From 100660.137@CompuServe.COM Thu Feb 20 16:10:13 1997 Return-Path: <100660.137@CompuServe.COM> Received: from fn1.freenet.edmonton.ab.ca by fn2.freenet.edmonton.ab.ca (AIX 4.1/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA99700; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 16:10:12 -0700 Received: from arl-img-2.compuserve.com by fn1.freenet.edmonton.ab.ca (8.7.6/8.7.3) with SMTP id QAA02828; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 16:08:21 -0700 Received: by arl-img-2.compuserve.com (8.6.10/5.950515) id SAA10147; Thu, 20 Feb 1997 18:08:36 -0500 Date: 20 Feb 97 13:53:49 EST From: Hendrik Ehlers <100660.137@CompuServe.COM> To: Kevin Stewart Subject: mgm luanda Message-Id: <970220185348_100660.137_EHK74-7@CompuServe.COM> Status: RO X-Status: hi kevin well, you sent me a mail on the first of first this year. sorry, but you know how it is, some special letters remain unanswered in the file folder "special letters" for quite some time. in my own experience i made some very horrible experience with landmines and animal victims. i refer to elefants. some people in southern angola took mines out of mine belts and put them into traditional elefant paths. due to the psychology of elefants they only run straight off if there is any danger. so the first herd that fell into that trap would just run in that line of mines auntil the last had died. there is a picture of one of the many skulls somewhere on our homepage. we could not take more, as it was unsafe to walk into that area. the other elefant killing area is the border between southafrica and mozambique. electric fences run through the outskirts of krueger national park and regularly elefants get trapped there. in both of these countries elefants died or die indirectly be landmines. they are killed to sell the ivory to purchase weapos, amongst them landmines. another aspect is the large number of cattle getting blasted by mines. although in this part of the world it is not so much a question of karma but the economic loss. cattle and sheep thrive into minefields is not a practiced method of demining as it showed (last not least on the falklands) that especially sheep simply do not trod on mines for what reason ever. other the poor dogs that have to work in minefields. there are no accurate numbers of casualties, some kind of secrecy about it, as it might upset animal rights groups. bets solution therefore technically is the MEDDS method by the southafrican MECHEM company. They take airsamples of suspect areas, put a geographic code to them and fly them to Johannesburg where a whole bunch of dogs play happily with this samples in excellent conditions. NPA, Norwegian People's Aid had 4 dogs in our area. 1 died and 2 are very sick from sleeping disease, the fourth one is okay but does not detect tripwires, means, it is absolutely useless. It is time to put more effort into electronic sniffing devices or change over to something like trained cockroaches for explosive detection. Hope i helped you with my little knowledge on the subject, I will link your page as soon as phonelines from angola allow. all the best hendrik ehlers mgm demining luanda, angola a bit doubtful