<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Probably everyone has seen this already.</div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Though the article does not contain much information, this is an impressive achievement.</div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Someone asked me for details, but I have nothing more. </div><br></div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;display:inline">A</div>nyone?<br></div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">CS</div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><font face="Tahoma, sans-serif" color="#990000"><span style="font-size:10px"><b><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;display:inline"></div>=========================================</b></span></font></div><font face="Tahoma, sans-serif" color="#990000"><span style="font-size:10px"><b>CHUCK SEARCY</b></span></font><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><font face="Tahoma, sans-serif" color="#990000"><span style="font-size:10px"><b>International Advisor, Project RENEW</b></span></font></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><b style="font-size:10px;color:rgb(153,0,0);font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif">Vice President, Veterans For Peace Chapter 160</b><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><b style="font-size:10px;color:rgb(153,0,0);font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif">VN +8 490 342 0769</b><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><b style="color:rgb(153,0,0);font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif;font-size:10px">Sk chucksearcy</b><font face="Tahoma, sans-serif" color="#990000"><span style="font-size:10px"><b><br></b></span></font></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><font face="Tahoma, sans-serif" color="#990000"><span style="font-size:10px"><b>E <a href="mailto:chuckusvn@gmail.com" target="_blank">chuckusvn@gmail.com</a></b></span></font></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><b style="color:rgb(153,0,0);font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif;font-size:10px">=========================================</b><br></div></div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div><font face="georgia, serif" size="4"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/18/world/africa/after-22-years-of-work-mozambique-is-free-of-land-mine-peril.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0" target="_blank">New York Times</a></font></div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><div style="margin-bottom:20px"><h1 style="margin:0in 0in 6.25pt;background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial"><i><span style="font-size:16.5pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">After 22 Years of Work, Mozambique
<br>Is </span></i><i style="font-size:small"><span style="font-size:16.5pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">Free of Land Mine Peril</span></i></h1><div style="font-size:16px;border-top-width:1px;border-top-style:solid;border-top-color:rgb(226,226,226);padding-top:2px"><p style="margin:4px 45px 0px 0px;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.4375rem;font-family:georgia,'times new roman',times,serif;float:left"><span style="font-size:0.6875rem;line-height:0.75rem;font-weight:700;font-family:nyt-cheltenham-sh,georgia,'times new roman',times,serif">By <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/rick_gladstone/index.html" rel="author" title="More Articles by RICK GLADSTONE" style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(0,0,0)" target="_blank"><span>RICK GLADSTONE</span></a></span>SEPT. 17, 2015</p></div></div><div style="margin-bottom:45px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,'times new roman',times,serif;font-size:16px"><div style="float:none;clear:none"><br><div style="margin-bottom:7px;width:auto"><img src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/09/18/world/18mozambique-watching/18mozambique-master675.jpg" alt="" style="display:block;margin-right:0px" width="452" height="301"></div><div style="margin-bottom:7px;width:auto"><span style="color:rgb(153,153,153);font-size:0.6875rem;line-height:1rem;font-family:nyt-cheltenham-sh,georgia,'times new roman',times,serif;width:1px;min-height:1px;padding:0px;border:0px;overflow:hidden">Credit</span><span style="color:rgb(153,153,153);font-size:0.6875rem;line-height:1rem;font-family:nyt-cheltenham-sh,georgia,'times new roman',times,serif">Joao Silva/The New York Times</span><br></div><div style="margin-bottom:7px;width:auto"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:12pt">Once contaminated with
tens of thousands of land mines from a legacy of war, </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(51,51,51);text-decoration:none"><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/mozambique/index.html?inline=nyt-geo" title="More news and information about Mozambique." style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Georgia,serif" target="_blank">Mozambique</a> </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Georgia,serif">was
officially declared cleansed of those weapons on Thursday after 22 years of
work.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom:7px;width:auto">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Georgia,serif">The achievement,
celebrated at an event in the capital, Maputo, was considered especially
remarkable by disarmament advocates. Some had regarded Mozambique as so riddled
with land mines that clearing them would perhaps take centuries.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Georgia,serif">A few decades ago, “many
doubted that clearance could be completed in a timely fashion — or that it
would take hundreds of years,” said Megan Burke, director of the <a href="http://www.icbl.org/en-gb/home.aspx" title="Link to group's website." target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-decoration:none">International
Campaign to Ban Landmines — Cluster Munition Coalition</span></a>, a leading
advocacy group.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Georgia,serif">Most of the clearance
work was done by the Halo Trust, a Scotland-based international organization
that helps former conflict zones cleanse themselves of land mines and other
vestiges of war that can kill and maim long after the combat has stopped. Teams
are still at work, for example, clearing World War I battlefields of unexploded
ordnance.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Georgia,serif">Overall, Halo said in
a <a href="http://halotrust.org/where-we-work/mozambique" title="Link to statement." target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-decoration:none">statemen</span></a>t, its workers cleared more than
171,000 land mines from Mozambique in a decontamination project that began in
1993, accounting for about 80 percent of the total destroyed.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Georgia,serif">Destruction of the
last-known land mine took place Wednesday and was witnessed by Cindy McCain,
the chairwoman of Halo U.S.A., the group’s American branch, and the wife of
Senator John McCain of Arizona. She said in a statement that the destruction
symbolized the end of a dark era for Mozambique, “once strewn with the deadly
debris of war.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Georgia,serif">A former Portuguese
colony, Mozambique was consumed by conflict for decades, first in a war of
independence and then a civil war that lasted until 1992 and left about a
million people dead.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Georgia,serif">While the casualties from
leftover land mines in Mozambique have not been calculated, Human Rights Watch
said in a 1994 report that more than 10,000 people had been killed or maimed by
these weapons in just the first few years of peace.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Georgia,serif">Under an international
treaty banning land mines, known as the Ottawa Convention, stockpiling,
production and transfer of antipersonnel mines is forbidden. <a href="http://the-monitor.org/en-gb/reports/2014/landmine-monitor-2014/status-of-the-convention.aspx" title="More information about which countries have accepted the treaty." target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-decoration:none">Most countries
have accepted</span></a> the treaty. At least 30 countries have not,
including the big powers China, Russia and the United States.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Georgia,serif">In June 2014, the Obama
administration put the United States on a course to eventually sign the
treaty, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/28/us/us-to-cut-its-land-mine-stockpile.html" title="Link to New York Times articie." target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-decoration:none">announcing steps</span></a> to reduce the
American stockpile and find alternative ways to achieve the tactical military
advantages of land mines.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Georgia,serif">The United States has
been a leading funder of land mine clearance work, including in Mozambique,
which now joins 27 other countries formerly contaminated with them that are regarded as free of mines.</span></p></div></div></div></div><div><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><br></div></div></div></div></div>
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