“These are very sensitive areas … where there is a degree of dispute between the two sides about the exact location of the border,” Rupert Leighton of Mines Advisory Group (MAG) told the Phnom Penh Post. “The military doesn’t want indiscriminate explosions.”    

Earlier this month, the Cambodian government accused Thailand of using demining as a cover to occupy Cambodian territory. In recent comments to the Phnom Penh Post, however, an official from the Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC) said he believed both countries would abide by a July military agreement that planned a joint Thai-Cambodian demining unit for the border region.

Read the Phnom Penh Post story here.

Over 200 people fell victim to mines, dud cluster munitions and unexploded ordnance (UXO) in 2006.  Just last week a UN peacekeeper was killed while clearing UXO in southern Lebanon.

To contribute to Lebanese mine action, consider donating to the following NGOs which work in country: Mines Advisory Group (MAG), Norwegian People’s Aid, Handicap International, the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (FSD) and DanChurchAid.

Last week, African leaders and UN disarmament experts met in Nairobi to discuss the proposed treaty, which would prevent the sale of conventional arms to countries that might use them to abuse human rights, exacerbate conflict or stunt development.

“We need a global, effective, Arms Trade Treaty,” said British Foreign Minister David Miliband yesterday, urging support of the proposed convention.  ”It is bizarre that while treaties and conventions have existed for several decades to control the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, there is no equivalent global arrangement to stop weapons flooding into conflict zones.”

The UK, along with Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, Finland, Japan and Kenya, introduced a UN General Assembly resolution two years ago that called for the negotiation of the treaty.  It was supported by 153 countries.  Russia and China abstained and the US voted against the resolution.  For resources on persuading the US to support the process, see the FCNL page.

The treaty also has the support of over 800 civil society organizations that are seeking to replicate and build on the success of the Mine Ban Treaty and Cluster Munition Convention, where humanitarian groups were able to push states to adopt more progressive positions on conventional disarmament.  They are joined by 20 Nobel Peace Laureates (including landmine ban campaigner Jody Williams) who also support the treaty.

Many of these organizations work in conflict zones, where they observe the impact of small arms proliferation on civilians and poor communities.  While many of these arms are initially produced or traded ‘legitimately’, siginificant numbers leak out into the illicit and informal markets or fall into the hands of militia and organized crime groups after the conflict has ended.  See this report from WorldWatch Institute and this one from the Humanitarian Practice Network for more details.  For more in-depth information, look at SIPRI’s site.

Several demining NGOs are responding to the threat of conventional arms proliferation with ‘humanitarian disarmament’ programs.  See, for instance, the programs run by MAG and the HALO Trust.

Sudan is an extremely difficult place to run a demining program.  Mine clearance agencies face astronomical prices of goods and services, monumental logistical challenges, bureaucratic impediments from government, fraught labor disputes and a deeply embedded political economy of conflict.  This multitude of problems has made Sudan one of the most unproductive demining programs, in terms of ordnance or area cleared per US dollar, in the world. This begs the question whether the level of international investment in Sudanese mine action is truly worth it. This paper will argue that in terms of saving lives or increasing access to socio-economic development, much of the money pouring into Sudanese mine action might be better spent in other severely mine-impacted countries.

However, other considerations make such a cost-benefit calculation more complicated. There may be a genuine argument for pouring funding into Sudan for the political reasons of supporting the peace between the North and South. The political, economic and social dividends from demining (including increased freedom of movement, return of displaced people and a reduction in perceptions of insecurity) may justify some of the high financial and other costs.  That said, donors should not deceive themselves about the limits to mine action’s ability play the role of a midwife of peace.

Following field research in Khartoum, Juba and Yei last year, I wrote this evaluation of issues in Sudanese demining.