"Every 20 minutes, a landmine explodes"

[ensho]

http://www.truth-out.org/landmines-and-cluster-bombs-weapons-mass-destruction-slow-motion/1314637186


Landmines and Cluster Bombs: "Weapons of Mass Destruction in Slow Motion"


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Every 20 minutes, a landmine explodes and 50 to 100 grams of TNT blast into the victim's foot, leg and other parts of the body. One in 230 people have lost a leg, or more, to landmines in Cambodia, a country plagued with an estimated four million mines - one of the 20th century's worst human-induced environmental disasters.

The United States devised a class of extremely lightweight antipersonnel (that is, intended to injure or kill persons) mines to block the flow of materials and soldiers from North Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia to South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.Landmines were dropped so routinely and in such high numbers that the US pilots referred to the them as "garbage."<2> With landmines supplied by China, the Khmer Rouge subsequently mined rice paddies and country paths used by Cambodian peasants to punish and starve them.<3>

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A criminal inequity lies in the nexus of landmine manufacture, use, cleanup, victim harm and community loss. Manufacturing antipersonnel mines is relatively easy and inexpensive, at the cost of US $3-30 each. Detecting and neutralizing them is dangerous for the de-miner, slow and expensive, at US $300-1000 per mine destroyed. The UN estimates that, at the current rate of removal and cost, it will take 1,100 years to clear all remaining landmines - provided no new ones are used - and cost approximately $33 billion. Many warring groups have not mapped or kept records of where they placed landmines, creating serious difficulties for mine removal and crippling the ability of resettlement, agriculture and tourism in former war-ridden countries. The average total cost of a prosthesis for a survivor of a landmine explosion (excluding hospital stay) is estimated at $1,000, an amount that would take most typical victims ten years of income to afford. Most people disabled by landmines will never receive the comprehensive health services they need.

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we are so guilty

can you imagine land mines and cluster bombs being sprayed around the US

we manufacture them

we are so guilty

[JDPriestly]

1. Clear Path International is a charitable organization that assists

people injured by these kinds of bombs.

Clear Path International


Our mission is to assist individuals who have been injured, disabled or displaced by war. We operate with the intention of helping survivors regain dignity and establish a solid footing on the path to self-sufficiency.

For over a decade, Clear Path International (CPI) has assisted survivors of war-time explosives, their families and their communities. Having managed the largest explosive ordnance clearance effort by a U.S. humanitarian organization, CPI's field office in Vietnam began providing victim assistance services directly to survivors, including emergency medical care, prosthetic support, social opportunities and vocational training.

Through this process, CPI established a variety of best practices for aiding survivors and their support networks. CPI went on to add field offices and projects in Cambodia, along the Thai/Burma border, Afghanistan and, most recently, in Laos. In these and other mine-contaminated parts of the world, the needs of affected populations vary according to the country, the region, and even the community in which they live.

Please find out more at
.
http://www.cpi.org/

I personally know people connected with this organization.