SRI LANKA: UN Mine Action Chief Due In Colombo To Clear Doubts

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Mar 9 1999 (IPS) - The head of the U.N’s Landmine Action programme is flying to Sri Lanka next week to satisfy the army about a mine clearing operation in the war-ravaged northern Jaffna peninsula, a U.N spokesman said Tuesday.

“Ian Mansfield is due for talks next week and he is the ideal person to advise the U.N and the Sri Lankan government on some outstanding issues over the mine action programme,” Peter Witham, resident representative of the United Nations Development Programmes (UNDP) in Colombo, told reporters.

The latest uproar, one of many that has delayed the launch of the UNDP-assisted mine clearing project in Jaffna in Sri Lanka’s north by a year, is over army opposition to the use of civilians by the U.N team.

Last Friday, Maj Gen Lohan Gunawardena, commander of Jaffna, told reporters that the mine action programme had been held up as the military was not in favour of exposing civilians to the risk of “pressure” from Tamil Tiger rebels in the area.

“UNDP has requested for a team of civilians to assist them, but the military is objecting to civilians handling this type of task,” Gunawardena was quoting as telling a group of local and foreign reporters. “They (civilians) can come under pressure.”

He said the military had suggested a month ago that retired servicemen should instead be hired, but the U.N agency had not yet agreed.

Witham, who called the press conference to also clarify other news reports that the U.N project had been stalled, said that nowhere in the world has the U.N used servicemen to assist in mine action programmes.

“There is also a genuine problem of language. That is another reason for using civilians,” he said. The majority of Jaffna’s residents are Tamils while the military comprises mainly members of the majority Sinhalese community, many of whom are unable to speak or understand the Tamil language.

Witham said he believed Mansfield’s talks with the army and Defence Ministry would sort out matters amicably in the next few weeks, and allow the project to proceed without further delays.

At least 10 people on the average are wounded every month by landmines, unexploded mortar bombs or artillery shells in Jaffna, which for many years has been a war zone. Tamil rebels are fighting for a separate homeland in Sri Lanka’s north and east since 1983 and up to 75,000 people have been killed in the war.

Jaffna’s casualty rate from landmines is as high as that in Bosnia and in Laos, says Witham. “These figures are only for Jaffna, which is a part of Sri Lanka’s north. So you can see the extent of the problem,” he said.

More than half of Jaffna’s population of 600,000 people fled the region at the height of the war. Many families have returned but others are reluctant to do so due to the problem of landmines in farmlands and other open fields.

The UNDP, in response to a government request, initiated the Mine Action Programme in April last year to clear partially-mined areas to enable people to return to their homes and resume working the land and other activities.

However its start was delayed by objections raised by the military about the use of high-frequency communication equipment, maps to identify potential mined areas and now the use of civilians.

UNDP’s Witham said while other issues have been resolved, the last-remaining problem – the use of civilians in U.N survey teams – will have to await Mansfield’s visit and subsequent talks with government authorities.

Mansfield, based at the U.N headquarters in New York, has wide experience of mine clearance operations in Bosnia and Afghanistan.

There are no official estimates of the number of landmines in the Jaffna peninsula. Unofficial figures put it about 10,000 landmines, laid mostly by retreating rebel forces who had controlled the peninsula for six years until 1996.

Despite the delays, David Taylor, the UNDP landmine action coordinator has been in Jaffna and involved in other preparatory work like helping the U.N children’s agency, UNICEF, in a mine awareness programme.

A Mine Action Centre has also been established in Jaffna where residents have been calling in almost daily and informing officials about possible locations where landmines have been hidden.

UNICEF has distributed thousands of posters and brochures about the danger from landmines to civilians. It has also put up sign boards to warn against mines along army defence lines and in areas where mines have exploded or believed to be buried.

Witham said that the 30-month Mine Action programme will not clear the peninsula of mines but reduce the numbers. Experts will clear marginally contaminated land, mark and identify minefields, and release the cleared land around the fields for resettlement.

The identified minefield areas will be fenced off from the public. “By employing the Mine Action approach to identity and mark minefields, 90 percent of the land that is currently mined, but is in fact mine free, can be returned to the community.”

The programme is expected to cost up to 5 million dollars and money has already been committed by Australia and the Netherlands. Witham says other donors have promised financial contributions once the project gets going.

He said that the rebels, during informal contacts with UNDP officials, had promised not to lay mines in areas that will be cleared for resettlement. “The same (assurance) has been obtained from government troops,” he added.