International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance
for Mine Action today:
Mine Action - Sri Lanka’s success story
Vidya ABHAYAGUNAWARDENA
As per ‘The National Strategy for Mine Action in Sri Lanka 2010’ by
the Economic Development Ministry mentioned, it could take another 10
years to clear the mine-contaminated land in the North and East of Sri
Lanka, although it could be completed well before 2020 at the current
progress being made since 2002. Over 300,000 people were displaced at
the last stage of war in 2009; most have been re-settled to date with
6,569 remaining in camps as of January 2012. Since 2009 the areas
abandoned due to landmine and ERW contamination had been cleared,
including paddy land (101,827) hectares, water bodies (29,999) hectares,
A class roads (538km), other roads over (1,500km), and railway lines
(263km). This progress is mainly due to the high priority given by the
government of Sri Lanka (GoSL), with continues technical and financial
support from the GoSL and the international community, in the mine
action programme.
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De-mining
activities will help expedite development. File photo |
The National Mine Action Prorgramme of Sri Lanka was initiated in
2002 with the assistance of UNDP, UNICEF, INGOs, NGOs and several donor
countries (Australia, USA, Canada, Russia, Japan, Norway, India, China,
EU) with the goal of creating a mine and explosive remnants of war (ERW)
free environment in support of the resettlement and development
programmes of the GoSL. The initiation of humanitarian de-mining since
2002 has achieved many milestones during the process such as developing
National Mine Action Standards in 2004 and 2010, setting up of GoSL Mine
Action Strategy in 2006 and 2010. In 2009, the Cabinet officially
approved the setting up of the National Mine Action Centre (NMAC) under
the Ministry of Economic Development which has led to gradual take over
full responsibility for the coordination of mine action in Sri Lanka.
‘The National Strategy for Mine Action in Sri Lanka 2010’ of the NMAC is
the official government document to address the five pillars of mine
action in Sri Lanka.
There are two Regional Mine Action Offices (RMAO) currently operating
in Vavuniya, Jaffna with the sub office in Killinochchi. The District
Steering Committee for Mine Action (DCMA) provided direction to the
respective RMAO in terms of mine action task priorities in support of
the development projects and plans implemented by the district
authorities within their district. The Mine Action Officer of the RMAO
acts as the secretary at the DCMA meetings within the RMAO area of
responsibility and the Government Agent (GAs) of the respective district
chair the DCMA. De-mining (clearance) has been prioritized into three
sectors such as high, medium and low according to the National Strategy
for Mine Action.
Pillars of programme
There are five pillars in the mine-action programme.
1. De-mining - This includes landmine and ERW clearance, including
non-technical survey, technical survey, mapping, marking, clearance,
community mine action liaison, completion survey, the handover of
cleared land and post clearance impact survey. To release zero mine/ERW
contaminated land it uses various techniques and means such as human,
animal (mine detective dogs use in Sri Lanka) and technology. The Sri
Lanka Army Humanitarian De-mining Unit (SLA- HDU) and there are six
international INGOs (The Halo Trust, Danish De-mining Group, Foundation
Suisse de Deminage (FSD), Sarvatra, Horizon, Mines Advisory Group). Two
local NGOs (Delvon Assistance for Social Harmony and the Milinda
Moragoda Institute for People’s Empowerment) are carrying out the
de-mining in Sri Lanka. The de-mining operation, a high-cost, high-risk
time-consuming and painstaking process.
2. Mine Risk Education (MRE) - MRE to reduce risk-taking behaviour
among people living in mine/ERW contaminated areas. MRE is supported by
the UNICEF and work in the community is carried out by the Sarvodaya,
SOND, Rural Development Foundation (RDF) and SLA-HDU, MRE teams. There
are four complimentary MRE approaches in Sri Lanka, such as
school-based, community-based, community liaison and media-based.
3. Victim Assistance (VA) - This refers to data collection on
victims, all care and rehabilitation activities that aim to meet the
immediate and long-term needs of landmine and ERW victims, their
families and affected communities. The ministries dealing with VA
include the Ministry of Social Services, the Ministry of Health, the
Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Defence (Directorate of
Rehabilitation). UNICEF supports VA service providers but much lower
scale than MRE and UNDP provides socio-economic support for targeted
vulnerable populations.
4. Destruction of stockpiles of anti-personal landmines - Sri Lanka
Army is destroying all unearthed landmines during the humanitarian
de-mining process. However, Sri Lanka has a four year time period to
destroy all the stockpiles when the country acceded to the Mine Ban
Treaty (MBT).
5. Advocacy - Advocating in support of a ban on anti-personal
landmines and other relevant instruments of law that address the
problems of landmines and ERW. Sri Lanka Campaign to Ban Landmines
(SLCBL) is campaigning promoting full compliance of and accession to the
Anti-personal Mine Ban Convention and by ratifying the Convention for
the Rights of People with Disability (CRPD).
Mine and ERW contaminated land clearance
The Information Management System on Mine Action (IMSMA) it is
estimated that 6,218 km2 of land area is contaminated with mines and
unexploded ordinances (UXOs). 4,157 km2 have been identified as safe
areas out of the total estimated contaminated areas and the other
balance of 2,061km2 were confirmed as Hazard Areas (CHA) by None
Technical Survey (NTS) according to the initial survey. Further it
mentioned, the balance areas have been cleared by deploying three
methods of Battle Area Clearance (BAC), Mine Field Clearance (MFC) and
Mechanical Verification from 2002 to February 2012 is 862,529,498m2
(862.52km2) with the devices recovered are 778,412. In addition, the
areas of 1,074,266,552 m2 (1074km2) have been released by None Technical
Survey (NTS) too.
Accordingly, total area cleared since the inception to end February
2012 is 1,936,796,051m2 and the remaining CHA to be cleared is
124,731,470 m2 (124.73km2).
Some significant achievements in de-mining
* Fairly rapid pace of resettlement in all five districts in the
North subsequent to very good coordination of the Mine/ ERW Clearance
activities (only 6,569 internally displaced persons (IDPs) remaining to
be resettled and over 300,000 IDPs were there at the end of the war in
2009 May).
* Success in re-cultivation process at Rice Bowl area in completion
of Mine / ERW clearance (63,420 Metric Tons during Maha season)
* Opening the whole North Western coastal belt, rich from fishery
products behind completion mines/ ERW clearance. (2011 1stQtr-
3,351,750kg Fresh fish and 372,750 kg dry fish)
* Clearance finished at A32 Main highway from Mannar to Vellankulam
(clearance done for 41km distance and resume for constructions)
* A12 and A 5 Road rehabilitation after the Mine/ ERW Clearance(60km
distance for both)
* Completion on Mine/ ERW clearance at two railway lines before
resuming their constructions(148km between Omanthai to Kankasanthurai
(KKS) and 106km Distance from Medawachchiya to Mannar)
* Regional development and revitalization against mine action
productivity in North and East
* Opened Eastern beaches for the tourism after completion of Mine/
ERW clearance in the Eastern Province( Approximately 12km2 total area
Mine/ ERW clearance completion)
*Opened access to two most famous religious heritages at Madu Church
and Thirukeshwaran Hindu Temple. (reaching 700,000 and 500,000 pilgrims
respectively in 2010)
MRE and victim assistance
In post-war conflict situation in the world, mine and ERW casualty
rates reportedly were higher. In Sri Lanka it is better.
According to UNICEF, there were less than 50 incidents per year of
landmine and ERW incidents but Sri Lanka has always reports fewer
incidents each year.
As of December 2011, 17 incidents with 24 civilian victims from
landmine and ERW were recorded, which compared to 27 incidents with 47
casualties in 2010. As it mentioned, this total is fairly low at 1.41
incidents per month - and indicative of the positive impact of the MRE
programme. MRE has reached to almost all the corners of the landmine and
ERW contaminated areas of North and East of Sri Lanka and particularly
targeting MRE for over 300,000 IDPs and with the resettlement programme.
MRE has been introduced as a subject by the Ministry of Education in the
school curriculum targeting school children in order to educate them on
risk taking behavior of landmine and ERW. Victims of landmine and ERW
have considerably improved access to emergency medical care. The
government and various international domestic organizations are engaged
in providing a variety of facilities for mine victims, including medical
treatment, psycho-social care such as counseling and rehabilitation for
survivors, and livelihood development programmes.
Advocacy for landmine
Sri Lanka is not a party to the MBT. The mine-action strategy paper
says that "Sri Lanka is making progress towards banning landmines in the
country and its commitment to acceding to the MBT, which will guarantee
that landmines will not be possessed or used in the future". Sri Lanka
has already implemented many obligations under the MBT ie: National Mine
Action Center, National Mine Actions Standards, non- use of
anti-personal landmines by the security forces, Sri Lanka Army having
its own Humanitarian Demining Unit, availability of accredited
International/ National Mine Action operators in mine clearance, UNICEF
conducting MRE and VA through its local partners.
SLCBL is working in partnership with the NMAC on advocacy.
Under this pillar, the main objective is to enhance awareness among
civil society of effects of landmine and ERW. To achieve this,
engagement with mass media for mobilizing stakeholders not only in mine
action but also those who are focused on human security. SLCBL also
lobbies for sensitizing MBT norms and CRPD among government
stakeholders.
Challenges
* Sri Lanka's government continued commitment and support, and the
continued support of the international community is needed to achieve
vision of mine action strategy "Sri Lanka is free from the threat of
landmines and ERW, where individuals and communities live in a safe
environment and the needs of landmine and ERW victims are met".
* When the high priority areas get cleared, medium priority areas
should become high priority. Such as ERW contaminated forest land needs
to be cleared because many rural people's livelihoods depends on forest
activities and also animals to live in a safer environment.
* MRE is an important pillar of the mine action as it helps to lower
the rate of landmine and ERW causalities and it should continue till Sri
Lanka reaches zero level landmine and ERW contamination.
* Continues provision of access to services needed for war-injured
and war-disabled children and women. Insufficient funding may be
experienced in the future on VA projects such as psycho-social care,
counseling and rehabilitation for survivors, and livelihood development
programmes and it has meant shortages in the delivery of these
programmes and their sustainability itself in the long run.
* In principle GoSL supports the vision of a mine-free world. Sri
Lanka has voted in favor of all annual United Nation General Assembly
(UNGA) resolutions passed since 1997 and universalization of the MBT.
The GoSL has also submitted article 7 transparency report on voluntary
basis in 2005. The GoSL has reviewed it position with regard to the
acceding to the MBT. However GoSL has yet to accede to the MBT.
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