Contamination and Impact

Thailand is affected by landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW), abandoned explosive ordnance (AXO) and UXO, the result of conflicts on its borders with Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Malaysia.

Mines

The precise extent of mined areas is not known. A 2001 Landmine Impact Survey (LIS) identified 530 communities in 27 of 76 provinces and more than 500,000 people as mine/ERW-affected. The LIS estimated the total area of mine/ERW contamination at 2,557 km².[1] Thailand’s revised Article 5 deadline extension request claimed it had released 1,354.75km², leaving a total of 1,202.25km² of suspected area to be tackled, including an estimated 528.2km² of “real minefield” requiring manual clearance.[2]

In December 2009, at the Second Review Conference of the Mine Ban Treaty, Thailand claimed some 500km² remained to be cleared.[3] In 2010, however, the Thailand Mine Action Center (TMAC) was in the process of revising official estimates of contamination as a result of a data audit. Revised estimates expected by December 2010 were likely to increase the total amount of suspect land remaining.[4]

Thailand’s 700km-long border with Cambodia, used as a base by Cambodian non-state armed groups (NSAGs) in the 1980s and 1990s, is believed to be the worst affected, accounting for three-quarters of the LIS estimate of contamination and 51 of 69 high-impacted communities.[5] More than half of the mine incidents in Thailand have occurred on this border.[6] On the border with Myanmar, the LIS identified 139 affected communities and 240 contaminated areas.[7] Periodic spillover into Thailand of fighting between Myanmar government forces and Burmese NSAGs has deterred efforts to survey or clear affected areas on the border.[8]

Cluster munition remnants and other explosive remnants of war

The Cambodian border is also contaminated by unexploded artillery and mortar shells fired by Vietnamese and Cambodian government forces and caches of abandoned mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and ammunition left by Cambodian guerrilla groups.[9] There is not believed to be any problem with cluster munition remnants.

Mine Action Program

Key institutions and operators

The National Committee for Humanitarian Mine Action (NMAC), set up in 2000, has responsibility for overseeing humanitarian mine action. NMAC’s mandate expired in January 2005 but was renewed in November 2006 after a military coup d’état. However, the committee has not met since 2008.[10] Plans to arrange a meeting of NMAC in March 2010 could not be fulfilled because of political developments.[11]

TMAC was established in 1999 under the Armed Forces Supreme Command to coordinate and implement humanitarian mine action, including survey, clearance, risk education (RE), and victim assistance. In 2009–2010 TMAC underwent a major turnover of personnel, including appointments for the positions of director general, deputy director general, head of policy and planning, database manager, and head of quality assurance.[12]

TMAC has pressed for a change in its status to a civilian organization since 2005, prompted by the slow progress of demining and the armed forces’ limited budget for its operations. The NMAC agreed in principle to change TMAC’s status in February 2007 but as of May 2010 had not decided on a new structure. A proposal that TMAC becomes a foundation but remains under the Armed Forces is still pending. The February 2007 meeting also decided to set up five sub-committees for victim assistance, coordination with foreign organizations, demining, RE, and monitoring and evaluation. Each sub-committee met at least once in 2008 and 2009.[13]

UNDP provides capacity-building support to TMAC under an agreement approved by the cabinet in January 2009 which has four main components:[14]

·         Enhanced strategic planning, information management, and coordination;

·         Accelerated clearance and land release through better prioritization;

·         Improved livelihoods support for vulnerable groups in affected areas; and

·         Enhanced partnerships for mine action.

In 2009, the project included a baseline review of all mine action activities in Thailand and development of a process to identify local clearance priorities in order to strengthen strategic planning. A draft National Strategic Plan was drawn up at the end of 2009 with the help of an international consultant hired by UNDP and Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) and a workshop to discuss the draft was held in December 2009 with the participation of government departments and NGOs involved in mine action. The draft plan set eight goals for strengthening data management, establishing clear priorities for clearance, promoting the cooperation and effectiveness of demining operators, building TMAC’s capacity, raising public awareness of mine risks, meeting survivor needs, fulfilling Thailand’s Mine Ban Treaty obligations and mobilizing sufficient resources for the sector.[15] After further review, TMAC expected to send the plan to the NMAC for approval by the Prime Minister in August 2010.[16]

NPA also provided support to TMAC under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed in 2008 for the period from November 2008 to October 2009 and a second MOU signed in January 2010 for support in 2010 and 2011. Even though NPA is not at present operational, the organization plans to field land release teams in 2011.[17]

In 2009, NPA conducted assessments of information management, land release, and the capacity for using mine detection dogs for technical survey. As a result, NPA provided a technical advisor (co-supported by UNDP) to assist TMAC and other stakeholders in developing the national strategic plan for mine action referred to above.[18]

In 2010, NPA prioritized drafting national standards, including a standard for land release, and reorganizing information management using NPA’s global operating system, Techbase. Before the end of 2010 NPA planned to complete reviewing and consolidating historical clearance data, providing a basis for estimating what land had been cleared or released and what remained to be tackled through survey and clearance.[19]

Land Release

Thailand continued to make more progress in cancelling former suspect land through non-technical survey than from release through clearance. TMAC’s operations remained constrained by the limited financial resources made available to it by the Armed Forces Supreme Command or the government.[20] TMAC worked with NPA to develop standards and standing operating procedures for land release that were consistent with international best practice and the International Mine Action Standards.[21]

Five-year summary of land cancellation and release[22]

Survey in 2009

Mekong Organization for Mankind (MOM) completed field work on a two-year Integrated Area Reduction Survey project in April 2009. The project covered a total of 219.5km² in seven provinces bordering Cambodia[23] and resulted in reducing the suspected hazardous area by 123.7 km².[24] The project covered four main activities: locating minefields; posting warning signs around suspected hazardous areas; informing communities about the location of minefields; and “spot” demining. MOM deployed some 40 staff in the field for the project and received US$1.28 million from Japan through the Japan-Association of Southeast Asian Nations Integrated Fund.[25]

Mine clearance in 2009

TMAC manually cleared 2.55km² in 2009, 70% more than in the previous year, but fell far short of targets set out in Thailand’s Article 5 extension request submitted in 2009, which called for demining of 43km² in 2009.[26] Clearance operations concentrated on the Thai-Cambodian border but one mine action team cleared land on the border with Myanmar for the first time on behalf of a project sponsored by the Thai Royal Family in Mae Hong Son province, completing the task in September 2009.[27]

TMAC’s new director general, who took up office in March 2010, expected the four Humanitarian Mine Action Units (HMAUs) to clear 2.3km² in 2010 (500,000m² by each of three HMAUs and 800,000m² by the fourth). The HMAUs operated with a total of 52 deminers. TMAC hoped to expand the number to 80 or 90 by the end of 2010, subject to funding becoming available. TMAC expected that 12 mine detection dogs acquired in 2009 would be available for operations in October 2010.[28]

In 2008, the government pledged THB1.4 billion ($40.6 million) for mine action in fiscal 2009 (October 2008 to September 2009) to enable it to fulfill the commitments in Thailand’s Article 5 extension request but, following a change of government, TMAC did not receive this funding and operated with about THB50 million ($1.45 million).[29] As a result, TMAC also did not expand human resources as envisaged in the Article 5 request and in 2009 it operated four HMAUs with a total of 219 field personnel.[30] TMAC also had 18 mine/explosive detection dogs[31] but as these dogs were old, UNDP in 2010 funded the purchase of 12 new dogs.[32]

Thailand also had three local demining NGOs in 2009, the General Chatichai Choonhavan Foundation (GCCF), with 40 deminers;[33] MOM (42 field staff); and Peace Road Organization (PRO), set up in 2006 (32 deminers). Only MOM received funding for demining in 2009, conducting spot clearance as part of an Integrated Area Reduction Survey project assigned by TMAC.[34] GCCF and the PRO jointly cleared a 30,000m² site in Sakaoe province in April 2010.[35] As of August 2010, MOM had not received any clearance projects but it continued to submit proposals for clearance work.[36] MOM’s project manager left and established a new organization in March 2010, the Thailand Civilian Demining Association.[37]

Mine clearance in 2009[38]

Compliance with Article 5 of the Mine Ban Treaty

Under Article 5 of the Mine Ban Treaty (and in accordance with the nine-and-a-half year extension request granted in 2009), Thailand is required to destroy all antipersonnel mines in mined areas under its jurisdiction or control as soon as possible, but not later than 1 November 2018.[39] Thailand’s extension request said it would increase the area demined to 43km² in 2009 and to achieve this target TMAC envisaged increasing its human resource capacity to 800 deminers by the end of April 2009.[40] TMAC, however, has not had access to the finance or human resources it needed to fulfill the objectives set out in its extension request and demining has continued at a slow rate (see Mine clearance in 2009 section above).

At the Second Review Conference of the Mine Ban Treaty, Thailand said demining progress had been “gradual” because of “many remaining national challenges facing Thailand, especially the effects of the global financial crisis.” Thailand said it remained committed to fulfilling its workplan.[41] In the past decade, demining organizations have cleared approximately 11km² of mined areas.[42]

For Thailand to achieve its Article 5 extension request targets, TMAC’s outgoing director general believed demining NGOs would need to expand and play a more critical role in mine action as it was easier for them to attract financial support from abroad than for TMAC, an organization affiliated with the military.[43]

Other Risk Reduction Measures

RE was carried out in 2009 by TMAC’s HMAUs. The Catholic Office for Emergency Relief and Refugees (COERR) provided training to 2,384 children from 16 schools in Sa Kaoe and Surin provinces under a project that ended in September 2009. It started another RE program in February 2010 targeting 15 villages in five districts of Sa Kaoe province. The program was due to run until January 2011.[44]

Handicap International (HI) did not implement RE in 2009 but it started a small project in 2010 to provide RE to children from Myanmar who cross the border to attend boarding schools in camps in Thailand. In 2010, HI planned to provide RE for children in camps in Tak province on the border with Myanmar, including 200 schoolchildren in Mae La camp, 100 in Umpiem camp, and 100 in Nupo camp.[45]

TMAC and the Ministry of Education’s Basic Education Commission organized RE workshops for 200 school directors and teachers hosted by the four HMAUs throughout August 2010. The workshops aimed to raise teachers’ and school directors’ awareness of risks and how to protect against them so that the lessons could be passed on to their students.[46]