Balkanalysis.com

Land Mines, Leftover NATO Bombs Endanger the Balkans

“The truth is out there,” the X-Files’ David Duchovny used to say when pondering paranormal phenomena. Last week, Mexican military officials had a similar reaction to their own UFO sighting. However, for their counterparts in far-off Kosovo, a different kind of sighting has been taking precedence: UXOs, or “unexploded ordnance.”In a press briefing on Wednesday, KFOR announced:

“…in the last two months we have had an increase of unexploded ordinance (UXOs) sightings and an increase of children injured from stepping on or playing with these devices. It is critical that each citizen of Kosovo be aware of these dangerous items left from the war and if one is found, call the local authorities, UNMIK-P or KFOR.

Never under any circumstance touch or try to move a UXO. That is the job of the KFOR Explosive Ordinance Demolition Team (EOD).

Each of the Multinational Brigades have programs or information on UXOs so check with KFOR soldiers in your area for literature or classes. Keep your children safe and report all UXOs.”

And so again, the truth is ‘out there’- in the fields, forests and streams of Kosovo, among other places in the Balkans. Munitions left over from NATO’s 1999 bombing campaign have been responsible for hundreds of deaths and injuries over the past five years. Coping with all of this deadly litter has proven a constant headache for KFOR, whose own soldiers have died while trying to safely detonate nasty pieces of work like cluster bombs.

The problem has been there since the very beginning. Only two months after the bombing wrapped up, early reports were stating that, “…over 150 people have been killed or injured by landmines and unexploded ordnance in Kosovo,” according to a survey by the World Health Organization. “…More than half of the casualties are believed to have been caused by unexploded bombs dropped by NATO and U.S. warplanes. According to the WHO study, an estimated 70% of the victims are under the age of 24.”

Despite a lot of work carried out by Western aid agencies to clear mines and other unexploded ordnance in the first couple years, the sheer amount of bomblets and their geographically dispersed and concealed resting places continued to bedevil the occupying government- and endanger the locals. In May 2000, the BBC reported that KFOR command on the ground had to “lobby” NATO headquarters for some 8 months before they were given the detailed maps explaining where unexploded ordnance might be found. They had had to find out the hard way, with over 100 civilian deaths merely because some of the danger areas were not clearly known or demarcated.

Mine-sweeping activities were carried out full-time by the British HALO Trust after the war ended, but were stopped in December 2001. Yet when the accidental civilian deaths continued during the next two years, the organization was called in again. It has now identified the “known danger areas.” According to them, “…130 and 140 contaminated areas still exist with an average of three more reported each month.” The long-term problem this has had in terms of public perception is quite clear:

“…recently, there have been proportionally more adults than children injured, suggesting that the return to contaminated forested areas in order to cut wood is having a dangerous impact. Significant numbers of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are refusing to return to rebuild their former houses and farm their land because of the dangers caused by buried cluster munitions.”

The latest press briefing does not say exactly what sort of munitions KFOR is referring to here under the “UXO” moniker, or whether they are all NATO’s fault. To be sure, in addition to the remnants of NATO’s formidable output, old munitions remain from both the Yugoslav army and the Albanian KLA. And considering recent information that veterans of the latter are re-arming for another round of anti-Serbian and anti-UNMIK violence, there certainly seems to be no lack of lethal options in Kosovo.

Yet not only Kosovars are in danger from unidentified exploding objects. Just last week, 4 Albanians from Albania were killed by old land mines while gathering herbs near the Macedonian border. Yet the Reuters report’s semi-detailed description is rather mysterious:

“…three brothers aged 13, 15, 20 and a 38-year-old were gathering medicinal herbs about 1.5 km (one mile) from the border when they were blown to pieces by the device, which blasted out a three-metre (10-foot) deep crater on Sunday.

The mine was probably a leftover from the 2001 conflict between ethnic Albanians and the Macedonian government.

The boys’ father told police it was ‘as big as the wheel of a car’ and said they had seen it earlier, prompting speculation the four may have tried to dismantle it.

The area near the village of Caje where the four were killed was a weapons smuggling conduit for ethnic Albanian guerrillas fighting Macedonian government troops in 2001.  The four casualties raise to 32 the toll of those killed by mines or unexploded ordnance along Albania’s borders with Serbia, Kosovo and Macedonia since the mid 1990s.”

In calling this rather enormous device ‘probably a leftover’ of the 2001 war, the report does not say who had planted the mines or why. Should we understand that the Albanian NLA was responsible, considering that the area was a “weapons smuggling area” for their cause? Or was it planted by the Albanian army, in case of some potential Macedonian attack? And why would the villagers try to “dismantle it,” anyway?

A related question comes up when we consider a March 6 statement from the FSD (Fondation Suisse de Deminage) that announces the cessation of the group’s activities in Albania:

“…for the last 3 years, the FSD was the only mine clearance NGO based in Albania. The FSD was able to survey and clear more than 2 million square meters of land and to destroy more than 2,000 items of unexploded ordnance and mines.

Thanks to the FSD’s clearance operations, numerous farmers re-gained access to water sources and to land for grazing and wood cutting, and new roads could be built.

The achievement of these results was only possible thanks to financial support by the Swiss and the German government as well as Slovenia’s International Trust Fund for Demining and Mine Victims. Unfortunately, donor funding has dried up, forcing the FSD to cease its activities. As a consequence, the FSD has decided to close its offices in Tirana and Kukes, and to dismantle its logistical base in Jakova (Kosovo).”

One wonders if the 4 villagers killed would still be alive today had the funding not “dried up” and the FSD been able to continue its work. In light of the most recent tragedy on the Albanian border, the group’s final warning seems darkly prophetic:

“…the need for further mine clearance in Albania however is still present: Large stretches of land are awaiting clearance, and the rural population along the Kosovar / Albanian border continues to face a deadly threat from landmines and unexploded ordnance in many areas.”

Although they have not fought a war for over 80 years, Greece and Turkey still have partially militarized borders littered with old mines. A pact was signed last September between the two countries to start removing them.

Nevertheless, progress has been slow due to the need to work carefully, and since then more illegal immigrants have been killed while trying to cross into Greece through woodlands. “…Despite fences and clear signposting,” says Athens’ Ekathimerini, “62 people have been killed in Evros minefields since 1997, when the Ottawa Convention banning mines was signed. Scores more have been injured. Nearly all were illegal immigrants, entering the country from Turkey.” Only days after Greece and Turkey signed the agreement in September 2003, 7 more Pakistani immigrants died in a land mine explosion in Evros.

Perhaps the biggest challenge minesweepers have faced, in a region positively littered with mines, has been in Bosnia. Earlier this month, a representative of the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines visited to discuss the country’s progress and urge more efforts in cleaning the countryside of the last traces of war. As in Kosovo, hidden munitions have had a pervasive effect on restricting the economic growth and normalization of life for local people:

“…in BiH, mines and unexploded ordnance contaminate more than 2,000 square kilometres, according to the BiH Mine Action Centre. New landmine casualties continue to be reported every month.

Mines found in fields, forests, abandoned houses, roads and electricity pylons throughout the country are one of the reasons for delays in the repatriation of refugees. They also prevent full productive use of land, a serious blow to a country that is dependent on farming for household consumption and revenue generation.”

The issue of unexploded ordnance in the Balkans has had unfortunate effects far beyond battlefields and borders, however. By August 1999, two months after the NATO bombing of Kosovo,

“…already 161 explosive devices, including 97 bomblets, have been recovered by allied minesweepers in the Adriatic Sea. Munitions dumped at sea have caused deaths and injuries to Italian fisherman in the Adriatic and cost others the majority of the year’s profits. A fishing ban in the Adriatic, extended once, is projected to last until August 31 to allow minesweepers to collect more unexploded devices. In addition, tourists have abandoned the beaches along the Adriatic coast for fear of encountering unexploded bombs.”

That NATO cluster bombs were winding up on the complete other side of the Adriatic- near the Italian port of Venice- reveals the perniciousness of the problem. Even today, hapless civilians across a wide area of the Balkans still run the risk of being killed or injured by accidentally coming into contact with one. Considering everything that we know about the indiscriminately destructive nature of this ordnance, it’s amazing to know that the American forces of freedom are still using cluster bombs to endanger present and future generations of Iraqis. But then again, the US won’t sign the land mine ban treaty either.