DEMINERS DESCRIBE EQUIPMENT NEEDS AT PENTAGON WORKSHOP
USIA
USIS Washington File
23 January 1998
DEMINERS DESCRIBE EQUIPMENT NEEDS AT PENTAGON WORKSHOP
(Discuss work in Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia, Cambodia) (1190)
By Susan Ellis,
USIA Staff Writer
Washington -- Humanitarian deminers who work in Afghanistan, Angola,
Bosnia and Cambodia described their most pressing equipment needs and
the U.S. role in assisting their work at a recent Pentagon news
briefing.
The deminers were representatives of national mine action centers and
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who attended an international
Mine Action Center Workshop held January 20-21 at Fort Belvoir,
Virginia, near Washington, D.C. Mozambique was also represented at the
workshop.
The workshop, sponsored by the Defense Department, brought together
deminers from mine-infested areas around the world to identify and
prioritize their most urgent needs in equipment and technologies. U.S.
Army Colonel George Zahaczewsky -- a specialist in explosive ordnance
disposal, munitions and demining -- told journalists January 22 that
those requirements will guide future U.S. government demining research
and development investments.
"We're anxious to find out what the folks on the ground in Afghanistan
or Cambodia need (in the way of equipment) that we may not have
already addressed in our research and development program," Colonel
Zahaczewsky said, adding that the workshop also "provided a forum for
the equipment developers there to gain a better appreciation and
understanding of operational and environmental conditions confronting
deminers."
Ian Bullpitt, demining manager for the United Nations Office for
Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (UNOCHA), works in
Afghanistan. He said there are some "fairly simple" solutions to
providing better protection for deminers: "for example, mechanisms to
cut or reduce the vegetation problems that we all face. It's extremely
difficult to clear mines from the ground if you're trying to progress
through high grass. Simple and cheap protective clothing is another
good example of the types of things that we're after.
"In the longer term obviously, taking a quantum leap in terms of
technology, we're all after better ways to identify where the hot
spots are on the ground, where the mines are themselves, and so forth.
But most of the stuff we're after in the program is actually quite
simple, and I think that's basically the thrust of the workshop that
we attended -- to identify principally some of those simple things
that the U.S. can assist with."
Lance Malin works with Handicap International (HI), a French charity
engaged in demining operations in Bosnia. He said his "main priority"
at the workshop was to learn how to "protect our deminers in a better
way than we're protecting them now to avoid disfiguring and very
debilitating injuries that they now receive."
Geir Bjorsvik is with Norwegian People's Aid (NPA), working in Angola.
He stressed the need for "technology to find single mines -- the radar
penetrating things." He said even when fairly close to the soil, the
devices "are not able to expertly give a very good picture of the
ground."
However, he said, the most important thing for his effort in Angola is
to develop tools to show where there are not any mines because it
takes a very long time, "months, maybe a year, clearing a not-too-big
area, let's say one-times-one kilometer, with manual deminers, working
with detectors and prodders in vegetation ten feet high with trip
wires attached to mines in there, snakes and everything....So after
having cleared that area, it normally turns out that only 10 to 20
percent of that big area was actually mined. But you still have to
clear the whole area, of course, because it's suspected there are
mines and people won't use it. So if we could get some kind of tool
that tells us where there aren't mines, a green light or whatever,
that would be a tremendous asset."
Lieutenant Colonel "Chip" Bowness, of the Canadian Army, works as
operations and technical adviser with the Cambodian Mine Action Center
(CMAC). He says that from the Cambodian perspective, "the requirement
to find individual mines is probably the single item which would come
closest to being the 'silver bullet' which you could use to take care
of the mine problem; that would enable someone to go directly to that
mine and destroy it or remove it as the case might require."
He continued: "My colleague here from Angola mentioned that the
difficulty now is clearing a lot of area, and that's what consumes the
time and the money and the effort. So this capacity to be able to
detect an individual mine from a distance so that you remove the
safety problem is really the key to solving this."
He added that mechanical demining for humanitarian purposes is still
"a very, very young science, and attempts to date to use military
technology have not been very successful."
Asked why there has been a lack of success, he said, "Military
technology has a risk-acceptance factor that is applied under the
conditions of the battlefield and you can accept that some casualties
might result from the lack of clearing all the mines, but that's not
really acceptable for humanitarian purposes."
The deminers volunteered several reasons why the army's workshop was a
success for them. Colonel Bowness said it offered not only a
discussion of technical issues but the opportunity "to surface the
fact that the technical solutions have to operate in the real world in
terms of the socio-economic effects that they will impinge upon." As
an example, he noted that employment could be given to Cambodian
amputees who are quite capable of fabricating some of the pieces of
demining equipment.
Bowness added that the workshop enabled participants to exchange
information and ideas and then "take those ideas back for use" in the
countries where they are working. He offered one example, noting, "A
simple thing like a prodder used to locate the mines underground by
the deminers. One of the NGOs in Cambodia came up with a prodder with
a slightly different design using, essentially, instead of a sharp
point on it, a wood chisel point. And then he had the Cambodians
manufacture it out of old car springs. It's ideas like that that get
very practical. They're engineering ideas, but if you don't meet with
these people in fora like this they don't get exchanged very well at
all."
Bjorsvik, of Norwegian People's Aid, said the workshop was very
valuable "because until now there hasn't been too much effort from the
scientists' side and from the donors' side really asking the field
users what they need. What are your obstacles in the field? A lot of
the equipment we see coming out is based on training like on football
paths (fields) and Africa isn't like that. Our realities are very
different from normal training sites back in Europe. So actually
coming together with field personnel, with donors, with scientists and
military expertise is a very good (concept) and we all have a
tremendous good feeling after this workshop."
Colonel Zahaczewsky said the workshop is part of an effort to
reinforce and support the Clinton administration's "Global 2010
Initiative" to rid the world of landmines by that date.