In Another World, You Are An Illegal Refugee With Nothing To Your Name

note: Duane Nelson is blogging from the Mae Tao Clinic in Mae Sot, Thailand where Clear Path funds a prosthetic clinic for landmine survivors. The post below was sent in by him today.

This week I had the opportunity to see the contrast between two worlds that literally rub shoulders yet are essential separated by a great chasm. In one world, you are a citizen and have access to free healthcare and sanitation and technology, in the other world, you are an illegal refugee with nothing to your name.

The Mae Toa Clinic on the Thai-Burma border is founded and run by refugees. The prosthetics department manager is an astounding and committed man. He does not make money and will never be able to buy his family a truck, or a home, or a vacation. His workshop lacks government funding and only survives by donation and outside funds. His shop is built on rented land and therefore lacks stability and his limited budget doesn�t allow for expensive tools. They make do with their space and use what they have. They have no specific prosthetics grinding machines, no specialty tools, no ventilation extraction for harmful chemicals and dust, no glass windows, no waiting room, no casting room, no privacy for patients.





Despite these lacking luxuries they are a very productive shop effectively fabricating 200 prostheses per year free of charge, and training 10 new prosthetists in that same time.

Approximately 3km away there is another prosthetics work shop� at the Mae Sot Municipal Hospital. This is a Thai government funded facility. The manager here parks his beautiful new 4X4 out front and steps into his immaculate and polished lab. All the most specialized, advanced and brand name equipment line the walls. There is a ventilated grinding room, an outfitted casting room, a well stocked storage room, and a huge personal office with a solid wood desk, computer, and phone. This is a fantastic place to work for the manager; he�s got it made, life is good. Everything is funded by the government and the advanced prostheses are provided free of charge to Thai citizens. The only problem is, there is no work�he sits around all day� approximately only 50 prosthesis are made here in a year� because there is no need.


Unless of course, he could welcome landmine survivor refugees into his clinic. On his geographic doorstep lies one of the greatest volumes of prosthetic need in the world. But, he is forced to charge refugees up to 20,000 baht for a leg when most of them are lucky if they can afford a bag of rice.


Its kinda warped, this contrast of worlds. The ability to meet the needs in a greater way is right here, 3km away. I guess it�s the same question of "why do people still starve in today�s world when we all know there is plenty of food to go around?".

Rice Mill Project Fires Up in Rural Cambodia!

For the past few years Clear Path has been raising funds and support to build a rice mill / vocational skills training center in Battambang, Cambodia. It has required a TON of work from many people to make this all come together, and this week we took a major step in making this dream a reality.

Its not often that I actually get giddy by someone firing up a big 'ol diesel powered generator, but that's the emotion I settled upon as the most appropriate description, when they cranked up the rice mill the first time for me. Its not often, come to think of it, that I would even recognize a diesel powered generator or any of the multitude of tools and metal appliances which go into making a rice mill. And, yet, throughout the last few months, I've become more familiar with all things rice related than I ever thought possible.

While I feel that I still have more questions than answers... I definitely can speak at great length and even somewhat intelligently on a host of rice related issues, including various ways to power a mill (alternative fuel is so trendy and appealing right now), by-products of raw rice and their individual uses, various qualities and types of rice, and actual outputs - like how much rice is produced from the raw format, and how quickly. I still consider my specific specialty to be the singular act of eating rice, which I'm quite good at, but I am learning.

The rice mill is a massive undertaking. It has been the focus of months of hard work by the folks at CVCD and CPI. It is part of a larger plan, which aspires to create a continuous source of revenue to fund ongoing programs targeting the landmine/UXO survivors in Battambang province, while simultaneously providing food security to many more. The rice mill will continue to make possible vocation training programs, micro credit availability, and other initiatives designed to increase the quality of life for these survivors.



Every month, when I make trips to the site of the mill, I see bits of progress. At first, I was overwhelmed by the huge warehouse and stock of rice. But, as time has gone by, trip by trip, the warehouse has continued to fill itself with machinery. More and more pieces and parts, none of which I could name if I tried (in English or Khmer), but which give the distinct impression that they are a part of something bigger, have begun to fill the empty spaces. Last week, while wandering around on my own, investigating new and interesting additions - I heard the roar of the diesel engine, and realized everything was spinning, turning, moving, gyrating. The belts were doing what belts do, pulleys were pulling, parts that are supposed to shake were shaking, and the entire place hummed, like... well, like a working rice mill. I've been told there is still fine-tuning to do. Its not ready to actually throw rice in just yet. But, its close. And, I had no idea that after watching months of progress, debating at length the merits of different purchasing options, contracts, suppliers, budgets, etc.. how giddy the sound of that mill would make me. The true test will be when I can sample the rice. That's when my real expertise will kick in, and I will know for sure, if the rice mill is working.

Clear Path International to Assist Afghan Landmine Survivors As Part of U.S. Department of State Contract

KABUL, Afghanistan � Clear Path International (CPI), a U.S.-based humanitarian mine action nonprofit organization, has received a multi-year contract from DynCorp International to start a landmine survivor assistance program in Afghanistan on behalf of the U.S. Department of State.

With an average of 90 casualties from landmine and explosive remnants of war per month, Afghanistan is one of the world�s most �mine-affected� countries. Nearly half of all casualties die trying to reach a hospital. One in every 10 adult men is a victim of a landmine or explosive remnant of war. Women and children are also victims. Landmine and explosive remnants of war contaminate 27 of the country�s 29 provinces.

Clear Path�s subcontract with DynCorp International supports program design, led by long-time CPI consultant Kristen Leadem in Kabul, and survivors assistance services at least through 2008. It is part of larger humanitarian mine-action effort sponsored by the Department of State�s Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement.

�The intention of the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement program in Afghanistan is to complement existing efforts here and increase capacity in support of Afghanistan's national survivors assistance plan,� Leadem said.
Survivor assistance services range from medical care, physical mobility and rehabilitation to vocational training, income-generation, and sports activities. Capacity building services can include equipment, training and technical support to local hospitals, clinics and community-based rehabilitation centers.

Since 2000, Clear Path International has assisted nearly 4,000 survivors of accidental landmine and explosive remnants of war incidents in Vietnam, Cambodia and along the Thai-Burma border. It has also sent 65 containers of medical equipment and supplies to 25 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America (www.cpi.org).

The Department of State�s Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement (www.state.gov/t/pm/wra) is one of the world�s largest sponsors of mine clearance, risk reduction education and survivors assistance. It has directly funded Clear Path�s programs in Vietnam and Cambodia and some of the organization�s public awareness and fundraising efforts in the United States (www.abilitytrek.org).

DynCorp International is a U.S-based company that provides support services to military and civilian government institutions in such areas as aviation, infrastructure development, security and logistics (www.dyn-intl.com).


Clear Path International consultant, Ed Pennington-Ridge, examining the prosthetic leg of a landmine survivor at the Sandy Gall Afghan Appeal prosthetics workshop in Jalalabad, Nangahar Province Afghanistan. Photo: Kristen Leadem, 2007

U.S. reverses position and is now willing to negotiate a cluster bomb treaty

Source: International herald Tribune.

GENEVA: U.S. officials said they are willing to start negotiating a treaty on the use of cluster bombs, reversing their previous position that no new agreement on the weapon was necessary.

But the United States still rejects a proposed global ban on the weapon, which 46 countries began negotiating in Oslo in February. Instead, Washington wants to negotiate another treaty, which goes less far, within the framework of the 1980 United Nations Convention on Conventional Weapons.

The U.S. position has changed "due to the importance of this issue, concerns raised by other countries, and our own concerns about the humanitarian implications of these weapons," said Ronald Bettauer, head of a U.S. delegation to talks on the treaty this week in Geneva.

"It was determined that the United States should support the initiation of a negotiation on cluster munitions within the framework of the convention," Bettauer said Monday.

The United States said November that it was opposed to a new treaty because it said there were sufficient controls on the weapon in existing treaties.

It said cluster bombs, used carefully, have important military uses, like attacking artillery positions or runways, armored columns and missile installations. Washington wants to limit the impact cluster bombs have on civilians and improve their accuracy.

Read the rest of this article here.

In the photo below, a CPI funded deminer prepares to remove a decades-old cluster munition in central Vietnam. CPI no longer funds demining work and instead focuses on victim assistance efforts.

Clear Path International Issues Micro Loans in Rural Cambodia

Last Friday, Clear Path International and our Cambodian partner, Cambodian Volunteers for Community Development, issued micro loans, for the second time, to our farmer cooperative members, many of them landmine / UXO survivors, all of them desperately impoverished rice farmers.


Clear Path International issuing micro loans in Battambang, Cambodia.


Muhammad Yunus experimented with microlending in Bangladesh in the 1970's and made such a success of his program, that he and his Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. He made microlending popular, and it seems that everyone working on poverty issues has read his book (myself included) and everyone has a version of his program incorporated into theirs. While I don't believe that micro lending alone is a one-stop shopping solution for ending all poverty, it certainly seems to be making huge differences in the lives of the disenfranchised.

Rural Cambodians tend to be extremely poor. The World Bank released a report on social inequality in Cambodia earlier this month, and noted that the number of people living below the poverty line did decrease between 1994 and 2004, from 47% to 35%. Good news, but 35% of 14 million people, is still an awful lot of people living on less than $2 per day. The rural poor definitely lack access to credit. They live very far from major cities. They tend to have no collateral. And, they usually need such small amounts of money, that its not cost effective for traditional banks to lend.

When interviewing some of our cooperative members, I find varying reasons for their need. Some have land, but no machinery or tools to till the land for planting. Many cannot afford the rice seed it takes to get started. Others have been affected by crisis' which have rendered them in debt and unable to climb out. Perhaps a family illness which required medicine or medical care, or the loss of the family's breadwinner. I talked to one man who borrowed money to send his grown children to Thailand, in search of employment. They returned without finding work. Yet, the debt remains.

While banks are not lending to these rural poor, someone is. The process involves a middleman. I don't have a mental image of what this "middleman" looks like, but I know the interest rates are high, the re-payment schedule is aggressive, and the farmers tend to end up in a cycle of debt, often not able to save enough seed to replant the following year. My only experience with a cycle of debt involves having a credit card in college, with no real job and too many distractions from studying. But, I had a safety net. I called them my parents. These farmers do not have that safety net. Their cycle of debt doesn't end.

Last year was our maiden voyage into micro credit. We issued loans of up to $250.00 to 25 families. We had a 100% payback rate. The interest rates are reasonable, the schedule allows for the loans to be returned after the harvest season. We even accept rice in lieu of cash. The farmers worked together, taking advantage of lower prices when buying in bulk, reducing transportation costs by purchasing for the entire community when going into town, and by holding each other accountable. The farmers I spoke to expressed real joy when able to finally pay off the middleman or save enough seed for the following year. Its not the end of their poverty. It won't solve all of their problems. But, its a start.

Associated Press and YouTube: Agent Orange Still Haunts Vietnam, US

Trien Meng Hiep, 9, against wall, is hugged by another boy at a "Peace Village" center in Tu Du hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on Friday, May 25, 2007. Both of the boys were born with severe physical deformities typical of spina bifida and which hospital officials suspect to have been caused by their parents exposure to dioxin in the chemical defoliant Agent Orange. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

By Ben Stocking, Associated Press Writer | June 14, 2007
DANANG, Vietnam --More than 30 years after the Vietnam War ended, the poisonous legacy of Agent Orange has emerged anew with a scientific study that has found extraordinarily high levels of health-threatening contamination at the former U.S. air base at Danang.

"They're the highest levels I've ever seen in my life," said Thomas Boivin, the scientist who conducted the tests this spring. "If this site were in the U.S. or Canada, it would require significant studies and immediate cleanup."

Soil tests by his firm, Hatfield Consultants of Canada, found levels of dioxin, the highly toxic chemical compound in Agent Orange, that were 300 to 400 times higher than internationally accepted limits.

The report has not yet been released, but Boivin and Vietnamese officials summarized its central findings for The Associated Press.

Earlier tests by Hatfield, which has been working in Vietnam since 1994, showed that dioxin levels were safe across most of Vietnam. But until the study of the old air base at Danang, the consulting firm had never had access to some half-dozen "hotspots" where Agent Orange, a defoliant designed to deny Vietnamese jungle cover, was stored and mixed before being loaded onto planes.

The study is the product of a new spirit of cooperation between Washington and Hanoi -- after years of disagreement -- toward resolving this contentious leftover of the war that ended in 1975.

On a visit to Vietnam last fall, President Bush and Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet agreed to work together to address dioxin contamination at old Agent Orange storage sites. They are expected to discuss the issue further when Triet visits Washington next week.

Read the rest of this article here.

A YouTube Video on birth defects caused by Agent Orange is below. Be warned, this is very dificult to watch.

United States Campaign to Ban Landmines Expands Its Mandate to Include Cluster Munitions Advocacy

A letter from the United States Campaign to Ban Landmines:

June 14, 2007



Dear USCBL Supporter,

We are pleased to inform you that the Steering Committee of the US Campaign to Ban Landmines recently agreed to expand the mission of the coalition to include advocacy toward a prohibition on the use, production, and transfer of cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians.

Cluster munitions differ from antipersonnel mines in a variety of ways, but their effects on civilian populations are often similar. Cluster munitions are weapons that can disperse up to several hundred smaller submunitions � sometimes referred to as �bomblets� - over wide areas. They have indiscriminate effects that kill and injure civilians during attacks. One typical cluster bomb can blanket blomblets over an area several hundred square meters. They also often fail to detonate as designed, leaving hidden bombs scattered across landscapes and causing severe and lasting humanitarian and development consequences similar to antipersonnel mines.

The Steering Committee was compelled to expand the mission because the effects of cluster munitions in many ways mirror landmines, many USCBL organizations are already working extensively on cluster munitions, and many in the advocacy community believe that concentrated action now can lead to concrete results,. After extensive discussions, the Steering Committee revised the goals of the USCBL to include:

-- U.S. accession to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty and policies that move towards accession: a U.S. ban on the use, production, stockpiling, and transfer of antipersonnel landmines;
-- increased resources for humanitarian demining and mine risk education programs;
-- increased resources for victim rehabilitation, assistance, and psychosocial and economic inclusion;
-- enactment of a U.S. prohibition on the use of cluster munitions in or near populated areas;
-- enactment of a U.S. prohibition on the use, production, stockpiling, and transfer of cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians; and
-- U.S. support for an international instrument prohibiting cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians.

The Steering Committee does not envision that the addition of cluster munitions will diminish the organization's work to ban landmines. A comprehensive ban on antipersonnel landmines is, and will remain, the primary goal of the coalition.

We are all eager to begin work on combating the enormous threat to innocent life that cluster bombs pose. This expansion will provide advocates like you with new opportunities to take action. Please continue to check the USCBL website (http://www.banminesusa.org/) for updates reflecting the expansion. We are in the process of adding material on cluster munitions, including background information, action suggestions, and updates from campaigners around the country.

Thank you for your support for a mine-free world and we look forward to working together on this new endeavor.


Sincerely,

Scott Stedjan
USCBL Coordinator

*******************************************
US Campaign to Ban Landmines
c/o Friends Committee on National Legislation
245 2nd Street NE
Washington, DC 20002
Tel: (202) 547-6000
Fax: (202) 547-6019
Email: landmines@fcnl.org
www.banminesusa.org

To make an online donation to the US Campaign to Ban Landmines, go to: http://www.banminesusa.org/support/body.html.

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines email list, go to: http://lists101.his.com/mailman/listinfo/uscbl

Here is a video on Cluster Bombs:

Traveling to the Clear Path International Vocational Skills Training Site for Landmine Survivors in Battambang Cambodia

I've been in Cambodia for 5 months now. While I'm based in Phnom Penh, the rice mill Clear Path International is constructing to train landmine survivors in vocational skills is in Battambang province. I make trips monthly to check on progress, meet with program recipients, and discuss issues with the project manager. Its definitely become a more interesting experience now that the rain has started. The upside of course, is in the pure physical beauty of this country. The vivid greens of rice growing never disappoint, and are far more asthetically pleasing than the recently harvested, often burned landscapes, steeped in browns and blacks of the dry months. I don't know that I will ever get tired of staring at the distinct shade of green specific to a crop of rice. If I worked for Crayola, I would make a crayon and call it "rice". It would be the best green ever.





The downside is the roads. Cambodia is not known for having particularly good roads to start with. Once you get into the provinces, you appreciate flat surfaces with an entirely new vigor. It takes about 2 hours to get from downtown Battambang to our site in Seam Village. That's during the dry season, and assuming you don't get a flat tire. In the rainy season there are new things to consider, such as when hitching a ride with one of these silly looking tractor-trucks that my Cambodian colleagues call "cow engine cars", how long will you wait until its full of people and ready to depart? Or, once at the site, how long should you wait for a truck to head back to town before starting to walk? Another debate I've had, is when sitting on top of a truck filled with rice, and the truck starts sliding towards the edge of the road and dangerously close to the marshy water, at which point do you jump - is it right before the truck goes over or is it a few seconds prior, to ensure you aren't trapped under all those kilos of rice? Of course, if you go too early, and the truck doesn't topple into the marsh - have you ruined your camera and embarrassed yourself for nothing? OK - maybe it wouldn't be for nothing. Its funny enough to see a barang (foreigner) on these trucks - I imagine one hurling themselves over the edge and into the water would be a good story for the other passengers.

On my most recent trip, it had not rained recently, which led us to believe the roads were manageable in our pick-up truck. This was true for the ride to the site. The roads were dry enough and we made it without incident. Of course, throughout the afternoon, as the clouds rolled in, I wondered how long before the rain would start. As it turns out, it began just as we piled back into the truck to head home. While my colleagues have never seen snow in their lives, I realized on that long ride back - that they would be excellent snow-drivers. The roads become thick, in feet of mud, with every move a negotiation between not sliding off the side, and not ending up stuck in the muck, tires hopelessly spinning. The big difference between the snow filled streets of home and the muddy mess here, is in the other traffic you pass. As opposed to other cars in a similar situation, here you mostly pass wagons, pulled by oxen, with huge wooden wheels, soaking children on bicycles, small herds of cattle making their way home, and kids playing football (soccer) on the side of the road. Oh, and there was also the guy in the middle of the road holding the snake. I foolishly asked if he was going to eat it, and realized the stupidity of my question when I received three resounding "yeses" from the other three people inside the cab. I guess there isn't another good reason for being in the middle of a rainstorm holding a snake, if not to catch dinner. I am still naive.

Its out in rural Cambodia where I am most able to appreciate the small joys in life. We made it there and back without having to push the truck or walk home. I didn't fall off a huge rice truck. I didn't have to catch a snake for dinner. And, I didn't even have pig brain in my soup. At least not on this trip.

Duane Nelson on the Thai Burma Border

webmaster's note: Duane Nelson and Jody Riggs are volunteering at the Mae Tao clinic in Mae Sot on the Thai-Burma border.

From Duane:

Each day here in Mae Sot I become more educated about the political/military situation inside Burma. It is a tragedy that has gone on far too long without sufficient resolve. As just one regular man, the problem seems too big and almost unapproachable to me. The war, if you want to call it that, is deep-rooted, its got history, and it involves entire people groups and nations. How can I change anything?


For me, I must hold a different perspective. I think about the individuals. I�ll never be able to fix Burma�s injustice on my own. However, maybe today I can help just one persons pain be a little less� bring a smile to a fatherless child�s lovely face, hold hands with a war injured blind man, sit still for a while beside a cripple, or make a new leg for one landmine survivor.

To anyone that works with CPI or partners in similar work � never let your work become impersonal. Make every interaction personal, and remember the individuals. One person at a time.

Two New Volunteers Reach the Thai Burma Border

webmaster's note:Duane Nelson and Jody Riggs are volunteering at the Mae Tao clinic in Mae Sot on the Thai-Burma border. Here is the first, of what I am hoping will be many, of his blog posts from the border!


Duane and Jody enroute to the Thai Burma border!

Growing up within an average income family in western Canada I very literally had any opportunity before me if I was willing to look for it and pursue it. Dream it� and do it. No fear, no impossibilities, no cruelty, no guns, no poverty, no hunger, no fences, and no landmines chaining me down.

So, after enjoying a true childhood and proper education and many positive life experiences I have found a dream and a passion which I am pursuing to be a large part of my life work � prosthetics. Currently I am very fortunate to be studying Prosthetics and Orthotics in Vancouver. Within this program I found a very good friend and colleague who shares the same passions as me. Early in the year we began to talk about taking our skills to the developing world for the summer months between terms (and hopefully much more in the future).

We both wanted to do this as a way to give to those that do not have the simple luxury of �dream it� and do it�. Our talk grew into an exciting reality when we came across Clear Path InternationaI on the internet. CPI created an opportunity for us to bring our prosthetics skills to an area of the world in which fear, cruelty, guns, hunger, impossibilities, and landmines are a part of life for the men, women, and children who live here. �Here� is the Thailand/Burma border. Ethnic groups inside Burma have been violently forced from their villages by the military regime and have traveled through a jungle littered with landmines in order to reach some kind of temporary safety.

Thus far we have spent one week here on the border. It has been an overwhelming amount of emotions through my heart and mind everyday. In an instant, a landmine is detonated, forever changing the life of one man or even one child. How do things go on like this everyday in the same world I grew up in?

As prosthetists here, we have quickly learned that at this time it is essential to replace lost arms and legs. However, the greater cause is for enough to be done politically that we no longer have a job here�

Dutch Rehab Hospital Signs Agreement To Support Landmine Survivors on the Thai-Burma Border

ARNHEM, Netherlands -- Stichting Groot Klimmendaal (www.grootklimmendaal.nl), a major physical rehabilitation center in the Netherlands, has agreed to help Clear Path International's landmine survivor assistance efforts along the Thai-Burma border.

Under a two-year agreement, the Dutch hospital will provide $30,000 in funding and facilitate the involvement of its professional rehabilitation specialists as volunteers in eastern Thailand where CPI has an active program fabricating prosthetics, offering physical therapy and providing full-time care for landmine accident survivors from Burma.

The agreement was arranged by Lobke Dijkstra, physical therapist and CPI country representative in Thailand who splits her time between her job at Groot Klimmendaal and Clear Path's base in Mae Sot on the Thai border with Burma. CPI will maintain accommodations for volunteers from Klimmendaal and elsewhere, and help prepare them for their specialized activities in the border region.

Groot Klimmendaal's funding will be used to help cover CPI's two-year $130,000 budget for its survivor assistance activities along the border, including the training of new prosthetics fabrication technicians, continued support for existing fabrication workshops, creation of new workshops and fulltime care for severely disabled survivors in one of the largest refugee camps.

The two partners, who leave the door open to continue their relationship beyond 2008, hope their collaborative effort will channel new expertise to CPI's programs offering assistance to landmine amputees.

Already, Dijkstra's involvement as a physical therapist has led to training and better integration of physical rehabilitation in survivors' use of prostheses. A second professional volunteer from Groot Klimmendaal with expertise in psychological rehabilitation is expected to go to Thailand this fall.

Groot Klimmendaal, a 120-bed facility, has specialists in 16 fields related to rehabilitation, ranging from physical therapy and ergo therapy to musical, games and psychological therapy. It provides more than 135,000 hours of rehabilitation services to patients per year.

Since it was founded in 2000, Clear Path has provided medical, social and economic services to 4,000 landmine accident survivors in Southeast Asia, including more than 500 along the Thai-Burma border.