Humanitarian mine action : the first decade of a new sector in humanitarian aid / by Chris Horwood.

Cover title.

March 2000.

Includes bibliographical references.

Contents: Executive summary—Section 1. The scope and nature of the landmines crisis—section 2. The international response—Section 3. The current status of mine action in terms of operations—Section 4. Central issues facing mine action—Endnotes—References—Annexes.

Summary: Landmines have caused deaths and injuries (among non-combatants) since they were first used at the start of the century. It was the soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan the Vietnamese withdrawal from Cambodia, and the flight of Kurds from Iraqi governments forces that shocked the world awake to the devastating impact of these abandoned weapons. Later too, with the cessation of conflicts in Mozambique and Angola, the scale of this 'new' catastrophe became apparent in term of the numbers of victims, socioeconomic devastation and potential for obstruction to peace and development. In fact the landmine threat could be seen as a 'slow onset emergency'; the 'creeping genocide' of the hidden killers. This realization developed between 1989 and 1993, but was not immediately widely recognized. Recognition of the scale of the crisis and the cost to societies is still developing—(p. 1).