Landmines: a worse fate still to come?

As the number of countries joing the ban on anti‐personnel mines slowly rises, Landmine Action hasbeen investigating the weapons being stockpiled and invented to replace those banned. It seems that Governments, the military and manufacturers have not learned from the problems with landmines. They are stockpiling and quietly developing alternative mines that may be inhumane, dangerous and, in some cases, potentially as lethal as the weapons they are supposed to replace.

As most of this work is happening in secret, there is a compete lack of public awareness of the potential problems. Yet this is not futuristic, space age weaponry ‐ some of these systems will be ready for action within the next couple of years, others are already in use.