UN to tackle live US explosives in Afghanistan


	January 3, 2002	atimes.com

Central Asia/Russia

UN to tackle live US explosives in Afghanistan
By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations and its mostly local mine-clearing personnel in Afghanistan face the task of clearing away some 25,000 unexploded bombs strewn across the terrain mainly by US warplanes.

UN officials said they have received information from the US-led military coalition that some 244,420 "sub-munitions" were used during the air campaign against Afghanistan that began in early October.

"The initial ground assessments indicate that, at a minimum, about 10 percent of the sub-munitions - about 24,442 - have failed to explode and are lying on the ground as a very dangerous and deadly unexploded ordnance," said Dan Kelly, manager of the UN Mine Action Program in Afghanistan (MAPA). Kelly said he hoped the coalition - which includes the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia - would provide more data on remaining sites.

Cluster bombs, which are not precision-guided, consist of canisters that break apart to release a large number of small "bomblets". Many bomblets do not explode but lie on the ground much like anti-personnel landmines. US forces used them extensively in Afghanistan, as they did in Kosovo in 1999 and during the Gulf War in 1990-91.

As a result of the new dangers to life and reconstruction posed by the unexploded ordnance, the UN said it is intensifying its de-mining program in Afghanistan. More than 5,000 Afghans have been trained and stand ready to undertake the search for unexploded bombs, while yet more are slated for training, officials said.

Kelly said that training in survey, clearance, and awareness of the new sub-munitions and spewed ammunition - including cluster bombs and landmines - has been ongoing for the past six weeks in Peshawar and Quetta in Pakistan, and in Herat and Kabul in Afghanistan. "We have trained the staff to rid the country of these deadly weapons," he said.

Last week, two children aged nine and 10 were killed and two others injured near a refugee camp in Herat when a BLU-97 bomblet exploded while the children were collecting wood.

Previously, the Pentagon decided to change the color of the food packages it had been air-dropping into Afghanistan out of fear that Afghan men, women, and children would not be able to tell these apart from the yellow unexploded bomblets, some of which also are about the same size as the food packages. General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was quoted as saying: "It is unfortunate that the cluster bombs - the unexploded ones - are the same color as the food packets. Unfortunately, they get used to running to yellow," Myers said of the Afghan population.

During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, an estimated 10 million landmines were scattered throughout the war-ravaged country, which has been mired in conflict for more than 22 years. MAPA, the world's oldest and largest de-mining program, said it has cleared more than 1.6 million explosives from former battlefields, agricultural lands, roads, and residential areas.

Last month, the European Union (EU) described the presence of dangerous anti-personnel landmines in Afghanistan as a major humanitarian problem. Between March 1978 and December 2000, at least 2,812 people have been the victims of unexploded mines in Afghanistan. The average annual number of casualties worldwide is estimated at over 150,000, mostly women and children.

Landmines and unexploded ordnance have not only had a devastating effect on human lives but also have proved an obstacle to post-conflict reconstruction and development in war-ravaged countries including Angola, Laos, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Vietnam.

According to MAPA, landmines and unexploded ordnance cover about 724 million square meters of land in Afghanistan. Of this, some 344 million square meters are classified as high-priority land for clearance. The latest annual "Landmine Monitor Report 2001", published by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), says that mined areas are still being discovered at the rate of 12 million to 14 million square meters per year.

The UN is sponsoring an international effort to reconstruct and rebuild Afghanistan at a cost of more than US$9 billion over five years. "We are talking about rebuilding an entire country, roads, infrastructure, bridges, hospitals, schools, educational system, the army, and the police. This is something the international community has pledged to do," said UN spokesman Ahmed Fawzi.

Steve Goose, of ICBL, said explosive remnants of war cause widespread civilian casualties and hinder reconstruction and development by preventing safe access to infrastructure and land. His group has decided to support calls for a moratorium on the use, production, and trade of cluster munitions. "The ICBL also strongly supports efforts to create new international humanitarian law on the wider problem of explosive remnants of war, including cluster weapons," he said.

Goose added that users of cluster bombs and other explosive munitions should take responsibility for clearing up their unexploded ordnance or provide assistance to ensure clearance. Technical information should be provided to the UN and clearance organizations immediately after use and this should include data on types of ordnance used, geographical locations, and procedures to render each type of weapon safe. "The users of weapons such as cluster munitions, which are likely to have a long-term impact, should provide appropriate information and warnings to civilians both during and after conflict," Goose declared.

(Inter Press Service)