A Political Minefield

By Paul A.S. Jefferson
The Wall Street Journal, 15 October 1997

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Jody Williams and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines is an accolade for a movement that has not reduced the land-mine casualty count by one leg or restored one acre of land to the population of a mine-contaminated country. Beyond medical attention and rehabilitation of the injured, any action taken must be measured by its effectiveness in reducing casualties and returning land to the population. By this standard, the ICBL is a failure. Indeed, its efforts are only making the land-mine problem worse.

I myself cleared land mines in the Falkland Islands, Angola, Afghanistan and the Middle East, until I lost a leg and was blinded by a land mine in Kuwait. I despise myself for using my injuries as credentials, but the ICBL has relied so heavily on images of suffering, and on a parade of professional victims, that I will have to sink to their level. The point is that I write from experience.

Perfect Common Sense

I am typical of most mine clearers–as opposed to antimine lobbyists, charity spokesmen and journalists–in that I do not believe that a land-mine ban would do anything to solve the problem of land-mine devastation. Such a ban would not work, because the major producer and user nations would not subscribe to it; and even if they did, they would ignore its provisions if faced with the extreme circumstances of war. The British government of Tony Blair has signed up for the ban, but reserves the right to deploy land mines if it is essential for the security of Britain’s armed forces–perfect common sense, I think.

The U.S., in rejecting the ban, cited legitimate security considerations in South Korea. And the U.S.’s ability to deploy mines with self-destruct mechanisms avoids much of the risk of conventional mines. But the ICBL does not recognize the legitimacy of any security or military consideration.

Yet for many impoverished nations, the land mine is the only affordable means of defense. The residents of Sarajevo and Srebrenica held out against the ethnic cleansers behind barriers of antipersonnel mines–many of them homemade by the desperate defenders. At any rate, a ban could not be effectively policed. Mines are easy to produce, even for industrially backward nations. The logic of the victim-operated trap as a weapon is so simple as to be undeniable.

Worst of all, the ICBL’s publicity machine diverts resources and attention from urgently needed mine-clearance efforts. Even if a mine ban fulfilled its proponents’ wildest dreams, it would not begin to reduce casualties for at least 15 years, by which time concerted and properly funded clearance could have removed 80% of the problem. But by distorting statistics, the ICBL presents the land-mine problem as being too vast to be addressed by clearance.

The ICBL claims that there are 119 million mines laid world-wide, and therefore that at the current rate of clearance it will take 1,000 years to clear them. Government ministers, donor institutes and the public accept this figure unquestioningly. The clearance problem is thus seen as intractable–like flood management in Bangladesh, something beyond our capabilities to address. Instead, people support a land-mine ban, feeling that at least they are doing something. Typically, George Soros’s foundation, the Open Society, has given the ban campaign $3 million but will not fund clearance efforts, which seem hopeless.

The figure of 119 million mines, along with the claim that two million new mines are being laid each year, is a gross exaggeration, possibly by as much as tenfold. In the seven countries where the HALO Trust (Britain’s largest demining charity) works, the ICBL’s figure for the number of mines is 40 million. But HALO deminers estimate the total at 1.7 million. Statistics are irrelevant to those who actually clear the mines–but the exaggerated figures discourage donors from supporting clearance.

I predict that during the next year we will see the ICBL, the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross back down from their exaggerated figures. Indeed, Ms. Williams has already distanced herself from the figures she so often uses, saying that “the statistics cited originated either from the U.N., ICRC or U.S. State Department. Their veracity may be open to question, but not because of some duplicity on the part of the ban movement.”

Figures are crucial here. Ms. Williams states: “The campaign’s focus on the political ban has mainly been a reflection of the fact that many more mines have been going into the ground each year than removed.” In reality, all evidence from deminers on the ground indicates that more mines are being cleared annually than are being laid. Slowly, despite gross underfunding, clearers are winning the battle.

There are nowhere near as many mines being laid as the ICBL claims–certainly nothing approaching two million a year. Deminers in Afghanistan now estimate the total number of mines in that country at around 600,000 (vs. an official figure of 10 million), after 18 years of fighting. Does the ICBL seriously believe that the equivalent of nearly four Afghanistans is happening every year?

If it is true that more mines are being lifted annually than are being laid, then by Ms. Williams’s own logic there is no justification for the ICBL’s focus on political activities, and every reason to shift the emphasis to the practical tasks of clearance, medical aid and rehabilitation of the wounded and of their land. Where concerted clearance has been undertaken, casualty figures have fallen off dramatically, notably in parts of Afghanistan, Cambodia and Mozambique. But heightened public awareness of the mines issue has not brought a major increase in funding for demining. The ICBL pays lip service to the idea of clearance, but only as secondary to their main bureaucratic, legislative and publicity initiatives.

Of course, the professionals of the aid world have jobs to keep, and those jobs are not in minefields. I would estimate that for every European mine clearer there must be 40 or 50 antimine lobbyists. Ms. Williams has responded to this rather casual and, I admit, unresearched assertion of mine by saying disingenuously: “We know of only one European who works full-time on the political ban.” Perhaps–but she is indulging in word games, hiding behind job descriptions. Many thousands of publicly funded part-time hours have gone into the campaign, and I doubt that even Ms. Williams would suggest that of the 400 or so delegates who attended February’s “Toward a Mine-Free Southern Africa” conference in Maputo, Mozambique, there were many who paid their own airfares and hotel bills.

‘A Few Million’

Ms. Williams states vaguely that “it is doubtful if the total spending on the political ban by all members of the ICBL amounts to more than a few million dollars.” Since Mr. Soros’s foundation alone contributed $3 million, it would be interesting to know what exactly Ms. Williams means by “a few million.”

At the end of World War II, Europe was more heavily mined than the entire world is today. Ninety percent of the problem in Europe was eradicated within 10 years because there were the financial resources and the political will to deal with it. Effort was put into demining–and many lives and limbs were saved. But no Nobel Peace Prizes were handed out. This accolade has been reserved to congratulate and encourage the ban campaign. No wonder mine clearers are grinning cynically to themselves as they clip through the wire fence and prepare to enter into yet another minefield.

Mr. Jefferson is a former bomb disposal officer in the British army who since leaving the army has been involved in humanitarian mine clearance.