porters are forced to walk in front of the
soldiers to act as human minesweepers. The army
hopes this will also deter insurgents from laying
them.
There is also the documented use of
villagers to clear mines from roads by sweeping
them or driving bullock carts over them while
dragging a heavy log. The International Labor
Organization in its report by the Committee of
Experts on the Application of Conventions and
Recommendations in June deplored the use of
civilians in this way.
Tragically, mine
use is set to increase inside Myanmar for the
foreseeable future. Mines have become an integral
part of the military's strategy of clearing areas
of civilians to destroy support for ethnic rebels.
For the insurgent groups, they are still the
cheapest, most effective way of defending
themselves. The real losers, however, have and
always will be the civilians who step on them.
Clifford McCoy is a Chiang
Mai-based freelance journalist.
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