may no longer lead the world in land mine victims, but the explosives
placed by antigovernment rebels are still sowing tragedy, especially
among the poor peasants and ex-combatants recruited to manually
eradicate coca plants.
The pain is especially acute in this small coffee-growing town in western
where recruiters for the eradication teams have focused their efforts.
Ten local men have been killed and 30 wounded by mines since the
program started in 2005. That’s 7 percent of the 547 residents who
signed up, according to city officials.
Several victims told the Los Angeles Times last
month that they have been abandoned by the national government and the
private contractors hired to recruit the teams and that they receive no
disability or medical benefits. City Attorney
The upshot is that what once seemed a blessing to those who grabbed at the jobs as a way to double the typical farm wage of
Part of the problem stems from the fact that the
national government used intermediary firms to recruit and,
technically, employ the workers, confusing those who want to bring
grievances.
“We went in high spirits, feeling like we were doing something positive for
38, who was disabled by severe back and knee injuries when a mine
exploded as he cleared coca in 2006. “But since I got screwed up, the
government has turned its back on me and I feel useless.”
The last two years have been especially dangerous
for eradicators, with 128 killed or wounded by mines or stray bullets.
That’s nearly five times the toll of 27 killed and wounded in 2006-07,
according to statistics provided by the Colombian president’s office.
Fanning out across the nation, the eradicators work
in teams of 30, using long metal rods to pull up the coca bushes, whose
leaves are used to produce cocaine. The ground crews complement an
aerial fumigation effort. Last year, plants covering 425,000 acres were
killed by aerial and manual teams in a program partially funded by the
U.S. government.
Most of the land mines have been planted by the
leftist rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or
FARC, to protect their bases and transit routes, or in the coca fields
to discourage eradication. The bombs are often tied to the plants’
roots, detonating when the plants are lifted.
The rebel group controls most of the cocaine trade
from crop to export, U.S. officials say, and it plants the mines to
protect its supply of coca, which is grown by farmers committed to
selling to FARC labs.
“They send (the eradicators) out with an armed
forces escort, which uses metal detectors and bomb-sniffing dogs to try
to disarm the mines,” said
of the Colombian Campaign Against Landmines, a victims advocacy group.
“But obviously something is not working as well as it should.”
Army officers said the mines can be difficult to
detect because they are made with plastic and wood instead of metal.
The dogs are confused because the rebels disguise the smell of the
explosives with materials such as coffee grounds. The FARC was taught
by the Basque militant group ETA and the Irish Republican Army how to
make mines from easily obtainable chemicals, the officers said.
Jimenez noted that one-third of the eradicators killed or wounded by mines were from
and other rural parts of Caldas state, a reflection of the heavy
recruiting here by the firm Empleamos and other contractors hired by
the government.
One of last year’s worst explosions, in a field being cleared in Tibu in northeastern
The discouraging situation in
contrasts with a more heartening one nationwide. Last year, the land
mine toll was 632 hurt or killed, down from a record 1,178 in 2006.
Jimenez said the decline probably stemmed from more
awareness thanks to education programs directed at rural residents and
from fewer mines planted by the FARC in populated areas, possibly as a
result of the outrage generated by the deaths of children.
Last month, the Japanese government donated two mine-clearing machines to
machine, which resembles a retooled steam shovel, can clear in a day
what it takes manual teams three weeks to do, Japanese Ambassador
Tatsumaro Terazawa said at a ceremony at Fort Tolemaida, a military
base about 60 miles south of
the capital. But the machines, which weigh several tons, are of little
use to eradication teams that are sent to hilly, largely inaccessible
terrain.
Terazawa said
“We see how land mines cause so much pain and tears
in this beautiful country,” Terazawa told the crowd of government and
military officials at the ceremony. “We want those tears to turn to
smiles again.”
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