WAR VICTIMS: Land Mines

I thought the new land mine clearer would help civilians, but General Gard disillusions me. It was: "the "Grizzly" -- a heavy tracked vehicle designed to breach a minefield under fire for military purposes. Most of the research and development in mine clearance has been for military purposes -- to clear a path through a mine field. If the attacking force is mechanized, antipersonnel mines are no problem.

Humanitarian demining presents a different and far more complex problem. One must ensure that ALL mines are cleared from an area that is to be returned to civilian use. Machines can be useful in open terrain to explode the majority of mines; but getting them all with a high degree of assurance requires a painstaking and dangerous process involving metal detectors and an individual, with a simple probe, to uncover the detected object to determine whether or not it's a mine that needs to be exploded or removed."

Ronald Hilton - 9/27/00