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Land Mines: an African Tragedy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Isebill V. Gruhn
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Extract

Africa has had more than its share of catastrophes. While the causes of its contemporary dilemmas are debated at many fora, its people continue to suffer at an ever-accelerating rate. To make matters worse, the dismal decline in so many aspects of African life over the past decade has led to numbness and cynicism within and without the continent, causing people to lump separable problems and their solutions into the all-embracing notion of ‘disaster’.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , December 1996 , pp. 687 - 699
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 Quoted by Davies, Desmond, ‘Reaping a Deadly Harvest’, in West Africa (London), 23–29 05 1994, p. 908.Google Scholar

2 United States, Department of State, Hidden Killers. The Global Land Mine Crises (Washington, DC, 12 1994), pp. 1–2.Google Scholar

3 United Nations, Department of Humanitarian Affairs, ‘International Meeting on Mine Clearance’, Background note, Geneva, 5–7 July 1995, p. 1.

4 The Arms Project of Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights, Land Mines: a deadly legacy (New York, 1993), pp. 206–7.Google Scholar

5 Hidden Killers, p. 49.

6 Ibid. p. 48.

7 Ibid.

8 ‘Mozambique Disarms’, in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Chicago), 50, 5, 09–10 1994.Google Scholar

9 Ibid. p. 4.

10 Ibid.

11 US Senate, ‘The Global Land Mine Crisis’, a hearing before a sub-committee of the Committee on Appropriations, Washington, DC, 1994, p. 10.Google Scholar

12 ‘Land Mines: a deadly legacy’, pp. 204–15.

13 Anstee, Margaret Joan, Orphan of the Cold War: the inside story of the collapse of the Angolan peace process, 1992–1993 (Basingstoke and New York, 1996), p. 543.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 For a short survey of land mines on the African continent and in other regions of the world, see ‘Hidden Killers’, pp.15–17. Also, Roberts, Shawn and Williams, Jody, After the Guns Fall Silent: the enduring legacy of land mines (London, Oxfam UK, 1995).Google Scholar

15 Ryle, John, ‘The Invisible Enemy’, in The New Yorker, 29 11 1993, p. 123.Google Scholar

16 The Economist (London), 5 08 1995, p. 42.Google Scholar

17 See International Committee of the Red Cross, ‘Vienna Conference on the UN Weapons Convention’, press communications of 13 October 1995, and the UN's ‘Interim Report of the Review Conference of the States Parties to the Convention on the Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects’, 16 October 1995.

18 Disarmament Times (New York), 11 10 1995, p. 2.Google Scholar

19 Quoted in ‘Land Mines: cheap, deadly and cruel’, in Time International, Atlantic Edition (Amsterdam), 13 05 1993, p. 36.Google Scholar

20 See, for example, Resolution B3–1744, 1992, Official Journal of the European Communities (Luxemburg), 36, 25 01 1993.Google Scholar

21 Hence the widespread publicity about Iraq's reported use of the Valmara 69 ‘hounding’ antipersonnel land mine during the Gulf War in 1992, that then cost just £30. One small movement of the trip-wire sends the main body of the mine half a metre into the air, blasting 1,000 ballbearings in every direction at over 1,000 mph. Anyone within a 25-metre radius is likely to be torn to pieces, and the devices can be linked together in order to increase the ‘kill radius’.