Land Mines

If there was ever a reason to pay attention in history class, land mines would be it. Why? Because travelers to dangerous places need to know more than the current situation; they must also know why and where wars were fought in the past. There may be peace in Mozambique, Eritrea, China, Jordan and the Ukraine, but there are plenty of souvenirs from past wars hiding in the ground. Someone is killed or injured by a land mine every 15 to 20 minutes.

The world has between 105 and 110 million land mines buried in 64 countries, according to the United Nations. Nobody actually knows exactly how many there are since the people who placed them never bothered to remember their exact location. Consequently, the people who find them remember for the rest of their lives-if they survive the blast.

Even though land mines maim and kill between 20,000 and 24,000 men, women and children every year, many governments claim they are not a threat to travelers. When the temples of Angkor Wat were mined and booby-trapped, the government was careful to put up little red signs. Even agencies like Greenpeace and the CDC contend the death toll is more like 9600. Mine clearance groups estimate that the number is 15,000, with about 80 percent being civilians and a third of those being young children. (Some anti-mine groups estimate 37,000 are killed every year.) The truth is there are few little red signs in the boonies and even fewer keeping count of the deaths and maimings. Death by land mine is nasty and lonely. Most victims bleed to death in remote places or are maimed for life. Being injured by a land mine is one of the most traumatic experiences, both mentally and physically, a human can live through.

Eighty-five percent of current mine-related casualties are in Afghanistan, Angola and Cambodia-all sites of past and present dirty little wars where land mines are the perfect weapon.

With so many mines, it only takes one false step to be killed or maimed for life. When DP was in Cambodia, we came across a young child dying from a land mine blast. He was walking behind a cow who stepped on the mine, but the shrapnel degutted the child like a fish. The cow's death at least had a benefit. When it comes to mines, all you get is angry, maimed or dead. There are movements afoot to ban land mines worldwide, but for now business is booming.

The next time someone tells you that it is those crazy Russians and liberation groups that sprinkle the world's mines, you might want to check the receipts of the countries that are buying the land mines. According to Janes Intelligence Review, Iran, Israel, Cambodia, Thailand, Chile, El Salvador, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia top the list. Tsk, tsk, you say. Well, those folks have good reasons to buy those land mines: Iran has a nasty border with Iraq, Israel gets grief from Southern Lebanon, Cambodia has the Khmer Rouge to contend with, Thailand has drug runners, Chile has Paraguay, El Salvador has jungle insurgents, and Malaysia still has vivid memories of a nasty war with Indonesia back in the early '60s. Saudi Arabia figures land mines are cheaper than picket fences to mark its southern boundaries. We are sure there must have been good reasons for placing 400 million land mines after World War II. The scary problem is there are still between 65 and 110 million of those mines sitting under the ground. The real bad guys may be the people who cash in from making the grizzly leg poppers.

Land mines are cheap and can be laid in relative safety, cripple economies, stall advances and create fear. The most industrious and creative producers of land mines are not the Cold War vassal states but the high-tech Western countries who make such a big stink about all those little kids who get blown to bits. There are 100 different companies in 55 countries that make land mines. Of the 55 countries who design and manufacture antipersonnel mines (about 75 percent of all land mines), 36 of the countries allow them to be exported. Keep in mind that many mines are bought through shell companies who import them into "nice" countries and then export them to "nasty" countries. Even Switzerland makes and sells five models, while Iran, Cuba and Myanmar are able only to make one model of land mine.

The U.S. has taken steps to remove mines from its base in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, but will leave them in the ground in Korea. They will destroy about $10 million worth of $2 antipersonnel mines and will use instead smart mines that destroy themselves or become inert when their batteries die. Here's a list of where you can shop for the 362 different models of land mines:

How Are They Used?

Land mines are supposed to be laid according to pre-agreed patterns. The area should be marked and maps kept to facilitate cleanup. Land mines are laid about six feet apart. One such NATO pattern is an A pattern with one antitank mine surrounded by three antipersonnel mines: one above and one on each side like a triangle with the antitank in the middle.

During hostilities, these mine fields are carefully marked with skull and crossbones "Beware of mine" signs, backed up with accurate maps showing placement and layout. Once hostilities cease, the winning side then quickly and efficiently removes every single land mine, allowing people to live their lives free from fear. In your dreams!

That is wishful thinking, since the most effective way to sow land mines is to drop millions of small plastic mines by shell or from aircraft. Small bomblets, 247 to a pod, are dropped as part of cluster bombs. Most rebel groups will put mines in potholes, in detours, along walking paths and in fields; they'll even booby-trap intriguing items that villagers, soldiers or children will pick up. Guerillas don't follow patterns. Nobody knows how many mortar rounds, artillery shells and discarded ordnance will be discovered by curious children or diligent farmers. No one bothers to keep notes of where mines are planted as booby traps or nightly security perimeters.

The problem of land mines has become the largest single threat to the health of rural populations in countries that once suffered warfare. Mines can be part of a major defensive region, as in some parts of China, the Middle East and Europe. Mines are also used in combat operations to provide security and early warning or create surprises. Bosnia, Iraq and Kuwait are examples of countries that were heavily mined but stand a chance of being cleaned up. Other countries have actually become dumping grounds for millions of cheap mines laid down to terrorize the population. Most of the African countries, Afghanistan and Cambodia are full of land mine junkyards.

How Do They Work?

Most people picture the movie clichÈ of a careless GI hearing a soft click and then sweating buckets, while his buddy slides his knife under his boot to keep the detonator depressed. Not quite. Yes, mines are essentially dumb explosive devices that are detonated by pressure, but weapon specialists have learned a few tricks since those WWII movies.

First of all, a mine contains extremely explosive material that creates a wall of air and debris that expands outward at almost 7000 meters per second. Some mines add metal projectiles like ball bearings, sharp flechettes or even nails that puncture soft flesh and shred bone into a fine spray. The shock waves are so strong that many victims find their feet still in their boots and their bones turned into projectiles that kill other people.

If you don't die of blood loss, shock or as a result of being turned into Swiss cheese, infection is your worst enemy. The explosion will imbed bits of clothing, grass, mud, dirt and your trusty guide into the shredded mass of meat that used to be your legs. You will need to apply a tourniquet and get to a hospital (yeah, sure, there's probably one around the next sand dune) ASAP. Once you're under medical care, the mashed bits will be quickly amputated, you'll be punched with an IV and given enough morphine to kill a junkie.

Other mines have cute names like Bouncing Betty, because they spring up and explode at eye level, releasing a lethal explosion of ball bearings, killing everything within 25 meters and wounding everyone else within 200 meters. Road mines are so large and powerful that there is a crater and little else left over. Enough scary stuff, let's get specific. Here are the basic types of land mines used today:

Scatter Mines

The Soviet-made PFM-1 butterfly-type mine delivers specialized deadly services. These small mines are sprinkled all over Afghanistan by Russians to injure, but not kill mujahedin. The idea is that a wounded person slows down two healthy people. That the Ruskies don't have the balls to go up into the mountains to plant them is another major attraction. These mines are dropped from helicopters and burrow into the ground using tiny wings. They explode when twisted or pressed firmly. The mines were a last-ditch effort by the Russians in Afghanistan, but now they mainly injure children since adults know not to pick them up. These mines have not found wide usage but are a disturbing use of lethal force. They do not always explode when first handled and can actually be kicked, dropped and twisted before they explode, leading some people to believe that the Russians designed them to kill curious children. There also are "smart" scatter mines that can arm themselves, detonate without direct pressure and self-detonate after a specified period. These smart mines are delivered by cannon, airplane or rocket.

DP's visit to Afghanistan proved that small scatter mines are still doing their deadly work, having seen many maimed children and young men missing their feet.

Antipersonnel, Small

Foot soldiers can't carry big heavy mines, so they make a lot of little plastic blast mines that can be sprinkled in villages, latrines and rice paddies. These mines are about the size of an oversized hockey puck and have a pressure-sensitive plate that the victim steps on. These mines are usually not buried but placed under brush, streams, wet potholes, rice paddies and mud. The mine takes very little pressure to set it off, and the victim will usually lose a foot and/or a leg up to the knee. These mines are not designed to kill but to create serious, incapacitating injury which effects the morale of the other side. No one feels gung ho when they see the results of a mine. Top sellers in this category are the Chinese Type 72, Italian TS-50 and US M14. These mines are very difficult to find, since many of them use plastic casings and cannot be readily picked up by normal metal detectors.

Antipersonnel, Large

These killer-blast mines usually pack about 200 grams of explosive (compared to 40 grams in the small category). The best-selling Soviet PMN likes to deliver leg-shattering wounds caused by small mines with higher explosive content. They are used to maim groups of soldiers, with severe wounds to groin and buttocks and loss of both legs common. These and their smaller cousins are the most popular mines in existence. They cost about US$3 each and can be found killing people in most Third World war zones. There are also large versions of these pressure mines that can kill entire platoons. These mines are typically buried just under the surface and can be easily found if they have metal parts.

Fragmentation Mines

Mines like the US M18A1 ``Claymore" are designed to spray large areas with thousands of ball bearings. Other frag mines like the Russian POMZ-2 explode into thousands of sharp metal pieces. These mines are set up as booby traps (usually with trip wires) and are used to protect camp perimeters or ambush columns. There is a detonator pin that is attached to a wire. The mines are placed above ground, on trees, across narrow paths, inside buildings, along roads, or anywhere a group of soldiers would collect. One soldier trips over the wire, and instantly he and his buddies are killed. If the mines are never tripped, they sit waiting for the next victim.

There is also the Bouncing Betty type of fragmentation mines called "bounding" mines. They are designed to be buried in the ground in open areas, and when one of the whiskerlike sensors is triggered, the mine will project upwards and explode ball bearings or shrapnel in a lethal 360-degree radius. The Italian-made Valmara-69 is the most famous example of this mine. The explosion occurs at a three- to five-foot height maximizing the "kill ratio" (a popular term in all military sales films). Some mines have over 1000 individual pieces of shrapnel, so the chances of surviving by ducking or turning sideways are slim to none.

These mines are designed to be lethal and are left behind to slow down advancing armies, decimate charges and create maximum casualties.

Road Mines

The mines that do the most damage to wartime soldiers and peacetime mine clearance workers are the big plate-sized and plank-size tank killers. These are mines laid down in active war zones to kill and disable vehicles, kill the occupants and destroy the road. The British L9 and the Italian VS-22 are popular mines used in the Gulf War and in other combat zones. Road mines are also used in Somalia, Southern Lebanon and other active zones. Since these mines are easy to detect and placed around major transportation corridors, they are usually the first ones to be cleared up (or to be run over). Mines are almost always laid at night and rarely under paved roads. They are laid on dirt roads and along the side of the road.

Other Mines and Hidden Dangers

If you really are kinky about mines, you can pick up a Jane's directory or send for brochures. There are many booby traps that are not technically mines. There are also extraordinary amounts of unexploded ordnance in the ground that may not jump up and bite you, but can be found displayed in villager's homes and souvenir shops.

What are your chances of finding one of these millions of mines? It simply depends on how far off the beaten path you travel and the military history of your country of choice. Off-roading in Angola would not be a good idea. Playing hide and seek around Cambodia is also not a good idea.

 

Where Are the Mines?

Eighteen African countries have between 18 and 30 million mines each; Angola has the most, between 9 and 20 million uncleared mines, and even the "lightly mined" countryside of Mozambique (with about 2 million) has turned many small roads into death traps and caused large game to vanish. Somalia has 1 million mines; Sudan has between 1 and 2 million (and growing); Zimbabwe and Ethiopia have major uncleared minefields (about half a million each). Bosnia Herzegovina, Cambodia and Croatia are the most mined countries in the world, with an average of between 92 and 142 land mines per square mile. This can be misleading, since the mines in Egypt are sitting in the remote northern deserts and the mines in Angola are in small towns and fields. All of East Asia has 15 to 23 million land mines. The Middle East has 17 to 24 million land mines, mainly in Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and the Israeli border. Saddam Hussein went a little overboard during his brief occupation of Kuwait and turned the entire country into a minefield, most of which has been cleaned up at great expense. Europe is home to 7 million mines, mostly along the former Soviet border. During World War I, seven countries fired nearly 1.5 billion shells. Ninety-five percent of them were conventional explosives; the rest were chemical shells. It is estimated that 30 percent of the chemical shells landed without ever exploding and have been sitting around since 1918. Most of the shells were used in Belgium. The Ukraine is home to over a million mines. Russia has both new minefields and WWII fields that were never cleared. Bosnia-Herzegovina has many uncleared fields, and new mines were being laid at a rate of 60,000 a week. At last count, there were 152 mines per square mile in this torn-up land.

Up to a million uncleared mines are left in South America. There are mines in Colombia, Chile and most areas of Nicaragua, Guatemala and even Cuba. Some areas of the Falklands are permanently off-limits because the British could not spare the men to clear the minefields. There is a lot of splattered mutton every week in the Falklands.

Most countries in Southern Africa have large mined areas, as do the entire Horn of Africa, all areas of Middle East conflict and most border areas from the Cold War. Although there are no mines in North America, we did send a few overseas. If you thought the U.S. didn't do those types of things, think again. Remember that Uncle Sam used to empty out our bomb loads over Laos, leaving millions of cluster bombs for little Laotians to discover. More than 300,000 tons of bombs were dropped on northern Laos during the Vietnam War. No one has any idea how much unexploded ordnance still lies in the jungles of Northern Vietnam. The overly cautious should understand that, along with cigarette butts, ammo containers and mixed-race children, land mines are just the litter of war.

How Do You Get Rid of Land Mines?

There are movements by the UN, military and civilian groups (about 300 groups in total) to ban the manufacture and use of land mines. The chances are good of convincing First World countries of a ban, but the facts are that the most heavily mined countries are a result of dirty wars, not major conflicts. The majority of land mines have been planted in the last 20 years. Currently, 36 nations build land mines and most countries use them. These countries produce about 10 to 20 million units a year. About 2 million new land mines are laid each year depending on what conflicts are raging. The U.S. budgeted $89 million for land mine warfare in 1996.

The first task a newly stabilized country faces is cleaning up land mines. Traditional land mines are cleared in a variety of ways. In large open areas, tracked vehicles with flailing chains can clear most mines. In less accessible or poorer areas, the old-fashioned metal detector is used. Some new Scheibel-type models can detect many plastic versions. Some countries use the old-fashioned method of probing at a shallow angle with knives. Sniffing dogs can be used, along with a raft of new high-tech methods employing radar, sonar, thermal neutron, microwave, and even satellites. For now, most mines are detected and dug up the old-fashioned way, by hand or the painful way; by foot. Wildly speculative estimates on the costs to remove the world's land mines come in at about $33 billion.

In Cambodia, an on again/off again adventure travel destination, estimates hover around US$12 million annually for 10 years to remove the 10 million land mines left from the war. There are a few groups like HALO working in Cambodia, but they still have to put up with being kidnapped and harassed by roque Khmer Rouge bandits. There are 60,000 victims of land mines in Cambodia today, with every 237th Cambodian an amputee. But it is not the pain and disfigurement that ultimately kills. The reality is that unlike handicap-friendly America, losing a limb in the Third World is a fast ticket to poverty, begging, sickness and death.

Land mines can be found in Angola, Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, the Falklands, Iraq, Iran, Laos, Mozambique, Somalia, Thailand, Kuwait and Vietnam. In addition to carefully planted land mines, there is a significant amount of unexploded ordinance in Europe, Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. Don't get smug because you think you know your mines and your history. One mine clearance expert told us they are digging up British Land mines in Mozambique because Qaddafi had his folks dig them up in Libya and sell them to rebels. For those who need to know, there is an excellent book by Eddie Banks titled Anti-Personnel Mines, A Recognition Guide ($120, 512 pages, ISBN!-85753-228-7) sold by Brassey's (800) 775-2518, FAX (703) 661-1501.

There were 7 million land mines laid in Iraq and Kuwait before and during the Gulf War. Kuwait spent $800 million clearing out land mines after the Gulf War.

It costs between $500 and $2000 per mine to remove them. A few years ago, 80,000 - 100,000 mines were removed around the world at a cost of $100 million. To remove all the mines in the world would cost $58 billion. Unfortunately, 2 to 5 million mines are put in the ground every year.

A DP reader who spends much of his time in mined areas while working for the U.N. Rapid Response Unit has sent in these tips: