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In spite of the peace accord signed in October 1992 between government forces and RENAMO rebels, innocent civilians are maimed and killed by landmines in Mozambique on a daily basis. In spite of the peace accord signed in October 1992 between government forces and RENAMO rebels, innocent civilians are maimed and killed by landmines in Mozambique on a daily basis. To date, these weapons have claimed more than 10,000 victims — mostly civilians — and the casualty toll could increase rapidly as millions of refugees and displaced people return home to roads and fields littered with mines. Landmines were used in violation of international law by government troops, RENAMO rebels, and various foreign forces. In some instances, civilians were directly targeted; often the mines were scattered in an indiscriminate and random fashion, terrorizing local communities. The devastation caused by landmines in Mozambique — not only for the many civilian victims, but also to the socioeconomic well-being of the nation — is appalling. Clearance of mines could take decades, but so far, little has been done. Landmines in Mozambique is part of a series of reports by Human Rights Watch that document the effects on the civilian population of landmines used in armed conflicts. Human Rights Watch calls for an international ban on the production, stockpiling, transfer and use of antipersonnel landmines as the only way to address this global human rights, humanitarian and ecological disaster.

This report, The Post Conflict Contamination Assessment of Afghanistan (the Assessment), focuses on a key humanitarian issue for the reconstruction of Afghanistan: the contamination of the country with landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO). It also offers insights regarding the dynamics of armed conflict and victimization that may be revisited in countries likely to experience future military interventions. The objective of the Assessment was to provide information on areas contaminated with landmines and UXO as a result of military activities after September 11, 2001, as well as on victims and property damage in the communities exposed to those activities. The study, conducted between June and mid-July 2002, examines all local communities in Afghanistan that had been subject to air strikes or ground operations after September 11, 2001. These communities were located in 25 of the 32 provinces of Afghanistan. All affected communities were surveyed for contamination of landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO), for the numbers of victims of violence, and for indications of property loss.

Landminen fordern jährlich 15.000 bis 20.000 Opfer, vor allem in Afrika, Asien und Südosteuropa. Schätzungen der Anzahl weltweit verlegter Landminen schwanken zwischen 60 und 120 Mio. in 78 Ländern und acht international nicht anerkannten Staaten. Da viele der betroffenen Länder das Problem nicht eigenständig beseitigen können, bleibt ihre Unterstützung unabdingbar.Der Begriff "Humanitäre Rüstungskontrolle bei Landminen" bezieht sich auf zwei völkerrechtliche Abkommen, die sich mit Landminen und deren Auswirkungen befassen: Das geänderte Protokoll II zum VN-Waffenübereinkommen über das Verbot oder die Beschränkung des Einsatzes von Minen, Sprengfallen und anderen Vorrichtungen (Minenprotokoll) und das Übereinkommen über das Verbot des Einsatzes, der Herstellung, der Lagerung und der Weitergabe von Antipersonenminen und über deren Vernichtung (Ottawa-Konvention).Diese Studie untersucht die gegenwärtigen Perspektiven beider Verträgen, die weiteres menschliches Leiden mindern sollen.Dazu sollten insbesondere neue Mitgliedstaaten gewonnen werden. Eine Erleichterung der Rahmenbedingungen für Beitritte und verbesserte Unterstützungsangebote könnten den Geltungsbereich beider Abkommen vergrößern. Die Unterzeichnung und Ratifizierung der Ottawa-Konvention durch alle EU-Staaten wäre ein bedeutendes Signal. Hierzu fehlen noch Polen und Finnland. Im Mittelpunkt der weiteren Förderung der Ottawa-Konvention sollte die Umsetzung der "Vernichtung aller gelagerten Antipersonenminen" sowie der "Einstellung ihrer Produktion" stehen. Außerdem böte die Verabschiedung eines neuen Protokolls über das Verbot oder die Einschränkung des Gebrauchs von Antifahrzeugminen während der Überprüfungskonferenz zum VN-Waffenübereinkommen im November 2006 eine große Chance. (SWP-Studie / SWP)

There are a number of resources available at the MAIC and elsewhere to help people get involved. This edition of The Landmine Action Smart Book is perhaps the best place to start. This book was designed to give readers a basic introduction to the subject of mine action, a discipline that includes a diverse set of activities such as landmine clearance, research and development of new demining technologies and practices, mine risk education, survivor assistance, planning and coordination, and policy formulation. Each chapter of the Smart Book provides an overview of the components involved in reaching our ultimate goal of a world that is safe from the threat of landmines. The chapter on International Diplomacy outlines the efforts undertaken by various government and non-government entities to limit the use and threat of these weapons. Other chapters will help you to learn more about the strategies employed to limit the damage to the health and welfare of civilian populations for whom landmines are a daily concern. At the end of this book you will find helpful suggestions to get you started on the road to action and a list of websites to further guide you in your endeavors.

Detection of landmines is a problem concerning both military and peacekeeping forces. This paper reviews literature on strategic minefield layouts, modern mine clearing, and mine countermeasure techniques based on mechanical methods. Discusses hydraulic and signal processing techniques, ion-trap mobility spectrometer, subsurface probing radar and few other novel methods employed for this purpose. The specialised directions that the landmine detection methods are taking are clearly pointed out.

This paper explores the detection of landmines using thermal images acquired in military context. The conditions in which the images are obtained have a direct influence on the methods used to perform the automatic detection of landmines through image processing techniques. The proposed methodology follows two main phases: acquisition of thermal images and its processing. In the first phase, four different experiences were prepared to analyze the factors that influence the quality of the detection. In the second phase was conducted the image processing on a set of images based on classification techniques using the K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithms. The classification was performed on a set of features extracted from ROI's obtained by a sliding window. A second approach was also implemented based on segmentation using thresholds. The results achieved allow to identify factors that influence the detection of the mines: the burial depth, the presence of vegetation on the surface and the time of the day at which images were obtained. The optimal classification was obtained with the KNN classifier with 40 features selected with Sequential Backward Selection (SBS), and using the distance metric of correlation. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

With the proliferation of low-intensity conflict, landmines have proven to be one of the weapons of choice for both government and guerrilla forces around the world. Recent improvements to mine technology pose increasingly significant problems for demining operations, requiring the constant upgrading of countermine technologies. Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) is one of the most exhaustively researched topics in the detection of buried mines as it can be used to detect non-metallic and plastic mines. However, identification and recognition are still unsolved problems, due to the scattering similarity between mines and clutter objects. This study provides an experimental evaluation of the improvements that a bistatic approach could yield and what can be gained from investigating the angular dependencies of the landmine radar signature.

More than 125 representatives from across the Hemisphere met in Bogotá from November 12 through 14, 2003 to take part in the "Regional Seminar on Antipersonnel Landmine Victims," sponsored by the Organization of American States Mine Action Program, the Mine Action Information Center of James Madison University and the Office of the Vice President of the Republic of Colombia, and made possible with financial support from the Department of State of the United States. The purpose of the seminar was two-fold. First, it aimed to bring together experts and practitioners in the field of victim assistance from national and local governments in mine-affected countries, donor nations, and nongovernmental and international organizations to share experiences and evaluate the possibility for new partnerships. In addition, several landmine survivors from throughout the Americas participated in the seminar, offering some unique perspectives on the issue.

With the proliferation of low-intensity conflict, landmines have proven to be one of the weapons of choice for both government and guerrilla forces around the world. Recent improvements to mine technology pose increasingly significant problems for demining operations, requiring the constant upgrading of countermine technologies. Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) is one of the most exhaustively researched topics in the detection of buried mines as it can be used to detect non-metallic and plastic mines. However, identification and recognition are still unsolved problems, due to the scattering similarity between mines and clutter objects. This study provides an experimental evaluation of the improvements that a bistatic approach could yield and what can be gained from investigating the angular dependencies of the landmine radar signature.

The second Landmines and Livelihoods report, Livelihoods Analysis of Landmine Affected Communities in Afghanistan, was commissioned by the Mine Action Coordination Centre for Afghanistan (MACCA) and the Department for Mine Clearance (DMC) with the aim of better understanding the development outcomes stemming from demining. The project has four main objectives: to gain a better understanding of the development outcomes and impacts accruing from demining and how to enhance these, more complete reporting to the Government of Afghanistan (GoA) and donors on the contribution made by the MAPA to Afghanistan's development, capacity development to ensure the MAPA, in partnership with Afghan livelihoods experts, can conduct such surveys on a periodic basis and quality management to inform the post-clearance survey efforts of demining operators and the MACCA/DMC.

Cheap and easy to use, landmines are among the favourite weapons in civil wars and wars of insurgency and are used by governments and guerrillas alike. These 'eternal sentinels' stand guard long after the conflicts have ended and kill and maim without mercy or discrimination. Therefore, there is a pressing need to remove these devices and to clear the contaminated land. As many landmines have low metal content they are difficult to detect using traditional techniques such as metal detectors, hence Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) is an attractive tool in landmine clearance. Many investigations of landmine detection using GPR make use of surrogate landmine targets, since real landmines are difficult to obtain. This paper investigates the importance of the fidelity of such surrogates in terms of their external design, internal structure and explosive content.

The development of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and communication systems contributed to the availability of more applications using UAVs in military and civilians purposes. Anti-personnel landmines deployed by militia groups in conflict zones are a life threat for civilians and need cautious handling while removing. The UAV Tomographic Synthetic Aperture Radar (TSAR) can reconstruct three-dimension images of the investigation domain to prescreen nonmetallic landmines. A nonmetallic landmine cannot be detected using conventional ground penetrating radars when the scattering field is undetected due to the dielectric permittivity. In this paper, imaging the underground for detecting landmine using TSAR is proposed. The TSAR has the capability of prosing the data in discrete mode regardless of the altitude of UAV's radar. A landmine is always buried less than a feet depth. L-band frequency is used to provide high resolution and to penetrate deep in dry soil. More than one UAVs are used to multistatic scan the investigation space. The geometric diversity of multistatic distribution of the sensors will provide more information about the buried nonmetallic landmines, certain features, and their location. The data collected from the sensors will align with the geolocation data obtained from the UAV's system for processing. Dynamic flying can be used to predict the electromagnetic response of the scattering field to create a dynamic matching filter using the Green's function under first-order Born approximation. The occurring air-soil interference has been removed as an unwanted reflection from the ground while keeping the signal coming from underground. Using the Born approximation assumption created an ill-posed linear system solved by the Conjugate Gradient algorithm. Simulation results are presented to validate the method.

Most of the mines that currently threaten populations were manufactured more than 50 years ago and many have been in the ground for 30 years or more. Despite the inevitable and obvious deterioration, there has been very little research into the effects of aging on landmines. In 2008, James Madison University (JMU), the Center for International Stabilization and Recovery (CISR), and C King Associates Ltd (CKA) began a study designed to understand the aging process and the range of implications for the various components of mine action. The two-and-a-half year study was funded by grants from the US Department of State, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs/Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement.

Trinitrotoluene (TNT) is a highly explosive nitroaromatic compound that is used for military and terrorist activities such as the development of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), landmines and is the main charge or explosive in most of the anti-personal and anti-vehicle mines. Different chemicals/ contaminants associated with TNT in soils near buried land mines comprise the microbial transformation products of TNT (2-amino-4,6-dinitrotoluene [2-Am-DNT] and 4-amino-2,6-dinitrotoluene [4-Am-DNT]), manufacturing impurities of TNT (2,4-DNT, 2,6-DNT, and 1,3-DNB), and TNT. Time, cost, and casualties associated with demining have necessitated the demand for improved detection techniques with reduced false positives by directly detecting the explosive material, rather than casing material of mines. Different analytical methods used to detect trace level of explosives in soil include ion mobility mass spectrometry, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) that require samples to be collected from hazardous sites to laboratories. This is extremely unsafe, time consuming, involve large and expensive instrumentation cost and specially trained staff. Thus, detecting chemical signatures of these nitroaromatics in soil infected with these chemicals due to leaked TNT mines can provide location of landmines/ landmine prone zones to aide humanitarian demining process. This paper illustrates soil analysis for explosives and selected contaminants by Raman spectroscopy as a chemical, nondestructive, remote sensing method. As with advancement of Raman-based standoff detection techniques, field-portable instruments and UAV deployable probes, this technique can be effectively employed in detecting buried landmines based on specific chemical signatures of target analyte. In this present study, TNT-based nitroaromatic was assessed in contaminated soil samples using Raman spectroscopy, where uncontaminated soil was used as background and matrix for spiking target contaminants at ...

Instead of state governments, rebel groups have become the most prolific landmine users. However, rebels display significant variation in the way they restrict the use of landmines. While some armed groups seek to limit their effects to government forces, some indiscriminately lay mines irrespective of collateral damage, and others directly target civilians with landmines. Furthermore, some rebels have renounced the use of anti-personnel mines and engage in mine action. In this thesis, I seek to explain this empirical variation. I argue that civilian victimisation caused by landmines creates significant legitimacy costs to rebels, thus increasing incentives to exercise restraint. It follows that the more legitimacy-seeking behaviour rebels display, the more likely they are to exercise restraint on landmine use. I test this hypothesis in a structured focused comparison of three rebel groups from the Philippines. The case studies support the hypothesis, as legitimacy-seeking behaviour had a positive effect on restraint on landmine use in the selected groups. This thesis contributes to the field mainly in two ways. First, I conceptualise and measure restraint on landmine use, which had been neglected in previous studies. Second, I develop a theoretical argument specifically explaining variation in restraint on landmine use.