DISARMAMENT-NICARAGUA:
Landmine-Free by 2009?
By José Adán Silva
MANAGUA (IPS) - Military
sources in Nicaragua and
Organisation of American
States (OAS) officials
warned that dozens of
minefields remain live
and dangerous in this
country -- a legacy of
the 1981-1990 civil war.
Carlos Orozco, regional
coordinator for the OAS
Assistance Programme for
Demining in Central
America (PADCA), told
IPS that 51 minefields
have been discovered in
the border zone with
Honduras, an area where
about 24,000 campesinos
(small farmers) live.
This area was the
theatre of war between
the so-called "contra
fighters", irregular
rightwing forces
organised and financed
by the United States,
and the Sandinista
People’s Army (EPS), the
government armed forces,
reorganised after the
leftwing Sandinista
guerrillas overthrew the
decades-old dynastic
dictatorship of the
Somoza family in 1979.
According to official
statistics, 50,000
people died, 500,000
were displaced from
their homes and around
50,000 were seriously
injured during the war
against the contras.
Orozco said that the
army laid 135,000
anti-personnel
landmines. The number of
mines laid by the
contras, mainly in areas
bordering Costa Rica and
Honduras, is unknown.
The OAS programme’s
records show that at the
end of the war, the
Nicaraguan army had a
stockpile of thousands
of tons of explosives
and 133,435 landmines,
which were
systematically destroyed
by 2002.
"In 1990, there were
500,000 Nicaraguan
civilians living less
than 10 kilometres from
minefields," said
Orozco.
Over the last five
years, complaints from
campesinos in the
provinces of Jinotega
and Nueva Segovia,
bordering on Honduras,
as well as from
Matagalpa, northeast of
Managua, alerted the
military authorities to
explosions occurring in
these mountainous areas.
An army investigation
uncovered minefields in
the vicinity of former
contra military camps.
Staff in charge of the
OAS programme identified
eight municipalities
with a total at-risk
population of over
24,000 people living
within five kilometres
of the minefields.
The inspector general of
the Nicaraguan army,
Major General Ramón
Humberto Calderón, told
IPS that this year the
armed forces plan to
begin clearing the 51
remaining minefields
left by the civil war,
under the National
Humanitarian Demining
Programme.
The armed forces
estimate that there are
about 17,000 mines. They
intend to destroy 7,600
this year and the
remainder in 2009, if
funding can be secured.
Army chief General Omar
Halleslevens said that
since the beginning of
mine clearing
operations, a total of
157,972 anti-personnel
mines had been
destroyed.
Approximately 1.1
million people have
benefited directly or
indirectly from the
clearing of 397
minefields, military
authorities said.
"Around my village there
were over 15,000 mines.
Many people were killed,
and others left the
village because of
poverty, as no one would
go into those deadly
fields to plant crops.
Now there are roads and
schools where there used
to be buried bombs,"
said Agresio Osejo,
mayor of Somotillo, a
municipality in
Chinandega province in
the west of the country.
According to the
Nicaraguan army, since
1990 they have cleared
minefields on
agricultural land, as
well as 145 kilometres
of roads in the northern
border zone and 96
kilometres along the
southern border.
In spite of the
progress, retired
Colonel William
McDonough, head of
Humanitarian Demining at
the OAS, does not
believe that Nicaragua
will be declared
landmine-safe in 2009 as
had been hoped in 2005,
when 90 percent of the
mines were thought to
have been eliminated.
"The remaining 51
minefields are the most
remote and inaccessible.
The army won’t be able
to destroy them in two
years," McDonough, who
has been supervising
demining operations in
Latin America since the
late 1980s, told IPS.
McDonough is concerned
about the cessation of
funding by Denmark and
Sweden for Nicaragua’s
demining operations. Aid
from these countries
ended in December.
However, Canada, the
United States, Japan and
European Union countries
are continuing to fund
landmine clearance, said
Orozco.
But in his view, more
resources will be needed
to eliminate the
recently discovered
minefields, as even the
OAS is facing budgetary
constraints.
"We have about 1.5
million dollars to carry
out our demining plans
for 2008, but we need
another 3.7 million
dollars for demining in
2009, and to continue
the victim aid programme
until 2010," Orozco
said.
The OAS has a waiting
list of 100 maimed
landmine survivors in
need of rehabilitation,
he added.
"We have already
completed the diagnoses
of 98 disabled people,
and we hope to train
them in productive work
this year so that they
can be integrated as
useful members of
society, but we need
extra resources to do
this," said Orozco.
Since the victim aid
programme began in 1990,
1,187 people have
survived mine
explosions, while
another 50 have died.
The Defence Ministry’s
National Demining
Commission reported that
in 2007 alone, it
provided care for 425
survivors.
"A total of 1,250
consultations took place
with people needing
ongoing treatment, who
came to have their
prosthetic limbs
changed, undergo eye and
ear operations and
receive psychological
help, or other
interventions," the
Commission said.
Oswaldo Danilo Mairena,
a 45-year-old former
soldier, is one of the
people being treated by
the demining
authorities.
He lost his left leg and
left eye in 1991 while
attempting to deactivate
a landmine. Nearly 17
years later, the ex
soldier still requires
medical treatment for
his injuries.
"When you trigger a
landmine, you go on
bleeding forever,"
Mairena said.
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