In one-third of the world's countries, a misstep can mean a lost leg-to a land mine. Planted during an ongoing conflict or a war long since over, these invisible weapons lurk, ready to explode at any time. NOVA's unprecedented access to the elusive Khmer Rouge in Cambodia reveals the ease of laying mines and the difficulty and danger of clearing them.
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00:00Tonight on NOVA, Landmines.
00:07These weapons are designed not to kill people, but to inflict incredible pain and suffering.
00:13NOVA gains unprecedented access to the Khmer Rouge and documents their deadly campaign to mine the jungles of Cambodia.
00:21Now, an international team fights back. Can they find and destroy these unseen enemies before it's too late?
00:28Terror in the minefields.
00:39Funding for NOVA is provided by Raytheon.
00:43With a dedication to technology, Raytheon is a major builder of oil refineries and power plants all over the world.
00:51Raytheon. Expect great things.
00:55And by Merck.
00:58Pharmaceutical research. Improving health. Extending life.
01:03Merck. Committed to bringing out the best in medicine.
01:07Major funding for NOVA is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by annual financial support from viewers like you.
01:16The End
01:18The End
01:31Beneath the fertile fields of Cambodia lie millions of hidden killers.
01:37The enduring legacy of war in a nation that is rarely known peace.
01:43They are landmines. Simple and cheap, but devastatingly effective.
01:48Undisturbed, this mine can last for over a century, armed and ready to explode the moment it stepped on.
01:56Every day, mine clearers risked their lives to find and neutralize these weapons.
02:06These three mines took a day to find.
02:09And there are eight to ten millions still in the ground.
02:22Cambodia has a mine for every man, woman and child.
02:27Each year, thousands are maimed or killed as they go about their daily business.
02:32This country is one of the hardest hit.
02:35But fully a third of the world's nations are mined.
02:39And civilians pay the cost.
02:41This has gotten so out of control.
02:44When you have nearly a hundred million landmines that are armed and ready to go off in over 60 countries.
02:52Can anybody stand here and say, we have control of this?
02:56Or it's being used responsibly?
02:58In Cambodia, makeshift camps house people driven from their villages by the internal fighting that plagues this country.
03:11But although the refugees may have escaped the fighting, they have not escaped the dangers of landmines.
03:18Each new day brings with it the risk of stepping on a mine as they search for food, water and firewood.
03:28We ran over here because the Khmeru shelled us all the time.
03:34I came here with my son-in-law who has his leg cut off.
03:37And my daughter who is an amputee.
03:42To be honest with you, I am a widow.
03:45We don't have anything to eat.
03:47We earn a living by digging and catching farm crabs and snails and clams for exchanging for rice on the market.
03:53The accident happened when my daughter went out to collect firewood to trade for rice.
04:01On the way she stepped on a mine.
04:03It blew up her leg.
04:05It cut it off right here.
04:06I went out to collect firewood to buy rice.
04:17I went out every day with other people.
04:19I collected wood and sold the day's firewood for 60 cents to people from Batambang who came with the truck.
04:25To make less than a dollar, this girl lost her foot.
04:35Like many Cambodians, she knew the danger but had no other choice.
04:40One out of 236 Cambodians have lost a limb to a land mine.
04:45I appeal to people not to make more land mines and send them to Cambodia because they cause us a lot of trouble.
04:56Please.
04:57Not paying any concerns.
05:06In this society, amputees are often outcasts.
05:09Seen as unwhole, both morally and physically impaired.
05:12impaired.
05:23To make matters worse, this is a country with widespread poverty and few social services.
05:30Most amputees are forced to beg.
05:41This is one of the few places where landmine victims can find work.
05:46The Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, or VBAF, has set up workshops to make artificial
05:52limbs for the war injured of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.
05:57In fact, VBAF was the first organization ever to hire handicapped workers in Cambodia.
06:05Today, Bobby Muller, the VBAF Executive Director, is here on an inspection mission.
06:12In a single month, this workshop fits 145 legs.
06:19Making artificial limbs is one of the country's few growth industries.
06:26Most of the materials come from local sources.
06:33The skills these workers have learned will be valuable for decades to come, as long as
06:40landmines remain in the ground.
06:45I think more about Cambodia than I do about Vietnam.
06:52And obviously, I fought a war in Vietnam.
06:56I was there as a Marine officer.
06:57I got shot, almost died, but this place has marked me more.
07:03And I will tell you that I had an easy injury to live with.
07:07Because I don't have the continuing pain and the suffering that my friends, who lost their
07:31legs because of landmines, have.
07:33The guys that I know, that lost their legs, are in recurring pain, have had multiple operations,
07:42and have suffered more than, maybe with the exception of the burden cases, any other kind
07:47of casualty that I know from the war.
07:50People need to understand that these weapons are designed to create this kind of injury.
07:56They're designed not to kill people, but to inflict this kind of incredible pain and suffering.
08:02The specific difficulties of dealing with a mine injury relate really to the, quite simply,
08:07to the volume of tissue that's destroyed and contaminated.
08:11Most people that step on a buried antipersonnel mine will have traumatic amputation of a foot
08:18or a leg.
08:19That is, the foot or leg is simply blown away.
08:21With that, mud, grass, bits of his foot, boot, are then blown up into his, usually his other
08:27leg, his genitals, perhaps his abdomen, his arms.
08:30And all this material has to be surgically removed.
08:34And with it, the tissue that's in contact with the, with the contaminated material.
08:41Here at Mongol Burai Hospital, new mine victims arrive every day.
08:47What kind of mine did you step on?
08:50The mine was a green one, because I saw the mine next to it.
08:53It had a top that was black with a plus sign.
09:08I want to talk about the type of wound.
09:10The left leg has multiple shrapnel wounds.
09:13The right leg had also multiple wounds, but the foot was blown away.
09:18Also, the upper part, below the knee, was badly wounded.
09:25The better amputation would be above the knee, but we wanted to preserve as much of the
09:30leg as possible, so we amputated here, left as much as we could.
09:34Mines have been planted by every side.
09:47The former state of Cambodia laid mines.
09:49The Khmer Rouge laid mines.
09:51The jungle men of the resistance laid mines.
09:53And now our armed forces also planted these kinds of mines.
09:57No one marks the minefields, and that soldier paid the price.
10:03Losing a leg to a land mine laid by his own government.
10:10What kind of mine were you injured by?
10:13A green one.
10:14A PMN2.
10:16And what were you doing in that area?
10:20I was clearing Khmer Rouge mines.
10:23So you were demining?
10:25No.
10:26I was clearing the mines so we could advance.
10:29In order to advance, you have to remove the mines.
10:32In Cambodia, over 26 kinds of mines have been found in the ground.
10:39But Cambodia is not a manufacturer.
10:45Mines here come mainly from the former Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Vietnam, Belgium and China.
10:53World War II saw the rise of the anti-personnel mine, laid by the millions, to prevent removal of large anti-tank mines.
11:06In battle, mine clearing is done quickly, to get to the enemy as soon as possible.
11:13Destroying only 80% of the mines is considered good enough.
11:19And the resulting casualties are accepted as the cost of war.
11:23Since World War II, mine technology has changed dramatically.
11:30But mine detection has not.
11:34The tools remain the same.
11:38But the dangers are much greater.
11:41Nowadays, some mines are made almost entirely of plastic, containing barely enough metal to be picked up by even a well-maintained detector.
11:54Mine experts now have over 150 types of mines to keep track of.
11:59Probably the most common mine found in the world today is still the PMN.
12:03This is a mine that's made by the former Soviet Union and a number of other countries.
12:09It's a pressure-initiated mine, and it has a significant amount of explosives in it, more than you might realize.
12:16There is an arming delay that actually fires a little sharp striker into the middle of the mine, and it's held in place by a little gate.
12:25And when you push down on the top, that gate is freed, allowing the striker to fly the rest of the way through, hitting a detonator that comes in from this end.
12:39I see you have a very simple device that is extremely reliable and very, very hazardous to people.
12:44There's about 200 grams of explosive in this device.
12:47And that's enough to cause more than just a simple injury to a foot.
12:52It causes massive trauma to your entire leg, generally from the knee region down.
12:57The most common anti-personnel mine in Komodo today is the PMN-2.
13:01It is found in the millions.
13:04The mine has just over 100 grams of explosive in it.
13:08It's a second generation anti-personnel mine in the sense that the PMN, which is an earlier Soviet mine, contained more explosive.
13:18And they discovered, amazingly, that the mine was killing people rather than maiming them.
13:24So what they did was that they reduced the quantity of explosive.
13:27And the result is the PMN-2, which genuinely, generally rather, results in a below the knee amputation.
13:36Most of these can be scattered by hand or they can be scattered by helicopter systems, with the exception of this one mine.
13:43But you can see how it's an appealing variety of shapes and colors.
13:46The sizes all fit easily within a hand, and it really lures children to play with these.
13:52And I've actually seen, even though the children know better, I've seen them pick this mine up.
13:58It works with a little hydrostatic pressure fuse that's right here in the middle and then a little bulk of liquid explosive.
14:05So you can sometimes safely pick this mine up and actually flip it against something like a rock wall and you get quite a satisfying explosion out of it.
14:15The next sort of logical step to take an anti-personnel mine that has a fragmentation effect is rather than leaving it close to the ground,
14:24spraying the fragments out at ground levels to make the mine jump up in the air.
14:28And that's where you get the category of mines called a bounding fragmentation mine or a bouncing Betty.
14:33And usually in this category of mine you have a little bit better fuse.
14:38Instead of just a simple trip wire, which this one can certainly have, you have a fuse that will also act on pressure.
14:44So you can either step on this mine if you have this little dome just barely sticking out of the ground, or you can attach trip lines to it.
14:51Most of them are optimized so that the fragments hit in your groin area where your big bleeding arteries are.
14:57Another twist or innovation that we're seeing is taking devices like this, which is a minefield control device, and it uses seismic sensors.
15:09In this case a simple geophone very much like is used in the oil industry.
15:13And what this system does is it analyzes for about 15 to 40 meters around this device, listening if you will, to footsteps.
15:22And essentially it decides when five good footsteps occur, and then it electrically detonates any of, say, five bounding fragmentation mines that are placed around it.
15:33So what you end up with here is essentially an ambush that you can create, say, at a road site or road intersection that's waiting for people to go by.
15:41And it will indiscriminately start firing mines off when it decides that five good footsteps happen.
15:46The latest innovation is the so-called smart mine, designed to self-destruct after a specified length of time.
15:55A typical minefield can cover several square miles.
15:59A century after the mines have been laid, they can still be active, fighting the battle of a long gone war.
16:09Smart mines are designed to change that by self-destructing within a few weeks.
16:15But 10 to 20 percent failure rates are common, leaving live mines in the ground.
16:20That means that someone hoping to use the land is still at risk.
16:25If you tell me that there is a failure rate of one in a thousand, and I have a minefield that runs for three square miles,
16:34and I estimate, using all my little calculuses, that there's probably 2,000 mines out there,
16:39somewhere out there in those 2,000 mines are two that are going to kill me.
16:43Manufacturers of these so-called smart mines will admit that up to 10 percent malfunction, and that's a conservative estimate.
16:49There are other experts in the field who reckon that even up to 50 percent of so-called smart mines do not function as they're prescribed to,
16:57which is self-neutralizing and self-destruct.
16:59Consequently, you've still got a lethal package of explosive with an igniter system, with a detonation system in the ground or in the bushes,
17:10ready for a hoe to hit it, a cow to step on it, a child to throw it, or someone to tamper with it.
17:16You're still leaving packages of explosive devices in civilian areas long after wars have ended.
17:24These Cambodians are on the front line of the war on mines.
17:32They are the scouts, the first people to venture into territories that may be mined.
17:38Today, they're taking a refresher course.
17:41They can't be reminded often enough of the risks they face.
17:53CMAC, the Cambodian Mines Action Center, is the only Cambodian agency tackling the problem.
18:00Their first priority is to map and mark the minefields.
18:07CMAC estimates that over half of Cambodia is mined.
18:13The agency is short on money and manpower, and has the tough job of choosing which areas to clear first.
18:25When the report of an explosion first comes in, CMAC immediately enters the information into its growing database of mined areas.
18:38Most of these demining problems are not a one-year or two-year problem.
18:42They're a 15- or 20-year problem as a minimum.
18:45So a national indigenous institution is absolutely, totally mandatory.
18:50It reflects the government's will to address the mine problem.
18:55As soon as a new minefield is located, usually because someone got hurt, CMAC deminers are sent to clear the area.
19:05Each yellow stake marks a mine that has been destroyed.
19:10The deminer probes forward, carefully checking every inch of land to avoid detonating a mine accidentally.
19:19Because this PMN-2 is partially burned, it could explode at the slightest touch.
19:26The workers stand clear while several mines are destroyed.
19:31To a demining organization, whether I clear a hundred mines or I clear a thousand mines, the amount of effort is virtually identical.
19:47What really matters is the amount of land that I make available for other use.
19:52I think that's the key.
19:54So much farmland has been abandoned that a country that was once a major rice exporter is struggling to feed itself.
20:10The first organization to try to tackle this problem was Halo Trust, a group of British former military officers.
20:20Halo often finds that clear, safe farmland has been abandoned simply because the approach to it was so heavily mined.
20:29This road, the Halo Trusty mined and we pulled out something like 300 mines from the road on which I'm now standing.
20:39Consequently, although the area behind me wasn't mined, there was no way you could get to it.
20:44So ground which could have been farmed was denied.
20:51In this area we found hundreds of PMN-2s and coming up to a hundred POMZs.
21:03There is no way of knowing how many more are still in the ground.
21:10Once the metal detector has picked up a signal, the deminer begins to probe into the ground at a thirty degree angle, hoping to hit the side of the mine.
21:19If he accidentally hits the top, the mine will detonate and is likely to lose his hands, perhaps an arm, even his face.
21:29Firstly, the probe to determine exactly where the thing is.
21:32And then he'll use the trowel to take away the soil to expose enough of the mine for us to determine what it is and to place a charge successfully,
21:43such that we can guarantee it will be destroyed.
21:46It's rather like, it's been described as a combination between archaeology and landscape gardening.
21:52A lot of men working very laboriously.
21:54Right, what you can see here are PMN-2s, which are mines of Soviet manufacture.
22:01There come six in a box, and here you can see one, two, three, four, five, six.
22:08So that's obviously very reassuring.
22:10Right, these mines have been placed with a pressure pad uppermost, which is how they're designed to be used.
22:16In order to counter the chance of demining happening covertly,
22:23mines, instead of being placed with a pressure pad uppermost, are placed on their side,
22:27such that when the mine is detected,
22:32the prodder comes in and instead of hitting the hard Bakelite side of the mine,
22:35it hits the area on top of the mine and causes it to detonate.
22:39People talk about Northwest Cambodia being one of the most densely mined areas of the world,
22:43but this is it.
22:45TNT is the deminer's counterattack.
22:55Each type of mine requires a specific amount of explosive to make sure it's destroyed, not just dislodged.
23:03Cambodia's landmine problem has been created by a quarter century of war.
23:15In the 1970s, Pol Pot's communist Khmer Rouge launched a cultural revolution that killed at least one million Cambodians,
23:24from starvation, disease and murder.
23:36One Khmer Rouge slogan.
23:38To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss.
23:43The fall of the Khmer Rouge did not bring peace.
23:50Another decade of war caused millions more mines to be laid by all sides.
23:55In 1993, the UN supervised elections.
24:02Noradam Sianuk was restored as a constitutional monarch.
24:07The king has called for an end to mine warfare.
24:11The Khmer Rouge continue to fight.
24:15These are Khmer Rouge troops in western Cambodia, near the Thai border.
24:23They call themselves the National Army of Democratic Kampuchea, DK for short.
24:30They have no shortage of weapons, which are supplied to them by the Chinese.
24:40Surprisingly, the Khmer Rouge agreed to let NOVA film this training course on mine laying.
24:46This is an old mine that our army captured.
24:53They grabbed these mines from the Vietnamese occupying forces.
24:57We took them from the enemy base and replanted them.
25:01This mine only injures one person at a time.
25:07If this mine is laid in the ground and there is a forest fire, will it explode?
25:11Yes. If fire reaches the ignition clip, it will explode.
25:15And if fire does not reach the ignition clip, it won't.
25:22When you bury this drum mine, you bury it up to the edge of the drum and bury it in the ground.
25:32This Type 69 mine, when it explodes, it will jump up half a meter and it can wound many people.
25:39This type of mine.
25:44Neither the Khmer Rouge nor the government forces mark their minefields, even when they are using them in a traditional military sense, to block pursuit by the enemy.
25:55More often than not, mines are simply an effective terror weapon against the civilian population.
26:05Here, an anti-tank mine is being planted.
26:08Not to destroy enemy tanks, but to ensure that commercial timber cutters pay their so-called taxes.
26:14The system is simple.
26:18Pay us money and we will show you where the mines are.
26:24The anti-tank mine fuse is normally set so that it will only explode if something as heavy as a tank rolls over it.
26:39The fuse can be adjusted so that the mine will explode under the weight of a truck, but it can just as easily be detonated by the thin wheel of a farmer's loaded cart.
26:53Even as the Khmer Rouge lay their mines, this humanitarian team prepares for yet another day of mine clearing.
27:10This is MAG, the mine's advisory group.
27:17It is run by former British explosive specialists who supervise Cambodian deminers.
27:23The equipment and manpower required for demining makes it expensive.
27:30It can cost as much as $1,000 to find and destroy a mine that may have cost only $3 to buy.
27:40Each mine detector must be checked with a standard test block containing slightly less metal than the least metallic mine.
27:52The team heads out to a nearby commune to clear it of mines.
28:00Heading the operation is Norman Stewart.
28:02And then what's happening at the moment? The DK are out there and they're putting more mines down to protect themselves as they're moving back.
28:09We've just heard an area that CMAC cleared has been remined.
28:12And what I'm going to do is I'm going to go and get that commune back to square one, which is clear area, as quick as I can get a team up there.
28:21Because then it just laughs in the face of the DK.
28:25You want to do this. Do it.
28:26But if I'm around and I've got my teams around and we can do something positive, we'll give it straight back to the commune and we'll take all your mines and destroy them.
28:34Please go and buy more. I'm sure you can get more supply to you.
28:37But you keep giving them to us. We'll keep destroying them.
28:40And that way we reduce the problem all the time.
28:42Part of what makes mine clearing hard is the large number of false alarms.
28:49This signal could be from a rock, a metal fragment, the spent bullet of a past battle, or a live landmine.
29:01Whatever it is, the deminer marks the spot and waits for his partner to come forward to figure out what's really there.
29:08What's really there?
29:38After ten minutes of careful probing, he finds the source of the signal.
29:58It's only a spent bullet.
30:00But at least they have cleared one more square foot of land.
30:11Despite the apparent tedium of the work, security is a constant concern.
30:19The team is always on high alert for danger.
30:22Not just from landmines, but from guerrilla units in the area.
30:30The Khmer Rouge, or DK patrol, has kidnapped five people and is moving toward the deminers.
30:52The danger is suddenly very real.
30:54Do you want to go?
30:55Yes, we cannot stay here.
30:58We can't stay here.
31:00Because ten Khmer Rouge close the road is not far from here, three kilometers from here.
31:04I think this Khmer Rouge is very good from the local people.
31:10One seat now.
31:12My Bravo 1 1, my Bravo 3, my Bravo 1.
31:15We move we get the equipment we go in the vehicles and we go we've got that's
31:35Cabal Kla in the distance it's about three kilometers from here there's 10
31:39DK being seen in that area walking across the roads we don't stay they come
31:43in this direction so we'll move for the safety of you and for safety of the men
31:47and we'll go up to Taqli M to our other site and we'll work up there yeah if
31:51there's more to be done let's go
32:13okay let's not have this chicken at me let's just do it nice and calmly
32:26meanwhile the Khmer Rouge unit on the western border of Cambodia continues to
32:39lay their minds this time to make sure government soldiers can't pursue them
32:44this is a T69 bounding fragmentation mine designed to jump up in the air before
32:55it explodes to maximize the injury it inflicts
33:25this unit will move on without marking or removing the mine it will remain
33:48here ready to explode until some unsuspecting soldier or civilian trips the
33:53wire and pays the price
34:02in their ongoing battle to clear the land the Magdi miners have moved to what
34:07they hope will be safer ground
34:09but with Khmer Rouge patrols active Martin Jordan checks the radio security net
34:22my brother to we have nothing firm on that so far they've already gathered some
34:27information about this site basically we got from local information we've got two
34:32large features across here two mountain features and they're basically a good
34:35crossing point from Khmer Rouge and we're getting more local information all the
34:39while where there's more mines it's not particularly much the minefields we have
34:43here it's like one mine one one one one one one in a Pacific pattern but it's
34:46just clumps here there's clumps of mines there clumps of mines here all over the place
34:50the type of soil here makes their job even harder
34:54later right soil is high in iron and that creates background noise for metal detectors
35:04the result is that a land mine can be easy to miss today they hear bad news the mind area is more
35:14extensive than they thought room mining yesterday boys came through here with
35:20cows and a cow stepped on a mine and blew up by that tree over there to go up each
35:26amount to move now that was a PMD six a wooden box mine yeah PMD six okay so I
35:36have a great job to work at a cream on coal maveni okay start here start working up here tomorrow
35:44go down there bring everything out and then we come back up here you lead us in tomorrow I come
35:49with you anyway you lead in there and we start there the mag team is anxious to get this area
35:56cleared right away cow herders typically children in Cambodia frequently pass through they just thought
36:05it was no problem to walk through there because they're herding their cows a lot of them are
36:08returnees to this area and they've brought the cows with them they're in new areas they just don't
36:11know where the mines are no sooner has the team gotten to work than a new report surfaces of a
36:20Khmer Rouge unit nearby said it's all forest so you you can't see where they're coming from they can
36:27come anywhere in there local people have been told that they're going to do an attack around this
36:32area and and and that one of their targets is to get the D minus here although it's early in the
36:43day the mag team has to head for home they must be off the roads before evening falls each night
36:54government forces remind the roads to keep the Khmer Rouge from moving
36:59on the day Nova filmed with this DK unit they were about to learn how to use one of the deadliest mines
37:20around designed to make mine clearing harder the T-72 Bravo this is how to lay this Chinese
37:29mine first of all we pull the pin and put it in the ground and wait for five minutes then it is
37:34armed we can bury this mine by itself or we can put it with other mines and they will all explode
37:40before the demonstration the instructor makes sure to disarm the mine this is the touch and explode mine
37:52here's what's inside this mine it's called the tricky mine from the outside it looks just like its sister land mine the T-72 Alpha but inside there's a critical difference as the instructor explains it has an anti handling device that means that if someone picks it up or even touches it with a mine probe it will explode
38:16it's made by China North industries a huge arms manufacturer owned by the Chinese military
38:25for many years China provided mines by the hundreds of thousands to the Khmer Rouge but this land mine is not purely a Chinese product
38:36where is this type of mine made it's made in China what about this part ah this part here these things are made by an American company the American company is Motorola the company claims it does not knowingly sell these multipurpose microchips to China for use in landmines
38:59in any case Motorola violated no laws but a move is afoot to regulate sales of this type
39:08for the people of Cambodia it matters little where the parts or even the mines come from
39:18the overwhelming majority would like to keep all landmines out of their country
39:27only half of all people who step on a mine actually survived the blast it takes at least a few months for the victims wounds to heal enough to come to a clinic like this to be fitted with an artificial limb
39:43throughout his life this man will have to return here many times because simple wear and tear and changes in the shape of his leg will require a new limb at least every two years
40:04women are particularly hard hit by these injuries their chances for marriage are slim which often leaves them with no source of support
40:17patients visiting this clinic for the first time begin the painful process of learning to walk again
40:24over the course of a few weeks they practice negotiating more and more difficult obstacles
40:29by the time they leave the hope is that they will be able to resume their normal activities
40:40but these people will be in pain for the rest of their lives
40:44and the cost of the limbs and the therapy is enormous
40:47the economic and human cost of landmines has prompted the United States to confront the problem
41:04in a first step US special forces have been sent to Cambodia to train local soldiers to clear mines and teach mine awareness
41:11Cambodia is the test case of this new US strategy
41:18Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Pat Irvin is here to look at the fledgling program for the first time
41:25Cambodia as you probably know is really our first up and running
41:29landmine program and I
41:32I wanted to go to see how the program was being run
41:35to see first hand myself what it was like and how our troops felt about it and so forth
41:42I also wanted to get a flavor of the effect of the landmine problem on the people there in Cambodia
41:48These are some of the most commonly used landmines
41:54and today these children are being encouraged to memorize their appearance
41:58Many children have died simply because they did not understand the dangers
42:11After this class, if they see a landmine, they'll know enough to stay away from it
42:16One of the scenarios that I've documented is one where the father saw what the son had
42:27A two-year-old kid, he told them to drop it right now, drop it
42:31The child dropped it and exploded, killed them both
42:33Next, Irvin inspects the minefield used to train Cambodian soldiers
42:50This is just a mock minefield
42:56No ma'am, no, that's just it, that's why he needs to be so very careful
43:04The trip wire is still late
43:06Oh, okay, you can see what it looks like late in
43:09But no, if he, uh, if he exerts enough pressure on that trip wire
43:15The U.S. instructors would prefer to work with these Cambodian soldiers in live minefields
43:20But U.S. policy prevents them
43:22The American public is, is very sensitive about where we send our soldiers
43:29And we're aware of that in our office
43:32Probably the, the worst thing that could happen is if
43:36One of our troops was killed as a result of engaging in a training program such as this
43:43Ultimately, improved detection technologies may be more helpful than training
43:53For the U.S. Army to maintain the mobility of its dismounted forces in any future conflict
43:59They must be equipped with a portable mine detector capable of detecting both metallic and non-metallic mines
44:05Presently, U.S. ground forces do not have the capability to detect buried non-metallic mines in order to avoid and or neutralize them
44:14We have no scientific way to go in and say we found a mine
44:19What we try to do is, is to, to fuse two or three different approaches together
44:24Such as an IR detection and a microwave detection
44:28To say that we have a high probability of having found an object that's very much like a mine
44:32Let me show you an infrared camera, it's commercially available
44:36It works in the three to five micron region
44:39Essentially what it's doing is it's detecting the thermal signature of a mine that we have buried here in the sand mine lanes
44:49The infrared camera records the difference in temperature between the mine and the surrounding sand
44:55Creating the bright circular image
44:57What we're trying to do in our program is to fuse this type of device together with ground penetrating radars
45:05So that we will have a robust capability to detect mines at all times during the day and night time
45:12In Somalia in 1992, U.S. forces had a chance to test this equipment on a wide range of mines
45:19Although the tests were considered successful, the expense of such equipment puts it out of reach for poor countries
45:28Here in Virginia, contractors are testing ground penetrating radar
45:35Which requires skilled personnel and elaborate signal processing
45:40Both expensive
45:41In the jungles and rice paddies of Cambodia, it is questionable how well this equipment would work
45:49I have been witness to and have had demonstrated to me a host of high-tech, high-dollar solutions to the mine problem
45:56Everything including, you know, the stealth bomber using its radar systems to map countries
46:01That isn't something I'm going to be able to leave behind to an indigenous demining team in Cambodia
46:11Despite the economic and human cost of anti-personnel landmines
46:16Soldiers of many nations, including the United States, do not want to see this weapon banned
46:21The army argues that it uses mines responsibly and that they are too useful a weapon to abandon
46:34The Pentagon feels that it is still very important to have landmines to perform certain roles
46:40Which they believe cannot be as effectively performed by other weapons
46:43For example, in defending positions against enemy infiltration or attack
46:50Or when you go to the offensive, the use of landmines to control the movement of the enemy
46:56And to harass or cause casualties to the enemy force
47:00But some legislators argue that the cost of landmines to civilians outweighs their military benefit
47:07Senator Leahy authored a bill that banned the export of anti-personnel mines
47:13It passed unanimously
47:15I wanted to set an example from our country
47:18And I said that for a period of years we will not be able to sell landmines
47:24We will not be able to send and export landmines from the United States
47:28I wanted to demonstrate that we were willing to do this as the most powerful nation on earth
47:31So I could then go to other countries and say
47:35We set some moral leadership, will you follow us?
47:39Now he is trying to extend the ban internationally
47:42By halting the transfer of US military equipment to countries that still export landmines
47:47In a speech at the United Nations, President Clinton articulated the new US policy on landmines
48:02Mr. President, Mr. Secretary General, distinguished delegates
48:07Today I am proposing a first step for the eventual elimination of a less visible but still deadly threat
48:15The world's 85 million anti-personnel landmines
48:22One for every 50 people on the face of the earth
48:26I ask all nations to join with us and conclude an agreement to reduce the number and availability of those mines
48:35Here in Geneva, experts from many nations are meeting for the fourth time to revise the international treaty on conventional weapons
48:43Humanitarian agencies are hoping for the complete ban on the production, trade and use of landmines
48:56About 40 countries produce landmines while more than 60 are affected by them
49:02But few delegates will accept more than minor changes
49:05I think that we only have one thing which is absolutely clear and that is that all states agree that all anti-personal landmines should be detectable
49:20While these delegates talked, 120,000 mines were laid in Bosnia alone
49:25The fact is that we are not able now to negotiate a total prohibition
49:32Both because our military needs the mines for certain uses
49:36But even more important because other countries, particularly those with large mine stocks, simply will not consider it
49:41So we have to find some way to restrict the use of mines in the short run
49:46So that it doesn't have these effects upon the civilian population
49:50We really don't have any other choice
49:52I get so frustrated by politicians and military leaders in all countries
49:58Who on the one hand recognize the fact that most people in their own countries
50:04Want to get rid of landmines
50:06They realize that they are not helping their own security
50:08They are just killing innocent civilians and maiming children and non-combatants
50:16But then they go off to Geneva and they sit in nice restaurants and they sit around and talk
50:22And they say well we'll accept this and we'll accept that and we'll accept something else
50:26Until they've made the whole thing meaningless
50:29I wish some of these people who have to make the decisions on this
50:32Would have to meet in the middle of a field somewhere in Cambodia
50:36And each day it would be a different field
50:39And each day they'd have to find their way out to that field
50:43And talk about how they were going to get rid of landmines
50:47I tell you right now, the decision would be one heck of a lot different
50:51Than it might be in a plush boardroom at the United Nations
50:55Or in Geneva or here in Washington D.C.
50:58When I was out in a combat situation
51:00I would take anything without restraint
51:04To save my life and to kill the people that we were fighting
51:07You know, you gotta stop it before it hits the battlefield
51:10Because if it's available to people, it will be used
51:14But you still need to go upstream and you gotta stop it at the production level
51:18Because again, if it's produced and if it's put in circulation, it will be used
51:23That's just the reality of life
51:24The people most affected by mines live in countries like Cambodia
51:29That are least able to cope with them
51:31Only the wealthiest countries can afford massive demining
51:36Kuwait is the only country who has solved its landmine problem
51:42And I attribute that to the fact that it's the only country that has a landmine problem
51:47That also has the highest per capita income of anybody in the world
51:50They solve their landmine problem by spending hundreds of millions of dollars in private demining
51:55Now a Cambodia and a Nicaragua and a Mozambique can't afford that
52:04There are ways to restrict the use of landmines so that they will not present a serious risk to the civilian population
52:11However, they have been used in an indiscriminate way by other countries and in internal conflicts
52:17In a way that clearly is disproportionate to any military advantage
52:22So the question is how can we get countries and how can we get those who are involved in internal conflicts
52:28To comply with practices that will minimize the danger to civilians
52:34So that there isn't this kind of disproportionate suffering
52:37What you've got in the ground is going to continue to create casualties
52:41Is going to continue to kill and maim people until our children are dead
52:45It's going to go on for generations
52:48Even if you were to stop now
52:50You would have to live with the consequence of this weapon
52:54Killing and maiming thousands
52:56Probably hundreds of thousands
52:58For decades to come
52:59Killing and maiming thousands
53:00For decades to come
53:01Killing and maiming thousands
53:02For decades to come
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55:43Next time on NOVA, two killer quakes, exactly one year apart.
55:49In Japan, deaths in the thousands.
55:52In California, damage in the billions.
55:54Most frightening of all, the quakes happened at unlikely places.
55:58And chances are, they'll happen again.
56:01Are these seismic hotspots doomed?
56:04The day the Earth shook.
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