Claudio Bussolino espatriato in Cambogia

La soluzione del problema delle mine antiuomo che ancora infestano alcune zone periferiche della Cambogia è sostanzialmente solo una questione di soldi......... che non ci sono.

Mine clearance could cost $300 million over 10 years

The government will attempt to collect US$300 million over the next 10 years for mine-clearance projects, an official said Monday during the opening of a two-day conference on the government's national mine-clearance strategy.
"We will make an effort to collect $300 million within 10 years, which means we need $30 million per year," said Prak Sokhon, a secretary of state at the Council of Ministers, who noted that the yearly figure was equivalent to current funding from development partners.
Ten years ago, Cambodia became a signatory to the 1997 Ottawa Treaty, committing itself to removing all antipersonnel mines by the end of 2009. The Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority (CMAA) in May drafted a request to extend the deadline for another 10 years.
That request will be formally submitted in September to the Secretariat of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, which will decide whether or not to approve the request during a conference at the end of the year in Cartagena, Colombia.
At the Cartagena conference, Cambodia will also present its national strategy, which is the subject of this week's conference. Roughly 120 members of the mine action community in addition to 40 RCAF soldiers attended the launch Monday, during which Prak Sokhon said it remained unclear how long it will take to clear all of Cambodia's mines.
"No one knows how many mines still remain in Cambodia," Prak Sokhon said. "To tell you the truth, even 10 years from now, mines will not be cleared from Cambodian terrority."

Next steps
Sophie Baranes, deputy country director for the UN Development ProgramME, said that the national strategy should go beyond clearance to address issues such as how cleared land is put to use.
"The strategy will guide development partners, and particularly operators, to better coordinate and align our support," she said.
Between 1992 and February 2009, deminers cleared 479,957 square kilometres of land for development purposes. Landmine experts estimate that fewer than 700 square kilometres of land still need to be cleared, although this figure has not been backed up by technical research.
Prak Sokhon said that 4,544 square kilometers of land have been affected by land mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO), though that figure - taken from a 2001 baseline survey - is no longer considered valid.

CMAC chalks up in demining efforts

January 2010 - The area cleared of land mines and unexploded remnants of war reached 31 square km for the first 11 months of 2009, surpassing the combination of the previous years, which hovered at around 27 square km. Data from the Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC) said the increase was due to a combination of training in new methods of mine clearance and a flexible application of clearance tools. After years of practice, including a burst of training in 2008,CMAC teams are now skilled at using everything from mine-detection dogs to bulldozer-like bush cutters that unearth and safety detonate mines and UXO.

Although the amount of land demined increased last year, the number of mines that were actually cleared fell from 26,206 separate mines in 2008 to 18,046 for the first 11 months of 2009. In contrast, the number of cleared UXOs increased from 114,101 in 2008 to 122,557 in the first 11 months of 2009, which CMAC attributed to efforts to teach villagers to report locations of mines and UXO, and of more UXO-clearance teams being deployed beginning in 2008. The northwest is the country's most heavily mined region, with Battambang province having the most. UXO are spread across the country.

Casualties of mines and UXO have declined steadily in recent years, according to the Cambodia Mine/UXO Victim Information System, falling from 450 in 2006, to 352 in 2007, to 271 in 2008. Figures for 2009 have yet to be published.

Cambodian mine victims on the decline

12 Feb 2010 - Cambodian authorities say 47 people were killed or injured by landmines and explosive remnants of war last year and nearly 200 wounded.
As Robert Carmichael reports, this is a 10 percent decline overall compared with 2008, in one of the most heavily mined countries on earth.
Cambodia, which suffered decades of civil war, is a predominantly agricultural society. Around 80 per cent of its people live in rural areas, and that makes them particularly vulnerable to landmines.
The project officer who compiled the statistics for 2009 said comprehensive de-mining efforts by teams from the Cambodian government and foreign NGOs helped to reduce the number of victims. He said ongoing programs to educate people about the dangers of landmines and explosives also play a vital role. The figures show just how important education is: one-third of all victims in the past two years were children, and almost all of those were boys.

ATTUALITA' CAMBOGIANE