DEMINERS DESCRIBE EQUIPMENT NEEDS AT PENTAGON WORKSHOP (Discuss work in Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia, Cambodia)
By Susan Ellis
USIA Staff Writer

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.