Landmine clearance ‘badly underfunded’

BANGKOK: -- The clearance of landmines in Thailand is “moving at a snail’s pace” and needs a major injection of government funds, activists said yesterday.

Less than one per cent of the Kingdom’s contaminated area has been cleared after six years, according to this year’s Landmine Monitor report, unveiled at Chulalongkorn University yesterday morning.

Thailand, which became party to the Mine Ban Treaty in May 1999, is now at serious risk of failing to meet its obligation to clear all mined areas by March 2009.

About 2.5 square kilometres of land was cleared or declared mine-free in 2004 and the first five months of this year, the report said.

But there is still a vast area – more than 2,550 sq km – contaminated by mines along the borders with all four neighbours, according to a major survey in 2000-2001.

A total of 531 communities in some 27 provinces are affected. The bulk of these are along the Thai-Cambodian border.

Last year, the Thaksin government committed only Bt40 million to mine action, while international donors provided a similar amount.

Activists said Thailand’s failure to provide adequate funds for mine clearance was one reason why international donors were directing their assistance to elsewhere.

“As long as the prime minister says Thailand is a developed country and doesn’t need assistance, you’re not going to get [international support],” landmine monitor Yeshua Moser Puangsuwan said.

Handicap International’s Shushira Chonhenchob said: “International donors have stepped back – they have seen how serious Thailand is on this issue.”

Others said the government has been slow to act on the landmine problem, because it was the Chuan Leekpai administration that signed the Mine Ban Treaty, and the mines are buried in the country’s most marginalised areas, far from the corridors of power in Bangkok.

Last year, the Thailand Mine Action Centre (TMAC) recorded 24 mine casualties – three fatal. That is down from 29 casualties in 2003.

A national plan for victim assistance has now been done, and more than 120,000 people received mine-risk education during the recording period. But many areas with mines remain unmarked, the report said. TMAC, headed by Maj-General Tumrongsak Deemongkol, has four de-mining units and a fifth has been planned.

Last year some US$399 million (Bt16.4 billion) was spent on mine action across the world, and about 135 sq km was cleared of mines.

--The Nation 2005-11-25

Perhaps a job for the one million cow project. Fire up the BBQ, release the cows, and let the party begin.......

I saw one of them red "Danger, Mines" signs in Sa Kaeo province when I use to live there. It was about 2 km from the Cambodian border not far from a small village.

I saw one of them red "Danger, Mines" signs in Sa Kaeo province when I use to live there. It was about 2 km from the Cambodian border not far from a small village.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Did you try lobbing a few rocks to see what happened?

Edited November 25, 200520 yr by astral

Tossing a few rocks.....I guess that would be the poor man way to clearning mine fields. Probably not a good idea. I would probably get in trouble for not have a work permit.