Can Cambodia meet its target to remove landmines by 2025?
Read more at
https://asiancorrespondent.com/2017/12/ ... JS3sFir.99

No way will they manage that

P.S. Could you stop just posting links, at least copy and post an excerpt from the link

PSD-Kiwi wrote: ↑Mon Dec 04, 2017 12:26 pm P.S. Could you stop just posting links, at least copy and post an excerpt from the link

Agreed! I'm often on a slow 2g connection, and CEO is the only website I use that actually loads surprisingly fast. A lot of the links Abc123 posts seems interesting, but they take too long to load for me.

Edit: Or use www.smmry.com to create a summary of the article for people to read before deciding to read the whole thing.

Smmry output from the article of this thread, retold in 7 sentences:

Can Cambodia meet its target to remove landmines by 2025?

TWO decades after signing the Ottawa Treaty - otherwise known as the Mine Ban Convention - and making an ambitious pledge to clear all anti-personnel landmines from its territory within ten years, Cambodia's north-west border region remains littered with explosive relics left behind from thirty years of internal strife.

After missing the initial deadline to rid itself of landmines, Cambodia secured an extension until 2020, but this target has already been pushed back to 2025.

Twenty years on from the Mine Ban Convention and with the government set to release its new NMAS, this report examines the hurdles to be overcome by the demining sector and asks whether Cambodia can get back on track to rid itself of landmines by 2025.

In total, around 1,640km² of land is contaminated with unexploded ordnance across Cambodia, of which at least 860km² is plagued by anti-personnel mines - the type of device covered by the Ottawa Treaty.

Cambodia is now viewed as an 'old hotspot' where past wars and their impacts have been replaced by more immediate crises erupting in other parts of the world.

The US Ambassador to Cambodia suggested as much earlier this year, when he indicated the Phnom Penh government should foot more of the bill for clearance work as Cambodia moves toward lower-middle income status.

A new NMAS which recognizes the extent of contamination and displays a determination to tackle the worst-affected areas, along with sustained international funding commitments, would help Cambodia move closer toward ending the deadly legacy of conflicts long-forgotten - even if we must accept that their impacts will continue to be felt, for at least a few more years beyond 2025

Can they?
A. most certainly, anything like that is possible with sufficient dedicated practical effort & investment.

Will they?
A. No, because as we saw this weekend in SR they prefer to have 5000 people dressed in orange on their knees doing nothing but wishful thinking instead of practical action.

I'm not into war history myself so unsure who exactly planted a lot of these landmines.
If its non-Cambodians I hope they are continuing to fund their removal.

PSD-Kiwi wrote: ↑Mon Dec 04, 2017 12:26 pm P.S. Could you stop just posting links, at least copy and post an excerpt from the link

1. It's illegal
2. Some sites are now only allowing copy and pasting of headlines and the link.
3. Takes far too much time.
However, if anybody is having problems due to bad connection, post about it and I, or another member will happily post the whole thing Via a screen grab etc. Although, that may prove to be even slower to load. Will also have a look at that summary thing; although, I don't really like the idea of it in the main. For some articles it would be good as there is a lot of repetition from past stories.

chorlton wrote: ↑Mon Dec 04, 2017 1:56 pm
I'm not into war history myself so unsure who exactly planted a lot of these landmines.
If its non-Cambodians I hope they are continuing to fund their removal.

The Viet's planted K5 along the Thai border to stop the Chinese and US backed forces from reentering Cambodia to continue the civil war. I think those mine fields have plans, so it should be possible to pin point their locations more accurately.

The Chinese gave the KR and others mines. and lots of them, because they didnt like Russian communism, who were backing the Viet's, to lay indiscriminately around villages to stop the inhabitants from running away etc. As far as I know there are no plans as to where they are exactly located.

This year, politics have allowed the Can!bodians to receive funds from China for the first time. Well, they have promised they would start funding anyhow.

I think its more than feasible. Eight years is a long time.

If foreign aid money stops getting pocketed along the way, it just could happen.

Here you are PSD Kiwi, the full article as you're in the trade.

http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2017/12/04/cana ... clearance/

Canada pledges $12M for landmine clearance

By Levon Sevunts | [email protected]
Monday 4 December, 2017

Canada pledged nearly $12 million in new funding on Monday to support mine-clearance initiatives in Syria, Ukraine, Colombia, Cambodia and Laos, marking the 20th anniversary of the Ottawa Convention to ban the devastating weapons.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said the world has had much to celebrate since Dec. 3, 1997, when 122 states signed the convention in Ottawa.

“Since the introduction of the Ottawa Treaty 20 years ago, significantly fewer people have been injured or killed because of a landmine,” Freeland said in a statement.

Banning a ‘weapon of mass destruction’

Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien hands over the signed Global Ban on Landmines treaty to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan while Foreign Affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy (ctr), president of the International Committee of the Red Cross Cornelio Sommaruga and Nobel Prize laureate Jody Williams applaud in Ottawa on Dec. 3, 1997.
Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien hands over the signed Global Ban on Landmines treaty to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan while Foreign Affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy (ctr), president of the International Committee of the Red Cross Cornelio Sommaruga and Nobel Prize laureate Jody Williams applaud in Ottawa on Dec. 3, 1997. © PC/TOM HANSON
Fifty-one million landmines have been destroyed since 1997 and the treaty now has 162 state parties.

Still, landmines remain one of the most serious threats to ordinary people in Cambodia, Colombia, Bangladesh, Syria and countless other places around the world, said Lloyd Axworthy, the former foreign affairs minister who spearheaded the Canadian-led treaty twenty years ago.

“Landmines continue to be a weapon of mass destruction and there must be renewed efforts to eliminate their violent impact on the vulnerable of the world,” Axworthy said in a statement.

The HALO Trust, a humanitarian mine-clearance organization, also called for a sustained effort.

“HALO welcomes the announcement for increased funding from the Canadian government,” HALO spokesperson Louise Vaughan said in an email. “We hope that this increase will be sustained for following years until 2025.”

Removing the legacy of Daesh

The program in Syria targets mine clearance and training initiatives in the recently liberated areas held by the so-called Islamic State in Raqqa and in southern Syria, where “explosive devices have been placed in homes, schools and public areas of Syria by Daesh,” officials said in a statement, referring to IS by its Arabic acronym.

However, Ottawa’s funding for Syria will be directed only to areas under the control of the Western-friendly opposition. When asked why no funding will be provided for mine clearance operations in government-controlled areas where the civilian population faces similar threats, Canadian officials said Ottawa “prioritizes essential aid to all of the Syrian population but does not partner directly with the Syrian government.”

“In government-held areas reliable civilian INGO partners with the appropriate expertise are generally not allowed to operate independently of the Syrian government,” said Global Affairs Canada spokesperson John Babcock.

Canadian funding for mine action in Raqqa supports wider stabilization goals in areas liberated from Daesh by helping people return to their homes and communities, Babcock said.

In southern Syria, Canadian funding for mine action is helping secure communities by removing explosive remnants of the conflict, he said.

Help for Ukrainian government

The Canadian funding will also go to mine action initiatives in eastern Ukraine, where as a result of the ongoing conflict in the Donbas region between pro-Russian rebels and government forces significant areas along the frontline in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts have been littered with unexploded ordinance and mines.

However, in contrast to the situation in Syria, the Canadian funding in Ukraine will focus on areas under the control of the pro-Western government but not the breakaway territories controlled by the Moscow-friendly rebels.

Landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) have caused 1,653 military and civilian casualties on both sides of the contact line since the start of the war in 2014, according to the Landmine and Cluster Munitions Monitor.

In 2016, the Monitor identified 785 mine and ERW casualties in Ukraine – 275 killed and 510 injured – with 435 casualties suffered by the military, 219 among the civilian population, including 30 children, and another 28 casualties among the deminers.

The United Nations and international demining NGOs have documented the use of landmines on territories controlled by both the government forces and the Kremlin-backed rebels despite the fact that Ukraine signed the Mine Ban Treaty prohibiting antipersonnel mines in 1999 and became a State Party in 2006.

Helping Ukraine destroy millions of landmines

A sapper holds a land mine in the eastern Ukrainian village of Semenovka, near Sloviansk, July 14, 2014.
A sapper holds a land mine in the eastern Ukrainian village of Semenovka, near Sloviansk, July 14, 2014. © Gleb Garanich
Russia, which has one of the world’s largest stockpiles of landmines, has not joined the Ottawa Convention also known as Mine Ban Treaty.

Since the outbreak of hostilities in eastern Ukraine in early 2014, authorities in Kyiv have categorically denied using antipersonnel mines in the conflict and have accused Russian-supported forces of laying landmines in Ukraine.

In February 2016, Ukraine informed the Mine Ban Treaty Committee on Cooperative Compliance that “its Armed Forces are authorized to use mines in command-detonate mode, which is not prohibited under the Convention. All mines planted in command-detonate mode are recorded, secured and access is restricted.”

However, Human Rights Watch says the numerous reports of antipersonnel mines and explosive devices used in the conflict raise serious questions about the security of the stockpile of antipersonnel mines Ukraine retained for training and research purposes under the Ottawa treaty and the possible importation of banned mines from neighboring Russia.

Global Affairs officials did not say whether Ottawa has ever raised the issue of the alleged use of banned landmines by some government or volunteer units with the Ukrainian government.

“Canada is committed to supporting the people of Ukraine and Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Babcock said. “Canada supports the full implementation of the Minsk agreements, under which the parties have committed to demining.”

Ukraine has destroyed over a million landmines since 2010 and declared a stockpile of 4,911,589 antipersonnel mines in 2016, according to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL).

However, ICBL says Ukraine has been in violation of the treaty since 2010 after having failed to complete the destruction of its stockpiles by the four-year deadline.

Since September 2015, the Canadian Armed Forces have been providing a range of training to the Ukrainian military, including in the area of detection and removal of landmines and unexploded ordinance, Canadian officials said in a statement.

Canadian funds will support the purchase of non-lethal demining training equipment for the Ukrainian ‎Armed Forces, Babcock said.

“The government of Ukraine may then deploy this capability where and how they choose and where it is possible for them to operate,” he added.