Souza FO Colombia4!17!08R14FAA

7/29/2019 Souza FO Colombia4!17!08R14FAA

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13.1 FOCUS Author approval recd (dates): ___________________Word Count: 2542Endnotes: 1297Pictures:6

Latin Victims are Invisible to the International Mediaby Vinicius Souza and Maria Eugnia S [ MediaQuatro ]

Colombia continues to be the country with the highest number of new anti-personnel landmine victims in the world, with 10 other countries on the Americancontinents having problems with mines as well. This situation, however, seemsnot to exist for the international news. Even specialized publications seldomshow a picture or publish an article about Central or South America;consequently, most people still believe that the landmine problem is confinedexclusively to Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

In November 2008, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines issued theLandmine Monitor Report 2008: Toward a Mine-Free World,1 which showsColombia (since 2005 until the present) as the No. 1 country in the world for newanti-personnel landmine victims. Allow us to repeat this important fact: presently,no other country in the world has more accidents from landmines than Colombia.Repeating this statement is necessary because the international media andpublic continue to ignore Colombias situation.

[Insert SouzaImg1.tifClavijo was following his father and dog during a hunting excursion in the

Colombian mountains when his foot was torn away by an explosion.ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE AUTHORS]

As journalists, photographers, researchers and documentarians, we haveparticipated in countless conferences, seminars, exhibitions, forums, interviewsand film festivals across Latin America since 2004, denouncing this situation andinforming others that, in addition to Colombia, 10 other Latin American countriesare also dealing with mines in their territories. Of the thousands of people thatparticipated with us in these events, the ones who were not astonished by thisinformation were rare, and most of them were from Colombia. Even in Peru,Venezuela and Mexico, only the representatives of organizations directlyconnected to mine action were aware of the issue.

In Brazil, we obtained support from TV Brasil Canal Integracin, which producesa daily newscast about South America, for the finalization of our documentary,Mined America.2 None of the people we worked with were aware that ourneighbors walk on minefields. In the foreword of our book by the same name, therenowned photographer Tim Page, who was a mine victim himself, attests thatMined America,is the firstlight on the issue from Latin America. 3 Page, who

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has been participating in mine-action activities with Mines Advisory Groupthroughout Southeast Asia and the Balkans for over 10 years, had no knowledgeabout the seriousness of Colombias plight. 4 How could such an alarming facthave been ignored by the media for so long? In addition, what are theconsequences of this lack of knowledge for the population of the affected areas?

The Big Media

Traditionally, the media, in part through the actions of celebrities and theentertainment industry, have always highlighted the issue of mines in Africa, Asiaand the Middle East. Princess Diana never visited the mine victims in Nicaragua.

Angelina Jolie has not searched for orphans to be adopted among the relativesof landmine victims in Peru. Not a single cent of the money collected in 2007 bythe No More Landmines organization through the sale of 20,000 pairs of shoesdonated by artists such as Elton John, Ewan McGregor, Daniel Radcliffe andRobin Williams5 was used to help the thousands of new mine victims in Colombia

each year. As cause and/or consequence of this fact, even when the moviesshow the subject in countries not having a traditional history of mines, thevenue is usually Europe, with works such as No Mans Land6in Bosnia andBeyond Borders7 in Chechnya.

It is important to emphasize the difference between the monies invested bydonors in nations that are widely known to suffer from the mines issue, such as

Afghanistan, Cambodia, Lebanon and the countries in Africa, and the monetaryexpenditures in Latin-American countries, especially Colombia. In spite of havingofficially registered 1,110 new victims8 in 2005,9 1,106 in 200610 and 895 in2007,11 Colombia is ranked only 10th in funding for anti-mine activities in 2007,with a total amount of US$8.8 million.12 By way of comparison, Cambodia, with352 victims listed in 2007, received $30.8 million for mine action in that year. Thesituation has improved a bit since 2006, however, when Colombia was listed as18th in the investment ranking, with $4.3 million. This was a lower ranking thanNicaragua, which, in that year, registered only seven victims and was granted$5.7 million.13

[Insert SouzaImg3.tifIt is not only in Colombia that the mines wound and kill innocent civilians in Latin

America. Freddy Mendoza was herding his sheep close to a power tower in thePeruvian mountains when he picked up an object that he thought was a radio.]

[Insert SouzaImg2.tifRamon Ocampo Gallego was killed in the explosion that injured his wife, CarmenGallego, and their daughter, Cludia.]

Symptomatically, this also occurs with regard to the presence of pictures of Latin-American and especially Colombian victims, both in specialized publications andin newspapers and magazines with general content. In Brazil, for instance, with

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the exception of publishing a few articles in venues such as Folha de S.Paulo14

and Rolling Stone,15 in recent years only the O Globo newspaper16 has publisheda substantial front-page article about the subject. The article featured eightpictures of victims and was placed in its Sundaymagazine on 11 November2007. This publication, however, had no influence whatsoever on any newscast

ofTV Globo, the largest and most important television network in the country.Even in the Colombian press, the publications with detailed reports on thesubject are scarce. Paradoxically, the Brazilian edition ofRolling Stone (amagazine focused on pop music and culture) published an article. In the samevein, a series of articles showing some very touching pictures of Colombian minevictims was published in Issue 98 of the mens magazine Soho.17

Specialized Media

With regard to specialized publications, things are not much different. Over theyears, the Executive Summary of the Landmine Monitor Report, published by the

International Campaign to Ban Landmines

18

since 1999, always includes picturesof mine victims on the cover; however, on only two occasions the picturedindividuals were Latin American. Not surprisingly, in its first issue19 the covershowed pictures of a Cambodian child who had been photographed four yearsearlier in 1995. Inside, the pictures emphasized African and Asian victims,despite that the publication was already reporting that Colombia was the onlycountry in the Americas where landmines were still being emplaced, and thatColombia and Nicaragua had the biggest contamination problems on thecontinent. Only in the following year (2000)20 would the publication show the firstpictures of Colombia, the photograph of a quiebrapatas (paw-breaker) on page20 and another of a victim of the Bolvardepartamento (state) on page 23. The2000 report listed, for the first time in the Executive Summary, the official numberof victims in Colombia in 19992000 as a total of 98,21which was substantiallyless than the over 1,000 victims in Cambodia22 but double the approximate 50victims in Nicaragua estimated then by the Nicaraguan Red Cross.23

[Insert SouzaImg4.tifDue to the internal conflict with no end in sight, Colombian Army recruits, likeJairo Lopez, still are the biggest number of registered victims.]

The 2001 Landmine Monitor Report24 shows one of the most beautiful images ofthe whole series on its cover: the sepia picture of a crouching child occupying thespace between a crutch and the healthy leg of an adult, with another victim sittingin a wheelchair in the background. The childs roundish face and slightly almondeyes, in addition to the Spanish inscription on the T-shirt of the young man in thebackground, Alguien mi ama, San Salvador(Somebody loves me, SanSalvador), suggest that the picture may have been taken in El Salvador. Theedition available online at the ICBL website, however, does not provide furtherinformation regarding the photographer; therefore, we could not confirm thevictims country of birth. According to the report, it was not possible to quantify

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officially the number of victims in El Salvador between 2000 and 2001the mostpessimistic estimate was 25 affected individuals.25

In regards to the showcasing of Latin-American images within the 2001Landmine Monitor ReportExecutive Summary, we got only one picture of mines

being destroyed in Argentina, one of the donation of used prostheses andanother of prostheses being manufactured, these last two in Nicaragua. There isone photograph of a Latin-American victim on page 34, taken in January of2000. From January 2000June 2001, 23 victims in Nicaragua were reported,26

while in the same period, Colombia registered over 200 victims.27 Even with thislarge increase of victims, the publication failed to provide any images to illustratethe problem on the report pages.

In the subsequent editions of the Landmine Monitor, this pattern persists. Despitethe continuing increase in the casualties by mines in the Americas (documentedin the pages of the report), the pictures of the area are mostly of treaties

signatures, identified fields, demining work and destruction of stored mines,which are invariably, shown in the central pages of the report. The covers arereserved for victims in Africa (Angola, 2002 and 2005), Asia (India, 2003 andCambodia, 2006) and Eastern Europe (Chechnya, 2004).

The first pictures of Colombian victims28 would appear only on the pages 55 and56 of the Landmine MonitorExecutive Summary for 2005.29 It was in this yearthat Colombia reached the top position on the global ranking for mine victims,with 1,373 individuals affected between January 2004August 2005.30 In theedition of the following year, it became clear that no other country would takeColombias place anytime soon. Even in light of these circumstances, the reportopted to publish a portrait of a Cambodian mine victim on its cover; the onlypicture of Latin Americans showed a soccer game with Salvadorian minevictims.31

Not until the 2007 edition would a Colombian victim be granted a LandmineMonitorcover photo.32 In the same edition, two additional pictures of Colombianvictims would appear on pages 34 and 43, the last relatively small; a Nicaraguanphoto also appeared on page 45. However, in the most recent edition, issued inNovember 2008, the picture on the cover is of a sapper searching for the lastmines in Albania before the 2010 Ottawa Convention33 deadline. The internalpages of the Executive Summary show only three pictures of landmine victimsfrom the Americas: two Salvadorians (in the same photograph, again of a soccergame with disabled individuals), a sole Colombian, and a person whosenationality was not disclosed. This happened within a year in which there was arecord number of accidents with mines in six Latin-American countries: Chile,Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru. By way of comparison,seven pictures of Asian victims are shown in the publication, and four of themdepict Cambodian accident victims.

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Journal of ERW and Mine Action

Unfortunately, the same situation has been occurring in The Journal of ERW andMine Action. The first picture of Latin America shown in the publication, in its thirdedition, Issue 2.2 (June 1998), displays a controlled explosion in the

Falkland/Malvinas Islands.34

Images of Latin-Americans, however, would onlyappear much later, in Issue 5.2 (August 2001), which was entirely dedicated tothe subject of South and Central America. This issue ofTheJournalwas also thefirst time in which the situation in Colombia was more adequately presented.35,36

Images used included a photo of children raising consciousness about mines inEl Salvador and an image of a 10-year-old mine victim in Nicaragua.

Within Issue 5.2, the only pictures of Latin-American victims that stood out weretaken by professionals and came with a short caption describing the scene.37 Agood example of this was the picture in the article showing Salvador SantamariaRivera, a former guerrilla and landmine victim, helping adjust a prosthesis for

another war veteran who had been hit by an M-16 mine. Unfortunately, thecaption does not discuss in what country the two men reside. Another picture inthe same issue shows another former guerrilla and mine victim, Manuel de JesusOrellana, working intently on a childs prosthetic at an NGO-run clinic in ElSalvador.38 This edition also brings us an interesting picture showing ten formersoldiers, who had been wounded during the war in Guatemala, sitting at thecentral plaza of the countrys capital.39As we can see, even in an edition thatwas focused on the continent, there were no pictures of victims or of anti-mineactivities in Colombia. Moreover, in the following editions ofTheJournal, picturesof Latin America are extremely scarce.

A Latin-American survivor of an AP landmine would only appear on a cover ofThe Journalin Issue 8.2 (November 2004),an edition that was once morefocused on the Americas.40 Despite the fact that Colombia had already officiallyregistered 421 new mine victims up to September of that year,41 the pictures stillfocused mostly on Central America, with photographs that, in general, had beentaken by the authors of the texts themselves and not by professionalphotographers. The sole exception is, perhaps, the haunting photo that is pairedwith the excellent article Colombia: Mine Action and Armed Conflict by EricFilippino.42 Unfortunately, in addition to the absence of the photographers credit,the caption does not elucidate if the dead policemen shown in the photographwere, in fact, victims of landmines; especially considering that the Colombiansoldier shown walking over the bodies in the photo, is displayed with a metaldetector in his hands.

The next edition, Issue 9.1 (August 2005), showed possibly the best of all thecover images of AP mine survivors within the entire Journalcollection.43 Thephoto, taken by the Armenian photographer German Avagyan, gently portrayslittle Armine Yeghiazaryan. Paradoxically, the only Latin-American victims shownin the summer edition of 2005 were Nicaraguan, even though 2005 is the same

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year in which Colombia achieved the top of the list of countries with the highestnumber of accidents with mines.44 From January to August in that year, 510persons wounded or killed by mines and ERW were officially registered. 30 FromJanuary to August in the same year, there was only one mine-related incident inNicaragua.45 In editions until Issue 11.1 (August 2007), only eight images of

persons wounded by mines in Latin America appeared in The Journal, includingthree pictures we provided that were taken in Colombia,46 along with anothertaken in Peru.47

Conclusion

While in most regions of the world, including Central America, the problem of APmines has decreased or stabilized due to the stigmatization of these weapons bythe Ottawa Convention, landmines are still a very real threat for millions of peoplein South America, especially in Colombia. If the general and specialized media,however, persists in providing little visibility on the subject, victims will continue

being ignored by the public, and it will become increasingly difficult to obtain thefunds necessary for assisting them, as well as for other mine-action activities.While international public attention currently turns to the issue of cluster bombsand other munitions, the Latin-American victims of old-fashioned anti-personnelmines are in great danger of disappearing to the eyes of the world. [Insert JMAicon]

Biography

Vinicius Souza and Maria Eugnia S are journalists, photographers anddocumentarians who have been working on media projects concerning thelandmine situation since 2002. These projects include articles in general media,photographic exhibitions, books and video documentaries. They have alreadypublished two books highlighting mine action in Africa and the Americas

AngolaThe Hope of a People (Casa Amarela, 2004) and Mined America(Editora Photos, 2007). They have also produced a video-documentary (Mined

America), which has been selected for nine international film festivals in Europeand the Americas. They plan to continue their documentary work in Central

America in hopes of displaying the lessons learned there from the past to theSouth American countries that are still dealing with the landmine problem.

Endnotes

1. For an online copy of the 2008 Landmine Monitor Report, please visit:http://www.icbl.org/lm/2008.

2. For more information about the video documentary, Mined America,please visit:http://tinyurl.com/b7rsrx Accessed 30 January 2009.

3. For more information about the book, Mined America, please visit:http://tinyurl.com/bt7kfzAccessed 30 January 2009.

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4. For more information about Mine Advisory Group, please visit:http://www.maginternational.org/

5. Celebrities Go Beyond. No More Landmines. Accessed 30 January2008. http://tinyurl.com Accessed 30 January 2009

6. For more information about the film, No Mans Land, please visit:

http://www.unitedartists.com/nomansland/. Accessed 30 January 20097. For more information about the film, Beyond Borders, please visit:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0294357/. Accessed 30 January 20098. Editor's Note: Some organizations consider mines and ERW to be two

separate entities, since they are regulated by different legal documents(the former by the Ottawa Convention and Amended Protocol II of theConvention on Certain Conventional Weapons, the latter by CCW ProtocolV). However, since mines are explosive devices that have similar effectsto other ERW and it is often impossible to separate the two duringclearance operations, some in the community have adopted a "workingdefinition" (as opposed to a legal one) of ERW in which it is a blanket termthat includes mines, UXO, abandoned explosive ordnance and otherexplosive devices.

9. Colombia. Landmine Monitor Report 2006: Towards a Mine-Free World.New York: International Campaign to Ban Landmines. For an onlineversion of this article, please visit:http://www.icbl.org/lm/2006/colombia.html



12. 2008 Landmine MonitorExecutive Summary, pg 61. This information canalso be accessed online at: http://tinyurl.com/dxkwq9

13. Nicaragua. Landmine Monitor Report 2007: Towards a Mine-Free World.New York: International Campaign to Ban Landmines. For an onlineversion of this article, please visit:http://www.icbl.org/lm/2007/nicaragua.html

14. For a copy of the article, go to: http://mediaquatro.sites.uol.com.br/minas-folha.html. This English version of this article can be found at:http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/2271.cfm

15. To view this Rolling Stone article online, please visit:http://tinyurl.com/dgr3x9 Accessed 30 January 2009.

16. Unfortunately, this article is not available online. For more informationabout the O Globo newspaper, please visit: http://oglobo.globo.com/.

17. For an online copy of this edition of Soho Magazine, please visit:

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http://tinyurl.com/b2qmu9 Accessed 30 January 2009.

18. For more information concerning the International Campaign to BanLandmines, please visit their website at: http://www.icbl.org/

19. For an online copy of the 1999 Landmine Monitor Report, please visit:http://www.icbl.org/lm/1999/



22. Cambodia. Landmine Monitor Report 2000: Towards a Mine-Free World.New York: International Campaign to Ban Landmines. For an onlineversion of this article, please visit:http://www.icbl.org/lm/2000/cambodia.html

23. Nicaragua. Landmine Monitor Report 2000: Towards a Mine-Free World.New York: International Campaign to Ban Landmines. For an onlineversion of this article, please visit:http://www.icbl.org/lm/2000/nicaragua.html


25. El Salvador. Landmine Monitor Report 2001: Towards a Mine-FreeWorld. New York: International Campaign to Ban Landmines. For anonline version of this article, please visit:http://www.icbl.org/lm/2001/el_salvador.html

26. Nicaragua. Landmine Monitor Report 2001: Towards a Mine-Free World.

New York: International Campaign to Ban Landmines. For an onlineversion of this article, please visit:http://www.icbl.org/lm/2001/nicaragua.html


28. For more information on the Colombian Campaign Against Mines, pleasevisit: http://www.colombiasinminas.org/. Accessed 30 January 2009.

29. For an online copy of the 2005 Landmine Monitor Report, please visit:

http://www.icbl.org/lm/2005/30. Colombia. Landmine Monitor Report 2005: Towards a Mine-Free World.

New York: International Campaign to Ban Landmines. For an onlineversion of this article, please visit:http://www.icbl.org/lm/2005/colombia.html


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33. Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and

Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, Oslo, Norway.18 September 1997. The document was opened for signature in Ottawa,

Canada, 3 December 1997, commonly known as the Ottawa Convention.http://www.icbl.org/treaty/text/english. Accessed 23 February 2009.

34. Demining: Enhancing the Process. MAJ Colin King. The Journal ofHumanitarian Demining. Issue 2.2, June 1998. Humanitarian DeminingInformation Center. James Madison University. For an online version ofthis article, please visit: http://tinyurl.com/auhwpz Accessed 30 January2009.

35. UNICEF in Latin America. Mary Ruberry. The Journal of Mine Action.Issue 5.2, August 2001. The Mine Action Information Center. JamesMadison University.For an online version of this article please visit:http://tinyurl.com/cgczjn Accessed 30 January 2009.

36. Colombia. The Journal of Mine Action. Issue 5.2, August 2001. MineAction Information Center. James Madison University.For an onlineversion of this article please visit: http://tinyurl.com/b53re8 Accessed 30January 2009.

37. Victim Assistance in Central America: A Regional Effort. Juan CarlosRuan. The Journal of Mine Action. Issue 5.2, August 2001. Mine ActionInformation Center. James Madison University.For an online version ofthis article please visit: http://tinyurl.com/brz7gl Accessed 30 January2009.

38. Victim Assistance in Central America: IGOs, NGOs and Governments

Team Up. Suzanne L. Fiederlein. The Journal of Mine Action. Issue 5.2,August 2001. Mine Action Information Center. James Madison University.For an online version of this article please visit:http://maic.jmu.edu/journal/5.2/focus/NGO.htm. Accessed 30 January2009.

39. Helping Guatemala: Organization of American States, Unit for thePromotion of Democracy, Mine Action Program in Central America(AIMCA). Col. William McDonough and Carl Case. The Journal of Mine

Action. Issue 5.2, August 2001. Mine Action Information Center. JamesMadison University.For an online version of this article please visit:http://tinyurl.com/c9enxa Accessed 30 January 2009.

40. The Journal of Mine Action. Issue 8.2, November 2004. Mine ActionInformation Center. James Madison University.For an online version ofthe Journal please visit: http://maic.jmu.edu/journal/8.2/. Accessed 30January 2009.

41. Colombia. Landmine Monitor Report 2004: Towards a Mine-Free World.New York: International Campaign to Ban Landmines. For an onlineversion of this article, please visit:

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http://www.icbl.org/lm/2004/colombia.html

42. Colombia: Mine Action and Armed Conflict.Eric Filippino. The Journalof Mine Action. Issue 8.2, November 2004. Mine Action InformationCenter. James Madison University.For an online version of this articleplease visit: http://maic.jmu.edu/journal/8.2/focus/filipino.htm. Accessed 30

January 2009.43. The Journal of Mine Action. Issue 9.1, August 2005. Mine Action

Information Center. James Madison University.For an online version ofthe Journal please visit: http://maic.jmu.edu/journal/9.1/. Accessed 30January 2009.

44. The Landmine Victim Assistance Component Implemented by the OAS inNicaragua Carlos Orozco. The Journal of Mine Action. Issue 9.1, August2005. Mine Action Information Center. James Madison University.For anonline version of this article please visit: http://tinyurl.com/cxytus.

Accessed 30 January 2009.

45. Nicaragua. Landmine Monitor Report 2005: Towards a Mine-FreeWorld. New York: International Campaign to Ban Landmines. For anonline version of this article, please visit:http://www.icbl.org/lm/2005/nicaragua.html

46. Understanding the Ottawa Conventions Obligations to LandmineVictims. Kerry Brinkert. The Journal of Mine Action. Issue 10.1, August2006. Mine Action Information Center. James Madison University.For anonline version of this article please visit: http://tinyurl.com/ddmraf

Accessed 30 January 2009.

47. Finally, Safe Demining. Vinicius Souza and Maria Eugnia S. TheJournal of Mine Action. Issue 10.2, Winter 2006. Mine Action Information

Center. James Madison University.For an online version of this articleplease visit: http://tinyurl.com/d7nstx Accessed 30 January 2009.

Contact Information

Vinicius SouzaMediaQuatroRua Brito Peixoto, 91CEP 04582-020So Paulo SP / Brazil

Tel: +55 11 5093-2855 / 9631-0666E-mail: [email protected] site: http://mediaquatro.sites.uol.com.br

Maria Eugnia SMediaQuatroTel: +55 11 5093-2855 / 8279-9997E-mail: [email protected]

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