Saturday, 04 March 2000
.....
Once again landmines rear their ugly heads, and though the U.S. is sending troops to help clear them, we continue to show a lack of worldwide leadership by refusing to sign the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction.
Mozambique is one of the most heavily mined places on Earth, the legacy of a lengthy civil war in the 1980s and early 1990s. The rain and floods of the past month have submerged thousands of the deadly devices in the worst-hit Gaza province, where the Limpopo and Save rivers have spilled across vast stretches of land.
Moreover, hundreds of the buried weapons are believed to have been swept from positions that humanitarian groups had painstakingly plotted on maps during the past few years.
According to what I've heard, money is not the limiting factor in Mozambique relief, it's logistics; so my usual response, making a donation to the American Red Cross's International Response Fund will not do much good.
This is Submerged Landmines in Mozambique <http://monkeyfist.com/articles/308>