Ruairi O'Connell

The Remains of War

Last week, I went to an event to mark the International Day for Landmine awareness and Assistance, held at a Kosovo Protection Corps (http://www.tmk-ks.org/new/english/fillimi/index.php) site just outside Pristina.

Following the conflict in the 1990s, the legacy of war still casts a long shadow over Kosovo. The event on Friday was a reminder how important it is to deal with this legacy - both physical and societal.

During the war, the Yugoslav armed forces used landmines extensively across Kosovo. Many, even most, of these minefields were not properly marked, vastly complicating their removal. On top of this, Kosovo still has traces of unexploded bombs in certain areas dating from the conflict; last week, a man was killed tampering with such a bomb. Together, these are known as unexploded ordnance (UXO)

Since 1999, 112 people have been killed in Kosovo by UXO, many of them children. However, from thousands of contaminated areas in 1999, there now remain only 60 areas to be cleared, with 73 to be checked. Much of this work was completed by the explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) teams of the KPC, who have cleared over 700,000 square metres throughout Kosovo.

Under the guidance of UNMIK's KPC Co-ordinator (a British Major General), the KPC has built up an impressive EOD capacity, which was on show on Friday. This has meant that a national organisation, rather than an international NGO, has taken the lead in clearing Kosovo of the material legacy of war. They, as with all the other mine clearers and EOD teams in Kosovo and across the world, risk their lives daily to deal with this menace. I was struck most of all by the seemingly low-tech nature of much of the kit; the KPC use plastic funnels, like you would find in the kitchen, to mark and isolate pieces of UXO. It takes a certain kind of courage to do this for a living.

This UXO is as much part of the legacy of conflict as the small arms that still blight Kosovo. My piece on small arms attracted some comments. My understanding is that there is a tradition of holding arms across the Balkans, particularly in more remote areas. But also, as with other conflicts, the proliferation of small arms is a legacy of conflict, too. The problem will not be solved over night - the sheer scale shows that. And not everyone wants to give up their arms just yet. But the overall direction of travel is the right one.

The legacy of conflict is more than just physical - it is societal, psychological. And so the KPC contribution is significant beyond their concrete involvement with UXO-clearance. The KPC was formed following the demilitarisation of the Kosovo Liberation Army, after the conflict in 1999. A civil emergency organisation, it has worked on EOD, flood and fire response, as well as a range of humanitarian projects across Kosovo. However, its original provenance of ex-KLA members means that it has provided a clear way to reintegrate former fighters into society - and to get them contributing to reconciliation. I noted in a previous post the presence of a former KLA commander at an event against small arms. The point is that, after any conflict, it is vital to give former combatants a way to demobilise, and contribute to society - whatever one thinks about the group in question. Secondly, following last month's tragic explosion at Gerdec in Tirana (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7299187.stm), the KPC EOD teams were the largest international contribution to the clean-up operation. Just over a month after Kosovo's independence, this was a clear demonstration that Kosovo can contribute internationally. Conflicts world-wide share similar legacies; be they physical, social or psychological. Dealing with all these legacies is a vital foundation to preventing a resurgence of conflict.

Posted at 10:20 15 April 2008 by Ruairi O'Connell  |  Comments[2]