In this Op-Ed in The Examiner (Independence, MO, USA), I argue that joining the landmine and cluster munitions bans would be a way for President Obama to live up to the rhetoric in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. Click here to read more.

For my earlier opinion editorials in The Guardian, click here for an examination of Obama’s landmine policy, and here for a call on him to join the cluster munitions ban.

Many defenders of the Bush-era US landmine policy, which the Obama Administration recently endorsed (read my op-ed here), claim that the US needs landmines in order to defend its ally South Korea; they are wrong.

Their position has been refuted comprehensively in this fact-sheet by the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (now Veterans for America). They show that the minefields in the DMZ would only delay the North Korean Army briefly, and would actually constrain US forces. They show that, in fact, the DMZ minefields are a burden on the US and South Korea and are not an adequate excuse for not joining the treaty.

By Rainer Hachfeld, Neues Deutschland, Germany

Click here to see the original post on TruthDig.

To read my Op-Ed in The Guardian on Obama’s landmine policy, click here.

The Guardian, a UK daily newspaper, ran an opinion editorial of mine decrying the Obama Administration’s decision not to sign the international landmine ban.

Click here to read it.

To read a previous article of mine in The Guardian, calling on Obama to sign the cluster munitions ban, click here.

A very disappointing announcement today. The Obama Administration decided that it will not join the landmine ban and will continue the Bush Administration policy, which had been a backslide from the Clinton era.

Read more on Huffington Post

To read more of my posts about US landmine and cluster munition policy, click here.

My upcoming book, which will come out next month, covers US landmine policy, particularly its foreign aid for demining, in detail. Learn more here.

I wrote an opinion column in The Examiner (Independence, MO, USA) this weekend calling on Russian and Chechen authorities to “do everything they can to ensure an independent investigation” into the slaying of landmine campaigner Zarema Sadulayeva and her husband, Alik Dzhabrailov this week. Unfortunately, the string of political murders of human rights activists in Russia suggests that any such political commitment from Russian and Chechen governmental bodies is highly unlikely. Therefore, I call on the Obama Administration to “support Russian human rights and democracy activists, whose lives are growing more dangerous every week.”

Read the whole article here.

I was deeply shocked and saddened to learn today of the brutal killing of Zarema Sadulayeva and her husband, Alik Dzhabrailov. Ms. Sadulayeva was a tireless campaigner for mine action in Chechnya. Though I did not personally know her, we had exchanged a few emails and I was sickened to hear of her death.

“Ms Sadulayeva was a tireless activist who was committed to creating public awareness about the landmine problem in the region and advocating for the rights of landmine survivors and other people with disabilities,” said Ms Kasia Derlicka, Advocacy and Campaign Officer for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, in a press release on their website. “Her death is a huge loss to the mine action community.”

The killing of Ms. Sadulayeva and her husband is the latest in a string of high profile murders of human rights activists in the Russian Federation. Click here to read Human Rights Watch’s press release.

To learn more about the landmine situation in Chechnya, click here.

My book, Foreign Aid and Landmine Clearance: Governance, Politics and Security in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Sudan, won’t be out until the end of this year, but Amazon UK is offering a 35% discount on the book if you pre-order it now, as a part of a special sale on textbooks. Click here to buy it from Amazon UK. The following is a brief description of the book, from the publisher I.B.Tauris:

In the decade since the signing of the Ottawa Treaty, which banned the production and use of anti-personnel mines, governments have spent over $3 billion on clearing up and mitigating the security threat of mines, cluster munitions and other unexploded ordnance in the world’s current and former war zones. However, this flow of cash into regions dominated by violent social structures raises numerous political issues. Through detailed archival and field research, this book explores the politics behind the allocation and implementation of foreign aid by the US and Norway for demining in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Sudan. It is an essential resource for practitioners and policymakers working in the field of landmine clearance and for students and researchers of Development Studies and post-war reconstruction.

The book is also available on Amazon USA, but at a much higher price. Click here if you want to buy it from there anyway.

Stuart Casey-Maslen of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines weighed in on the debate in Turkey about how to clear its minefields along its Syrian border. (Click here to read the whole article).

Much of the debate has focussed on whether to use foreign commercial companies to conduct clearance. (See this previous Political Minefields post).  However, Maslen said the Turkish government had not adequately considered the option of using international NGOs.  Another Turkish newspaper reported that HALO Trust “were aware of the debate in Turkey and might be interested [to help] if asked.”

Research by Political Minefields in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Sudan has suggested that using humanitarian NGOs rather than commercial companies can often be a better move for demining programs. International NGOs are often safer and better able to communicate with the local population.

Casey-Maslen also questioned plans by the government to give long-term leases on the demined land to commercial companies that cleared it.  He said the government must consider the property rights of the land’s owners.

Turkish opposition parties have called into question government plans to tender clearance of minefields along the Turkish-Syrian border.  Citing security concerns, they do not want the contract to go to a foriegn company.  They are particularly concerned that Israeli companies might win such a contract.

The Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has criticized this as xenophobia and the “result of a fascist mentality.”

“The opposition is blocking the efforts without proposing an alternative. We are losing time,” he said.

For more information on the issue of mine contamination in Turkey, click here.