HEALTH: US Doctors Recruited for Anti-Landmine Lobby

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

MEXICO CITY, Feb 21 2001 (IPS) - Activists campaigning to rid the world of landmines have received support from a new allya number of doctors in the United States.

These new recruits to the anti-landmine lobby view the public health consequences of landmine injuries as a “critical and poorly understood issue”, says Dr. Larry Schwab, of the Boston-based Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), a non-governmental organisation (NGO). “This is the initial attempt to organise physicians behind the landmine ban.”

PHR embarked on a drive to garner support from US doctors because “a coherent medical voice is critical to the success of the landmine ban”. The effort, spearheaded by Schwab, underscored, among other issues, the “devastating public health crisis” that has arisen due to landmine explosions across the world.

Consequently, more than 300 doctors have signed a PHR appeal addressed to US President George W. Bush. It calls on Bush to support the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty by backing its prohibition of the use of anti-personnel mines and sending the treaty to the US Senate for ratification within his first year in office.

This effort to rally support for the treaty, known formally as the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, is one of many activities being pursued by anti-landmine activists to mark the second anniversary of the Treaty coming into force, on Mar. 1.

According to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), the Nobel Prize-winning organisation at the helm of the global effort, a range of activities have been planned to apply pressure on governments who are still reluctant to embrace “a new standard of behaviour” by rejecting the use of anti-personnel mines.

Southeast Asian campaigners, for instance, will target the governments of Indonesia and Brunei for ratification, and their action will include letter-writing to heads of state and to ministers of foreign affairs, states the ICBL.

Currently, 139 governments have either signed or acceded to the treaty, which was open for signatures in Ottawa, Canada, in December 1997. Among them are 41 of the 48 African nations, all of the nations in the Americas except the United States and Cuba and all of the European Union except Finland, affirms the ICBL.

In addition, Asian nations such as Australia, Bangladesh, Japan, Thailand and “heavily mine-affected” countries such as Cambodia, Mozambique, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Jordan have also come out in support of the treaty.

Those who have not signed the treaty, besides the United States, Cuba and Finland, include countries such as Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, South Korea, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Sri Lanka, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria and Turkey.

According to Dr. James Coby, close to 60 countries still rank among those having “a major mine problem”, and they include nations where there has been an absence of fighting for years.

And that has contributed to a burden on medical care, adds Coby, a Washington D.C.-based orthopaedic surgeon and member of PHR. “The governments often do not have the resources to pay the staff,” despite there being “many excellent prosthetic programmes” in developing countries.

What is more, he observes, assistance to those injured by landmine explosions requires going beyond simply making an artificial limb, since “the best legs last a maximum of five years and feet only six months”.

That means, amputees needing to be refitted regularly as their residual limb changes shape over the years. “What the war-torn countries need is what they cannot afford, a permanent prosthetic industry, not just one prosthetic for each individual,” asserts Coby.

Such demands on local health systems come on top of other medical attention provided to landmine victims. “Those who survive the initial blast usually require amputations, long hospital stays, and extensive rehabilitative services,” notes the ICBL.

Not all landmine injuries are alike. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Geneva-based medical aid agency, there are three patterns of injury evident among those victims who survive long enough to reach a hospital.

The first stems from victims having stepped on a buried mine, where “there is usually traumatic amputation of the foot or leg with severe injury of the other leg, genitalia and arms”, states a book distributed by ICRC, titled ‘Assistance For Victims Of Anti-Personnel Mines: Needs, Constraints And Strategy’.

Then there are injuries from victims having triggered a fragmentation mine. If he or she is not killed immediately there are wounds similar to those from any other fragmentation device, it adds. “Such wounds can affect any part of the body.”

The third form of injury results from “accidental detonation”, which occurs whilst a mine is being handled, it points out. “It is seen among mine-cleaners, those planting mines or curious children who pick up or play with mines. This pattern inevitably involves severe wounds of the hand and face.”

According to the author of this book, Robin Coupland, landmine injuries are so pervasive globally that it has evolved into an epidemic. “The term ‘epidemic’ has frequently and correctly been used to describe the number of mine injuries all around the world.”

For the ICBL, such a dismal reality is to be expected given the primary objective of using landmines in conflicts. “Anti-personnel mines are designed to maim.”

And the impact of this weapon is telling, since close to 26,000 people are either maimed, mutilated or killed every year due to landmine explosions.

Furthermore, reveals the ICBL, “mine deaths and injuries in the past few decades total in the hundreds of thousands”.

No wonder Dr. Coby argues in favour of the Mine Ban Treaty. “For long-term victim assistance, the greatest need is the ‘vaccine’ which to me is the landmine treaty,” he says.