KOLKATA, DEC 31 (PTI)
Two armed Bodo militants, en route to Bangladesh to purchase arms from their camp in Bhutan, were nabbed for the first time in the state from the North Bengal district of Jalpaiguri, a senior poliCe official said.
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Acting on a tip-off, state armed police, CRPF and Eastern Frontier Rifles led by the Jalpaiguri police chief launched a pre dawn search operation and nabbed the ultras, hailing from a training camp at Piping in Bhutan, at Sipra forest in Jalpaiguri district, IGP (Law and Order) C Mukherjee sAid.
One AK-47 rifle, 150 rounds of ammunition, one hand grenade, extremist literature and Rs 12 lakh in cash were seized from the duo identified as Amarendra Chandra Debmari (30) and Praneswar Nazmari (23) of Assam's Kokrajhar district.
A hunt was on for a third militant, the IGP said.
This was for the first time that Bodo militants had been arrested in this state, he said.
Debmari told interrogaters that he was involved in a landmine blast on the Indo-Bhutan border last July and that they were going to Bangladesh to buy arms with the money they were carrying. Security has been beeFed up in North Bengal following the arrests.
According to a Siliguri report quoting the police, interrorgation of the two militants revealed that they had visited Coxbazar in Bangladesh and an arms training camp at Kalikhola in Bhutan twice.
Debmari was going to Coxbazar again for buying arms as ordered by his superiors when he was caught.
AMRITSAR, BARMER & JAMMU: They have been living on the edge for over a year now. And it’s not only fear of attacks from the other side of the border that makes them weary.
Villagers along India’s border with Pakistan in Punjab, Rajasthan and J&K are angry with their own government. A government, that they say, hasn’t paid them enough for suffering human casualties and crop losses after troops were moved to the western front following December 13 attack on Parliament.
The human toll from the mining operations that started a year ago has been high. The Landmine Report (India) for 2002, prepared by International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) puts the number of new mine casualties at 332 in 2001 and another 180 between 1 January and 17 June this year.
The report says the Indian government had earlier announced that casualties of military-related mine explosions would be paid Rs 5 lakh in case of death and Rs 75,000 if maimed.
However, civilians dying of landmine explosions along the border are paid only Rs 1 lakh and those permanently disabled Rs 10,000. And now that the troops have started pulling back, the villagers want compensation. And their fields cleared of mines.
But of course, there’s hardly any official help. While compensation for crop loss has been slow in coming, there has been little move to clear the fields of mines, making farming dangerous. So, these farmers, who lost the last successive rabi and khariff crops, will end up loosing more this rabi season.
The Punjab government says says some 19 lakh farmers in 1,818 villages, cultivating on 60,915 acres in the three border districts of Ferozepur, Gurdaspur and Amritsar, have been hit in the past one year.
The state’s revenue department has estimated the crop loss in rabi ’01-02 at Rs 83 crore. But Centre has sanctioned only Rs 66 crore so far, says state’s chief secretary Y S Ratra.
The Punjab government is now busy estimating the khariff loss for the year. The state agriculture department estimates that farmers on an average have suffered a loss of Rs 8,575 per acre after adjusting all costs.
The situation is no better in Rajasthan where locals complain that the Army has only compensated for crop loss, not for damage to fodder and cattle in Ganganagar, Barmer, Jaisalmer and Bikaner districts.
The state government estimated last rabi’s loss at Rs 74.92 crore, but has been paid Rs 54.31 crore so far. The losses for khariff have been pegged at Rs 59 crore and the compensation is yet to come in, while the estimates for the current rabi are yet to be worked out, state officials said.
In J&K, the damage has been particularly bad this year. Along the international border in Jammu crop loss per acre has been estimated at Rs 10,000 and loss by way of rental at Rs 8,000. And while the Army has paid up Rs 8.14 crore to the district administration, local officials say they cannot distribute the money till the Centre pays up the rest.
The state government has sought an initial compensation of Rs 12.52 crore, but the Centre is insisting on detailed accounts for verification by both the Army and local civil authorities. An earlier state government estimate had inflated the loss to Rs 25 crore, against which Rs 10 crore was already released.
A Central team estimated that over 200 villages were affected in Jammu, Kathua, Rajouri and Poonch districts following troop deployment and mine laying. Post December 13, the Army took over 70,100 acres of farm land, of which 25,000 acres were mined.
“We are in a big minefield. Fields, courtyards and mountains, everything here is mined,” said a state legislator from the border region of Jammu. And unlike Punjab, where de-mining actually started way back in June, nothing of that sort happened in Jammu, he complained.
In areas like Suchetgarh Kullian, Sherpur, Faqir Chak — all in the Samba sector — almost entire neighbourhoods were heavily mined, forcing locals to move out.
ROURKELA (ORISSA), DEC 20 (PTI)
Maoist rebels, who killed 18 policemen in West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand yesterday, triggered a land mine explosion to ambush the convoy of vehicles, one of the injured policeman said today.
The convoy of 11 vehicles, which had come from Chaibasa, was proceeding towards Manoharpur from Bitkilsoya village with the body of a village headman beheaded by the MCC guerrillas earlier in the morning when it was attacked, Upendra Pandey, one of the injured, said.
The vehicles had moved to Digha when the explosion was triggered. Some of the policemen died in the deafening blast immediately, Pandey told PTI at the Ispat General Hospital, here.
The explosion completely smashed two jeeps while the ultras opened fire on the policemen. There were about 70 MCC rebels who were armed with self loading rifles (SLR), AK-47 rifles and grenades. He could spot at least three women among the attackers, Pandey said.
The policemen also returned the fire as the encounter continued till dawn when it subsided. Police reinforcements were rushed from Manoharpur and Rourkela this morning.
Among the dead were Dibakar Singh, circle inspector of Kiriburu police station and O P Prabasi, sub-inspector in-charge of Jamda police station, he said.
Children and families who have lost limbs in landmine explosions in Sri Lanka are being offered hope by a Backwell-based charity.
Motivation has been awarded over £200,000 to distribute wheelchairs that have been specially designed to suit people in Sri Lanka.
Parts of the South Asian islands have been ravaged by civil war for 20 years and experts estimate there are between 700,000 and two million landmines planted in the country.
During the savage conflict between the rebel Tamil Tigers and Government forces there have been numerous reports of atrocities on both sides.
However, a fledgling peace process started this year has opened the door to aid groups to help the thousands of Sri Lankans suffering with disability.
Project co-ordinator Indi Gavin said: "Huge areas controlled by the Tamils in the north and east of the country were totally cut off by the war for many years.
"These borders have finally been opened up enabling aid organisations to get in there and help.
"The support for wheelchair users in these areas is virtually non-existent because there is very little in the way of Government structure."
The project will not only help people maimed by landmines in Sri Lanka, it will also help the 125 people who suffer spinal injuries each month while coconut farming.
Motivation will use the Diana Fund grant to pilot their new programme, WorldMade, in Sri Lanka. Previously the charity produced wheelchairs in the countries they were destined for but now they will all be made at one central location in India.
However, Motivation will maintain their central principle of providing equipment that suits its particular environment.
Ms Gavin said the importance of getting the right wheelchair design for the right person could not be overstated.
She said: "Getting it wrong is like prescribing the wrong shoes to somebody. It's very uncomfortable and can cause serious long term damage."
Since 1991 Motivation has set up 21 projects in 16 different countries, including Tanzania, Cambodia and Romania.
The group works with local organisations to provide the low cost wheelchairs and the crucial associated health education.
About 20,600 people currently have a Motivation wheelchair, with another 2,600 being added each year.
However, the charity believes an estimated 20 million people worldwide are still in need of a wheelchair.
Motivation will receive £202,882 from the Diana Fund over three years starting at the beginning of 2003.
The money will be used to set up a central distribution hub in the capital, Columbo, and forge links with satellite distribution groups in more remote regions.
SRINAGAR, DEC 15 (PTI)
An army jawan was injured in an explosion inside a camp at Nagrimalpora in border district of Kupwara today, official sources said.
The blast was caused by a land-mine planted by the troops in the camp for their self-defence, the sources said.
Army had mined a number of their camps as part of the strategy to foil suicide attacks of the militants who storm their camps in small groups and attack the troops.
The injured jawan, belonging to 24 Rashtriya Rifles, was shifted to hospital and his condition was stated to be serious The accidental blast in the camp took place a day after the troops of the unit recovered a Pak-made anti-aircraft missile from nearby forest along the Line of Control.
03-Dec-2002) On the fifth anniversary of the Mine Ban Treaty, campaigners around the world called on states and armed rebel groups to embrace the emerging international norm that rejects mine use.
Five years ago, the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction opened for signature in Ottawa, Canada. The following week, on 10 December 1997, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and its former coordinator, Jody Williams, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
"It is heartening to see such progress since the birth of the treaty five years ago," said Jody Williams, now ICBL ambassador. Williams highlighted the increase each year of the total number of victims of landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO). "This means that our work is far from over," said Williams. The number of new mine/UXO casualties each year is now estimated by the ICBL's Landmine Monitor to be some 15-20,000 per year.
The Mine Ban Treaty came into force quicker than any multilateral convention and, with 130 States Parties and a further 16 signatories, it is now one of the most widely accepted and fastest growing treaties of its kind.
Since 1997, mine use has decreased and this is in keeping with the overwhelmingly positive trend which has seen trade in antipersonnel mines all but dry up; the number of countries producing the weapon drop to 14 (from 55 in the early 1990s); over 30 million stockpiled mines destroyed; vast tracts of land cleared; and expanded mine action programmes totaling more than $1 billion.
There have been some notable aberrations from this positive pattern, however. Confirmed or compelling evidence that nine governments used antipersonnel mines between May 2001 and June 2002 was presented in the ICBL's Landmine Monitor Report 2002: Toward a Mine-Free World. The ICBL continues to condemn, amongst others, India and Pakistan for their extensive mining of the border between the two countries and Russia for mine use in Chechnya.
Significantly, antipersonnel mine use has halted in key places in the last year, such as Angola and Sri Lanka. Campaigners, who continue to push for the inclusion of a ban on mine use and a commitment to mine action and victim assistance in cease-fire and peace agreements, have welcomed this.
Antipersonnel mine use by armed opposition groups has been reported in at least 14 countries during the reporting period May 2001 through June 2002. The ICBL has called on these groups to refrain from mine use and to respect the growing international norm.
The ICBL continues to criticise the 48 nations that go against the tide and remain outside the Mine Ban Treaty. These include U.S., Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and Egypt.
As preparations get underway for an invasion of Iraq, the ICBL has called on the U.S. not to use antipersonnel mines in Iraq or elsewhere. Every member of NATO except the U.S. has joined the Mine Ban Treaty, and these member states, plus Australia (another potential ally in a U.S. war in Iraq) have been urged to refuse to take part in any joint operations involving antipersonnel mines. Treaty States Parties and signatories should insist that non-signatories refrain from using antipersonnel mines in joint military operations, the ICBL said.
The U.S. military previously used antipersonnel mines during the Gulf War in 1991 and is said to have mines stored in Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain and elsewhere for possible use in Iraq.
Today, Iraq is severely affected by mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) as a result of the Gulf War, the Iraq-Iran War and two decades of internal conflict. Mines and UXOs are a problem in the north of Iraq as well as the southern and central regions along the border with Iran, according to Landmine Monitor. New use of antipersonnel mines will only exacerbate an already dire situation.
A year on, Afghanistan is still recovering from the decades of warfare that made it one of the most mine-contaminated countries in the world. The ICBL congratulates President Hamid Karzai for his government's accession to the Mine Ban Treaty in September 2002 and appeals to donor countries to make mine action and victim assistance programs a priority in rebuilding the country.
Global campaign
The ICBL, a network of more than 1,400 groups in over 90 countries, continues to work locally, nationally and internationally to eradicate antipersonnel mines. Activists are marking the fifth anniversary with local activities, including letters to non States Parties in Asia-Pacific -- India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. This forms part of an Asia Appeal, which aims to boost universalisation of the treaty in this region in the run-up to the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in September 2003.
In Ottawa, the 'birthplace' of the treaty, the ICBL's Mines Action Canada, is organising "Without Reservation -- Addressing the Challenges of Achieving a Landmine Free World", an international symposium involving over 100 people from 23 countries representing governments, Canadian and international NGOs, UN and other experts to work on plans for the next five years of the Mine Ban Treaty.
For more information please write to media@icbl.org or contact:
Sue Wixley, ICBL Advocacy and Communications Officer, +44 (0) 20 7820 9577 (London);
Liz Bernstein, ICBL Coordinator, +1-202-547-2667 (Washington DC).