CPTnet
7 December 2006

COLOMBIA: The incomplete truth about antipersonnel mines

by Julián Gutiérrez Castaño

[Note: The following piece has been edited for length and clarity. The
complete article may be found at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cptcolombia/message/147]

Mr. Calixto was hunting with his son and his dog, when the dog started to
run toward something it had smelled. Mr. Calixto followed with his shotgun
cocked. After hearing an explosion, the son ran ahead to find Mr. Calixto
lying three meters from a big hole. He lost a leg and an eye and sustained
many other injuries.

Mr. Alberto's older son is sixteen years old; he stepped on an antipersonnel
mine six years ago. Mr. Alberto told CPT's Colombia team that "the city
doctors" were honest; they told him that they could operate on his son to
remove a splinter from his back, but the operation could end up paralyzing
him. Alberto decided not to expose his child to this risk, but he says that
his son cannot complete a day of work on the farm or a long walk.

Landmines do not distinguish between combatants and civilians; two of every
five Colombians injured by landmines are civilians. The above cases happened
in La Caoba, a community of Micoahumado in the municipality of Morales,
south of Bolivar, where CPT has been visiting small mining villages over the
last couple years.

The National Liberation Army (ELN), a guerrilla group, planted these
antipersonnel mines to defend their territory from the Army and the
paramilitaries. In January 2005, the ELN, under community pressure, decided
to remove the mines; the removal was the first humanitarian demining action
ever in Colombia.

The ELN is not the only armed group that has planted antipersonnel mines to
protect their territory; other guerrilla groups, paramilitaries and the
army, have done the same. A mine costs just $2, and removing one after it
has been planted costs $900 dollars.

The community told the Colombia team that the paramilitaries mined around
their camp when they were fighting in the end of the 90's. The Colombian
Armed Forces planted antipersonnel mines until 2001 when the Colombian
Government signed the Ottawa Convention, an international accord to
discontinue the use of mines and to destroy remaining mines. Colombia now
has a campaign against mines, which many altruistic celebrities have joined,
but the government has not told where its armed forces have planted mines
nor has it investigated how many Colombians have been victims of these
mines. Signing the convention will not give back a leg and an eye to Mr.
Calixto or the ability to work the farm to Mr. Alberto's son.

More than 154 countries all over the world have signed the Ottawa Convention
against landmines. However, the USA, Israel, Russia and China--the
countries that manufacture most of those mines--have not signed. The U.S.
has stipulated that a Usonian soldier or military contractor that violates
Colombian law cannot be judged in Colombia but must be tried the United
States justice system. What would happen if one of the 1400 Usonian
advisers currently in Colombia were charged with planting antipersonnel
mines here? Would the case go to a court in the U.S., where mines are
recognized as valid weapons of war?