What About Demining?

In recent years intensive efforts have been put forth to encourage nations to ban the use of land mines. In addition, some governments have begun the dangerous task of removing those mines that have been planted. But several obstacles stand in the way. One has to do with time. Demining is painfully slow. In fact, deminers estimate that, on the average, it takes a hundred times longer to clear a mine than to plant one. Another obstacle is expense. A single mine costs between $3 and $15, but to remove one can cost up to $1,000.

Thus, total demining seems virtually impossible. To clear all the mines in Cambodia, for example, would require that everyone in that country devote his entire income to this task for the next several years. It is estimated that even if the finances were available, removing all the mines there would take a century. The worldwide picture is even more dismal. It is estimated that using current technology, demining the planet would cost $33 billion and take more than a thousand years!

Granted, innovative techniques for clearing mines have been proposed—from the use of fruit flies that are genetically manipulated to detect explosives to the use of giant radio-controlled vehicles that would demine five acres [2 ha] per hour. It may be some time, though, before such techniques can be used on a large scale, and they will likely be available only to the richest countries.

In most places, therefore, demining is accomplished the old-fashioned way. A man crawls on his belly probing the soil ahead with a stick, inch by inch, clearing 200 [20] to 500 [50] square feet a day. Dangerous? Yes! For every 5,000 mines cleared, one deminer is killed and two are injured.

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Making Money Twice?

A basic principle of business is that companies are liable when their products cause harm. Thus, Lou McGrath, of the Mines Advisory Group, argues that companies that have profited from manufacturing land mines should be obliged to pay reparations. Ironically, though, many of the manufacturers have been the very ones to profit from demining. For example, a former mine producer from Germany reportedly got a $100-million demining contract in Kuwait. And in Mozambique a $7.5-million contract for clearing priority roads went to a consortium of three companies—two of which had developed mines.

Some feel that it is grossly immoral for the companies that manufacture land mines to be the ones to make money clearing them. In a sense, they claim, land-mine developers are making money twice. Be that as it may, both the manufacturing and the disarming of land mines continue to be thriving businesses.