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Teacher’s note: Students, especially in lower grades, often have a lot of questions about landmines. One approach to your discussion might be to list everyone’s questions on the board and then answer them. There is a lot of information available on the web about landmines, and there are good projects for students:
Discussion
What is a landmine? A landmine is an explosive that is buried just below the surface of the ground to keep enemy soldiers from crossing into your territory. The landmine explodes when someone steps the ground above it. It usually destroys the person’s leg and sometimes it destroys both legs. If the victim is a child, they usually die. If they are an adult, but can’t get to a hospital soon enough, which is often the case in Cambodia, then they die. Over half of the victims survive and become amputees. Cambodia has over 35,000 amputees. One out of every 340 people is an amputee.
Where are landmines found? Mines are planted in war zones. They may be laid by hand or "seeded" from an aircraft or by artillery. Mines may be laid around a village, along a road, on bridges, along river banks, in fields or in forests. Many mines float so that after heavy rains they are found in unexpected locations. Mines continue to be dangerous even if they have been in the ground a long time. When the military conflict ceases, mines remain hidden in the ground, a threat to the people who work the fields and walk the roads.
Buying a mine only costs a few dollars, but clearing mines is very expensive. It costs about $1000 to remove one mine. So, in many places, fields and sometimes entire villages remain mined for years after conflicts end making it difficult to farm and support a family. Landmines continue to kill and maim civilians, mostly women and children.
How many landmines are there? It is estimated that there are between 45 and 50 million landmines in the ground in at least 70 countries. How many mines are there in Cambodia? No one knows for sure, but some estimate 4 to 6 million. In the year 2001 there were 813 landmine casualties and 232 were children. Each day 2-3 people step on a landmine in Cambodia, 95% are civilians.
How are they removed? The person who removes landmines is called a deminer. She lies on her stomach and probes the ground inch by inch with a knife, hoping to touch the side of the landmine. When she discovers one, she carefully uncovers it and removes it for destruction. Most landmines are made of plastic so they cannot be found with a metal detector. Driving a big demining machine over the land only works on open sandy soil, like deserts, and it doesn’t find all the mines. Trained dogs are very good at finding landmines with their keen sense of smell.
Do you think landmines should be used or not? Those in favor of landmines are the businesses that profit from selling them and the military. Landmines maim or kill 10,000 civilians every year. Victims have a lifetime of physical, psychological, and economic hardship. The Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan says, "the use of a weapon whose victims are overwhelmingly women and children is fundamentally immoral." What does immoral mean?
What is being done to stop landmines? An organization called the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (www.icbl.org) encourages countries to support a treaty banning the use, production, stockpiling, and transfer of antipersonnel landmines. In 1997 the treaty was signed by 147 countries and became law. Countries may no longer sign it, but they can choose to support it. The United States does not support the ban on landmines.
What can we do?
- Urge the US government to support the mine ban treaty and destroy all stockpiles of mines. (www.icbl.org)
- Educate the public – Organize an educational/fundraising event to tell people about the tragedy of landmines. Feature an article about the campaign on your school website and in your school paper.
- Sign the Youth Against War Treaty if you are under 26. (www.icbl.org)
- Write a letter to the editor or an op-ed to your local newspaper to express your concern about landmines. The media needs to know that the global landmine problem has not gone away just because we now have an international treaty outlawing the weapon. We still need to get all countries to ban this weapon, including the United States. We need to clear the millions of mines still lying in the ground, and we will need to take care of the hundreds of thousands of innocent people who have survived a landmine explosion but are now disabled. (www.icbl.org)
- Provide Vocation Training to Landmine Survivors – Most people who step on landmines are rural farmers. After they loose a leg, they can no longer farm and need to find another way to earn money so they can buy rice and food for their family. Friendship with Cambodia (www.friendshipwithcambodia.org) supports a project that offers landmine survivors an opportunity to get job training and to start their own business. They can choose between repairing motorcycles, repairing electronics like TVs, or sewing clothes. A donation of $500 will help fund a landmine survivor's vocational training. For more information write to cambodiaedu@hotmail.com or call (541) 343-3782
- Sponsor a Mine Detection Dog – Mine detection dogs are trained to recognize the explosives found in mines. They help deminers by sniffing the ground slowly and carefully. When they smell explosives they signal to the deminers, who then start clearing the land. Some of the costs involved in training and maintaining a dog include purchasing the dog, the dog handler's salary, veterinarian bills, dog equipment, kennels, kennel staff, transportation and training. Money raised from this program supports Norwegian People's Aid mine detection dog program. Every dollar given to sponsor these dogs translates into land that is cleared of landmines and returned to communities so that people everywhere can walk without fear! (www.sponsor-a-minedog.org)
- Adopt A Minefield Local communities in mine-affected countries often do not have the resources to clear their own land and to provide adequate care for their landmine survivors. They depend primarily upon financial assistance from governments and international and nongovernmental organizations. Adopt-A-Minefield® is a grassroots effort to provide this aid. To find out more about how students can participate in the Adopt-A-Minefield® Campaign, visit their website www.landmines.org, e-mail them at info@landmines.org, or call them at (212) 907-1300.
Example of an adoptable minefield in Cambodia
Kandal is a village in southern Pursat with 227 families. The population is very poor and their land is contaminated by landmines leftover from intense fighting in 1987. Economic necessity forces families to farm in unsafe areas and recently, 10 people have been involved in landmine accidents. More than 40 farm animals have also been killed. Clearance of this minefield will make land available to five poor families for farming. It will take 8 weeks to clear the mines and it will cost $29,532.
- Why do people live and farm in mined areas? (They have no other land to live on or means of earning a living.)
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