Crisis, Containment and Development: the Role of the Landmine Impact Survey

Third World Quarterly, Vol 24, No 5, pp 909–921, 2003 Crisis, containment and development: the role of the Landmine Impact Survey BOB EATON ABSTRACT This article sets out to explain the Landmine Impact Survey, imple- mented by the Survey Action Center (SAC), which is led by a consortium of mine action organisations. The primary rationale of the survey lies in the need to root mine action priority decisions in a firm understanding of the impact that landmines have upon communities. Data from four countries in which impact surveys have been completed indicate that only a small share of communities—perhaps as few as 10%—can be categorised as high impact, another 25% as medium impact, and the remaining 65% as low impact. This has implications for the prioritisation of scarce mine action resources, but it also makes broad elimina- tion of the impact of landmines within the dates specified by the Landmines Convention appear more realistic, even though total clearance may appear unrealistic. The article places the impact survey initiative in the context of the evolution of a humanitarian response to landmines, from an emerging realisation of the threat in the 1970s and 1980s to the present-day landmine response capacity working with other reconstruction and development initiatives. The success of the sector ultimately hinges on the availability of solid and systematic data on impact. In 1997 the international community committed itself to an impossible task: the removal of all landmines from the ground by states parties to the Mine Ban Treaty.1 Within 10 years after joining the treaty, each party is expected to remove all landmines from the ground within its territories. In reality this means that, by as early as 2009, states parties are to have mine-free environments. Yet, while this is a lofty and noble ambition, it is hardly realistic to expect mine-infested countries to be totally free of landmines or unexploded ordnance (UXO) anytime in the near future:2 Europe is still digging up mines and UXO dating back to World War II and in many countries the extent of the mine problem is such that it would take several hundred years to clear all existing mines at current rates.3 Never- theless, it is reasonable to expect that these countries can be free from the most acute negative impacts of mines and that this can be accomplished within the timeframe established by the Mine Ban Treaty. Such an effort, however, will require careful and considered planning, planning that can only stem from a Bob Eaton is the Executive Director of the Survey Action Center, 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 240, Takoma Park, MD 20912, USA. Email: [email protected]. ISSN 0143-6597 print/ISSN 1360-2241 online/03/050909-13 ᭧ 2003 Third World Quarterly DOI: 10.1080/0143659032000132920 909 BOB EATON comprehensive understanding of the extent of the landmine problem. In the absence of an overview of the mine problem in a country, the prioritisation of tasks becomes difficult, and the effective use of scarce mine action resources nearly impossible. This article discusses the role of mine action surveys and how better informa- tion on the scope and nature of the mine problem within a country can lead to a more effective assignment of mine action resources and, in turn, help eliminate the impact of landmines. The argument presented here suggests that the best way to address the problem of landmines is not necessarily through their total removal in a country. Although the explicit goal of the Mine Ban Treaty is to eliminate all mines in the ground, this is not always realistic. Instead, the effects of landmines can be minimised through determining the relative impact of mines upon people and their communities. The article focuses on several interrelated aspects of the effort to minimise the effects of landmines on communities. First, it places the effort to eradicate landmines within a number of historical phases characterised first by crisis, then containment, and finally development. Each of these phases is intrinsically distinct and thus demands different strategies on the part of mine action actors. Second, the discussion focuses on the need to produce more comprehensive strategic plans in order to improve community-level prioritisation and on the need to integrate mine action activities into overall development plans. Particular attention is paid to one type of survey, the Landmine Impact Survey employed by Survey Action Center, and its role in facilitating priority setting and a more efficient delegation of mine action resources. History: from humanitarian concern to political agitation Landmines are an invisible menace that lies hidden in the ground, waiting to maim or kill and obstruct economic development, even long after wars are over. Although the use of landmines is rationalised in terms of military strategic purposes, 90% of the victims of landmines are civilians. Because landmines are relatively inexpensive to produce and deploy, they are used extensively, particu- larly in conflicts in less developed countries, where the ability to remove them and cope with their destructive consequences is less advanced. In short, landmines are catastrophic from both a humanitarian and an economic development perspective, destroying both lives and livelihoods. The destructive nature of landmines provided the impetus for the rise of the civil society movement to ban these weapons, to care for the victims and to eliminate the impact of mines in rural villages throughout the developing world. In less than a decade, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) recruited 131 nation-states and ratified an international treaty to prohibit anti- personnel mines. The conscience of the world was awakened and large amounts of resources were mobilised in an effort to cope with the landmine crisis. This movement has moved swiftly and effectively to consolidate its political victory, and has taken steps designed truly to eliminate the impact of landmines throughout the world. One element of this has included the creation of an international consortium to develop a systematic approach to community-based surveys designed to rationalise the removal of landmines from the ground and to 910 THE ROLE OF THE LANDMINE IMPACT SURVEY co-ordinate this important task with parallel development programmes in post- conflict societies. Since the problem of landmines and UXO was first identified by the humanitarian aid and development communities in the late 1970s in Laos and in the late 1980s in Afghanistan, the effort to eliminate the problem on the ground can be divided into three phases: crisis, containment and development. Crisis The beginning of the crisis phase came in the late 1970s with the recognition of the mine problem by NGOs working in postwar Laos, and ended in the early 1990s when the international community began planning post-conflict initiatives to rehabilitate Afghanistan and Cambodia. Efforts by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and international NGOs, notably Handicap International, to aid the victims and survivors of landmines were limited given the need. Up until this point landmines had been accepted as just another weapon of war. There was little in the way of victim assistance available, and it was presumed that civilian organisations that assist war victims in general should also help victims of landmines. Moreover, there was little focus on the actual weapon itself. Although there had been some efforts among Mennonite and Quaker groups to raise funds to cope with the weapon in postwar Laos, these were generally rebuffed by donors, who saw landmines as a military and not a civilian issue. This situation was altered when two NGOs—Medico International of Frankfurt and the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF) of Washington— working together in Cambodia with landmine victims decided to stop simply assisting victims and to attack the problem of landmines head on. In 1992 these two organisations called a meeting of leading NGOs on the landmine issue and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines was born shortly thereafter. The founding members of the ICBL were Human Rights Watch, Handicap Inter- national, Medico International, Mines Advisory Group, Physicians for Human Rights and the VVAF. Much of the initial effort focused on amending and reforming existing ‘rules of war’ treaties. When this proved impossible, a working coalition, led by Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy, agreed to draft a treaty to abolish the use, production and stockpiling of anti-personnel landmines in Oslo in 1997. This treaty was signed a few months later that same year in Ottawa. Since the initial ratification of the treaty, the number of states parties has increased yearly and as of 1 July 2003 there are 131 states parties to the convention. This unique collaboration between civil society and governments has created a movement that continues to this day, with the dual goal of universalising the treaty and ridding affected nations and communities of landmines. In addition, while these political events were taking place, the concept of humanitarian mine action (HMA) was being developed in a number of the more seriously affected countries. In the absence of a world-wide political movement in the 1980s, early NGO efforts to cope with the problem of landmines and UXO in Laos were largely ignored by the donor and development community. Thanks in large part to the political agitation of the ICBL in the 1990s, newly sensitised 911 BOB EATON donor states stepped forward to fund humanitarian mine action in Afghanistan beginning in 1989, followed by Cambodia in 1991. Given the disinclination of military forces to clean up after themselves, the humanitarian community, led by the UN in Afghanistan, stepped in, and the concept of humanitarian mine action was born. This process, however, was not without its difficulties.

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