Mines in Central America

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OAS/IADB demining

Land mines in Central America are of the unfortunate by-product of the conflict in the 1980's. Contrary to the requirements of generally-accepted international law, the minefields of Central America were usually unmarked and unrecorded on maps. Once placed, mines remain active for years, waiting the pressure of an unwary foot to detonate.

With an estimated 100,000 land mines in Central America, mainly in Nicaragua there was grave concern over their location and removal or deactivation as the war began to wind down. In August 1991 Nicaragua asked the OAS for assistance, and the Secretary General forwarded the request to the Inter-American Defense Board (IADB), which sent a group of staff officers to Nicaragua to assess the situation. A Demining Plan was developed under which the IADB, working with U.S. technical experts, would supervise the training of teams of Nicaraguan demining personnel. The Nicaraguan program operated for six months in 1993 before being suspended due to funding limitations (it was reinitiated in 1996). In those first six months the teams destroyed almost 3,000 mines.

Subsequently demining operations have been launched in Costa Rica, Honduras and Guatemala. The primary responsibility for the program lay with the OAS’ Unit for the Promotion of Democracy, with the IADB providing technical support and planning assistance. The goal was to make Central America essentially a mine-free area as soon as possible.