Crossing the Divide - Landmines, Villagers and Organizations report launched in Bangkok

(Thursday 02 October 2003 Brussels, Belgium) On 18 September 2003, the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO), Handicap International Belgium (HIB) and UNICEF launched "Crossing the Divide - Landmines, Villagers and Organizations," a report by Ruth Bottomley.

The launch took place during the Fifth Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty. About 100 people attended, including representatives of donor countries, ICBL members, UN agencies, as well as journalists.

Crossing the Divide looks at the issue of village demining in Cambodia. The main message of the report is that the presence of village deminers forces us to acknowledge that, rather than being passive victims, communities affected by landmines are in fact active subjects, dealing with their own local situations on their own terms.

All over the world, in countries affected by conflict, men and women are forced to develop strategies to combat the threat of landmines and unexploded ordnance. Drawing on more than a year of field research and an analysis of development interventions, risk and livelihood strategies, Crossing the Divide examines both the phenomenon of villagers in Cambodia who take landmine clearance into their own hands and the relationship between their efforts and the broader mine action programme of the international community.

While their activities often sit uncomfortably with the interventions of humanitarian mine action, village deminers demonstrate a clear understanding of the nature of the threats confronting them and the limitations and benefits of the work they undertake. Crossing the Divide explores the methods, priorities and motivations of these people in an effort to better explain the nature of the threat of landmines as perceived by people living in contaminated areas. The questions asked in this study contain lessons that are relevant for all mine action practitioners, donor organizations and mine-affected countries, and have implications for the very way in which mine action programmes are organized and prioritized.

The full report is available on the PRIO website.

For more information or to obtain a hard copy of the report, please contact Stan Brabant at Handicap International Belgium.