Krong Angkor

The politics of mine disposal

US President Barack Obama this week dropped his characteristic "yes we can" approach and replaced it with a disappointing "no we can't" as his administration rejected a long-standing invitation to become the 157th signatory to a treaty to rid the planet of landmines.

This means that when the second review conference of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty convenes in Cartagena, Colombia tomorrow, the United States will find itself on the sidelines together with fellow arms producers Russia and China, if those two countries bother to attend. Even its allies in the Nato alliance have all adopted the Ottawa Convention. Thailand, which ratified the treaty in 1998, will take its place among those states committed to outlaw the deadly anti-personnel devices. It was also an active participant in the first progress review of the Mine Ban Treaty in Nairobi in 2004.

There is nothing puzzling about the US position. Politics is the art of the possible and Mr Obama has had too many setbacks while in office to expend political capital on what many of his countrymen would consider an irrelevance while their nation is at war with the Taliban. And, to be fair, the United States did stop producing landmines in 1997 and has not used them since the 1991 Gulf War, nor exported any since 1992. These actions reflect the provisions and spirit of the treaty and one day that elusive signature will come.

Thailand was the first country in Southeast Asia to ratify the convention and clearing the lethal devices still buried in our soil continues. In September a large area of Kanchanaburi's Sangkhla Buri and Sai Yok districts were declared free of landmines and the red danger signs removed. But that still leaves tens of thousands of Thais living in 26 provinces along the Cambodian, Lao and Burmese borders which are still mine-contaminated areas. They live in a red zone covering 2,550 square kilometres where uncleared anti-personnel devices continue to bring death, dismemberment and disability. This represents an unwanted legacy of decades-old and largely forgotten wars in the former Indochina states, and a chilling reminder of the instability still existing along the borders with Burma and, once again, Cambodia.

Thai victims are random and range from a truck driver who was killed by a mine when he stopped to answer a call of nature beside a road in Prachin Buri, to a tile-layer who lost his left leg after stepping on a long-buried mine while taking a short-cut home across a rice field in Sa Kaeo, and an exotic plant collector who lost both legs in explosions more than a year apart.

Two Thai soldiers stepped on mines and lost their legs during a routine patrol in October last year in the disputed area near Preah Vihear temple and a third lost a leg after stepping on a landmine there in April.

Worldwide, the casualty toll is frightening. Landmines are known to have caused 5,197 casualties last year, a third of them children, according to the Nobel Prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which links around 1,000 activist groups. All are united against these terrible weapons of war which ruin so many innocent civilian lives in peace-time.

Nor must we forget that these barbaric devices not only cause enormous pain and suffering, but also reap a grim economic and social toll. In addition to the expense of medical treatment, and the cost to families of caring for injured relatives, they hinder the flow of goods and people and make large areas of agricultural land hazardous to farm.

Anti-personnel mines should exist in only one place and that is the history books.