COLOMBIA| SOUTH EAST ASIA | SRI LANKA |
Map  On 20 May 2009, the Sri Lankan Government declared an end to two decades of armed conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who have been seeking a separate homeland, or ‘Eelam’, for Tamils in the north and east of the country. Landmines were used to varying degrees by both sides at different stages of the conflict. Most mines are of the anti-personnel type, laid to protect bases or defensive areas, and to contain troop movements. Some nuisance mine-laying also took place, which included the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), though this was largely a tactic of the LTTE. The vast majority of mines in Sri Lanka were laid on the Jaffna peninsula during the 1990s. Most of these were laid in dense well-structured belts by government forces, in the course of successive advances. However, mines were also laid on the peninsula by the LTTE; generally in ‘nuisance minefields’, where the mines were laid at random, and scattered over wide areas. During this same period extensive minefields were also laid by forces garrisoning ‘Elephant Pass’, the strategically important access-way linking the mainland and Kilinochchi District to the Jaffna Peninsula. Permanent Forward Defence Lines (FDLs) were later established by both sides in the lead up to the 2002 cease-fire agreement, and further fortified thereafter. The northern FDL stretches (in depth) down the neck of Jaffna isthmus. Meanwhile on the southern FDL, extensive mine-panels run the breadth of the island - from the Mannar ‘rice-bowl’, across Vavuniya, and on to the coast of Mullaittivu. In January 2008, the government formally withdrew from the cease fire agreement and in the subsequent fighting the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) broke through the southern FDL and advanced rapidly across former LTTE-held territory. As the pace of the conflict intensified, so the population displacements increased. Retreating LTTE cadres are believed to have lifted some mines (and IEDs) from their original positions, and re-laid them elsewhere in order to try and slow the SLA advance. Finally, there remain the High Security Zones (HSZs) – areas of strategic importance, which have never been accessible to demining agencies, that are believed to contain hundreds of thousands of mines. Sri Lanka has not signed the Mine Ban Treaty, and previous Sri Lankan Government representatives have linked the country’s accession to agreement by the LTTE to foreswear the use of landmines as a weapon. The Government has, however, voted in favor of (the universalization of) the treaty at every annual ‘pro-ban’ UN General Assembly resolution since 1996. The number of mine casualties from 1985 - 2008 is reportedly around 1,500. The records suggest that people are most at risk when planting crops or when harvesting. Other high risk activities include collection of scrap metal and firewood, and while foraging, fishing or hunting. Mineclearance in Sri Lanka has been shaped by the war with the LTTE. Soon after demining started in 1999, it was halted by the fighting. When it resumed in 2002, the creation of the National Steering Committee for Mine Action (NSCMA) paved the way for a more concerted demining effort involving international NGOs, such as HALO. HALO’s 2002 emergency survey of Jaffna accurately identified the boundaries of dangerous areas in civilian-occupied areas. Indeed, it quickly became apparent that the vast majority of Jaffna was not mined and therefore posed little or no danger to civilians going about their daily lives. During the course of that survey, HALO gathered the socio-economic and technical data which enabled clearance tasks to be prioritized by humanitarian requirement. The emphasis for HALO was on accident prevention and to enable agricultural land to be returned to productive use. Meanwhile, in Jaffna Town, many of the minefields consisted of defensive works built from the rubble of damaged buildings, which were then ‘seeded with mines’. Manual clearance alone in such conditions would have been difficult and in response, HALO deployed armoured mechanical units in order to verify and inspect the ground more rapidly. HALO also focused its clearance assets on the densely laid mine-belts where the vast majority of mine accidents were then taking place. Using a small team of experienced expatriates, HALO has since trained four hundred local staff to conduct both manual and mechanical mine-clearance. HALO has also developed the skills of local staff to ensure continuity of knowledge and technical expertise. This approach of using skilled survey teams to identify the problem areas, followed by prioritized and systematic clearance, using complementary manual and mechanical clearance assets on a large scale, has by and large proven to be successful. It should be repeated in other districts, in close cooperation with Government and local authorities, so as to support resettlement and redevelopment of the north. Requirement for continued clearance Jaffna By 2008, significant progress had been made in clearing the large high-density minefields in areas accessible to civilians. Those that remain (and the HSZs) are imposing severe constraints on the amount of land available for cultivation and access for fishing. With Jaffna’s already high population-density expected to increase - as many long-term IDPs who had been displaced to the Vanni, return to their areas of origin – so might the rate of accidents rise once again. Clearance of the remaining minefields is vital for future development. The Vanni (Kilinochchi, Mullaittivu, Mannar and Vavuniya) The level of landmine contamination in recently ‘liberated’ areas is currently unknown. The mine contamination from earlier eras of the conflict (pre 2002 ceasefire) continues to pose a significant threat, while the contamination from the latter period of the war is more likely to be from Unexploded Ordnance (UXO). In other words the recent spate of fighting has simply superimposed further contamination onto that which already existed before. Mines and UXO contamination are cited as the major obstacle for resettlement. This need not necessarily be so. The East (Batticaloa and Trincomalee) In 2007-2008, after government forces regained control of large areas previously occupied by the LTTE, the Government prioritized emergency demining as part of its “re-awakening of the East”. Clearance operations were largely directed by a timeframe to support resettlement, and great swathes of land were subject to Battle Area Clearance (BAC), but not necessarily mineclearance. A significantly lesser number of minefields remain here than in the north. National mines database Until May 2009, UNDP maintained the Sri Lanka Mined Area Database using the Information System for Mine Action (IMSMA) as the base model. Management of the database has since been transferred to the Ministry of Nation Building and Estate Infrastructure Development (MNB&EID). Records held for more recent areas of conflict are out of date, and need to be clarified through field survey.
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