Good-bye Land Mines?

A campesino who lost his right leg to a land mine.
(Photo: Campaña Colombiana Contra Minas)

The other morning, Edilberto and Marlon Alexis González Mina, ages 9 and 10, were walking to school near the village of Tandil Alto Mira in Nariño Department, when they stepped on a land mine.

The explosion killed the two boys, making them the latest of the 11,000 people injured and killed by mines since 1990 in Colombia, the only nation in the Western Hemisphere where land mines are still being planted. Colombia is the world's third-most mined nation, behind only Afghanistan and Cambodia.

Colombia's guerrillas plant home-made land mines to protect themselves from pursuing soldiers and to guard coca leaf fields. But they don't return to remove the devices, so the mines remain waiting silently to kill or maim the unfortunate person (or animal) who steps on them.

So it was positive news ten days ago that the military and FARC guerrilla negotiators agreed to work together to find and remove the thousands of land mines after they sign a peace treaty.

A mural on an abandoned Bogotá building
memorializes land mine victims.

More than a few 'ifs' and 'buts' remain, however. The peace agreement looks likely, but is no sure thing. And neither is the obedience of the many guerrilla units to directives from their leaders. Meanwhile, the ELN guerrillas, who are not in the peace negotiations, presumably continue planting land mines. And, in any case, the guerrillas can't possibly know the locations of all of their mines, which a government official estimates are distributed across 688 municipalities.

The guerrillas fashion their mines using explosives sometimes laced with screws and feces in order to maximize the injuries and infection. These artesanal mines can wait underground for 50 years for someone to tragically step on the wrong spot.

Colombia may finally free itself of the nightmare of land-mines, but not for a while yet.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Remembering Landmine Victims

Empty boots today on Plaza Bolívar representing landmine victims.

Colombia is a world leader in another category, and a tragic one: landmine victims. Each year, landmines kill or injure about a thousand Colombians - many of them civilians, and often children.

Landmines

By some measures, more people fall victim to landmines here than in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. And Colombia is the only nation in the Americas where landmines are being activally planted. Today, Colombia commemorated the International Day for Land Mine Awareness with 9,133 empty, mutilated boots arranged in the Plaza Bolívar, each representing a person killed or injured since 1990.

The boots by each region of the country represented the
area's number of victims since 1990. 

Colombia's guerrilla groups sow landmines to attack pursuing police and soldiers. That's evil in itself, especially since Colombian soldiers are mostly poor young men fulfilling their legal military obligation. But most of those mines stay behind waiting, unexploded - until some peasant walks by playing, hunting or searching for a wandering goat - and steps in the wrong spot. A guerrilla leader once called landmines 'the poor man's weapon.' He didn't mention that they are also the poor man's victimizer.


Colombia's 71st landmine victim of 2011 was Jorge Luis Simanca Durango, 27, a rural laborer who stepped on a mine in Ituagana, Antioquia. One other person was injured.

In my previous life as a journalist I interviewed several mine victims in a Cucuta hospital. One, an older man, had been a ranch worker. One day, he stepped off the road on his way home for lunch - and the next thing he knew he'd been thrown into the air by an explosion. His leg was mangled and he'd been transformed from a vigorous, capable man into a cripple who would need his family's support as long as he survived. His doctor told me that the psychological scars were as deep as the physical ones.

Don't YOU feel fortunate? Mine victims playing soccer.
(Photo: Brittanica.com)

And this morning I heard a radio report about a university developing expandable prosthetics for children mutilated by mines. Of course it's better for such children's recovery, but it's horrifying just thinking about these kids whose lives have been damaged by such merciless weapons sowed in a futile, senseless war.

Searching for landmines. 

In addition to the human tragedies, landmines also take an economic toll on Colombia by putting land off-limits to activities such as herding and farming.

Colombian pop singer Juanes has campaigned to help victims of landmines.

A boy relates: "I was nine when it happened. I worked with Papa in the fields. We had just cut down a vine to weave a basket when my friend stepped on a mine. He died and the mine opened my stomach. My papa wrapped a towel around my stomach. I must have been unconscious because I have no memory of that. He told me about it at the hospital after I had had surgery." - quote from Korubo.com

See the Colombia Without Landmines campaign.

To commemorate the day, people were asked to roll up a pantsleg. 

A Brazilian tourist photographs the plaza. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours