The worst weapons of war

The explosion, like most explosions, came unexpectedly. One moment, the thirsty Sri Lankan soldier was walking towards the well. The next, there was the roar of the landmine, and a giant invisible hand knocked him down.

"I tried to stand up, but couldn't," the 33-year-old soldier reminisces, "To my horror, I realised my left foot was missing.''

Sixteen-year-old Nirupama is another innocent victim. She stepped on an anti-personnel land mine, believed to have been planted by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (fighting for an independent homeland for Sri Lanka's minority Tamils), days after her family returned home to the war-ravaged northern Jaffna peninsula after living in a government refugee camp for nearly six months. Now, she has to limp through life with one leg.

Land mines, say Sri Lankan surgeon Dr Gamini Goonetilleke, are the worst weapons of war. "Long after the war is over, the victims will continue to suffer. It is a problem of the future,'' he says.

Mines do not distinguish between the footfall of a soldier and a child. And long after the fighting has stopped, these will continue to maim and kill peasants foraging for food and firewood or tilling fields.

Dr Goonetilleke said at least 3,000 soldiers and policemen have been permanently disabled by land and anti-personnel mines. ''The number of LTTE rebels and civilians who have been disabled is not known. But undoubtedly it is higher than those of the soldiers.''

Most victims are in the 18 to 30 age group. ''What the enemies want is to disable soldiers so that the liability to the State increases. Even if the war ends, these people will suffer and the state has to look after them,'' army rehabilitation director Brigadier Dudley Perera says.

For the young soldiers, returning to civilian life without an arm or leg is a painful experience. ''They feel useless without a limb. Their girlfriends leave them and our society in general is not tolerant to a disabled,'' Brigadier Perera says.

Sri Lanka uses Indian technology to manufacture the Jaipur foot, a prosthesis which suits local conditions better than those imported from the West.

According to Colombo-based Friend In Need Society, which custom- makes the Jaipur foot locally, a limb costs about $ 60, whereas an imported limb would cost more than $ 400.

With the ethnic conflict showing no signs of ending, Sri Lankans will continue to grapple with the trauma of war. Sri Lanka was not among the 92 countries which signed the global ban on land mines declaration in Brussels, Belgium, last week.

Every year, mines kill about 26,000 people around the world and maim thousands more. The four-day Brussels conference agreed to a treaty to ban the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of land mines. The treaty will be signed into law in Ottawa, Canada, in December.

UNI