Almas Heshmati and Nabaz T. Khayyat, Socio-Economic Impacts of Landmines in Southern Kurdistan, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013, 341 pp., (ISBN: 978-1-4438-4198-6).
The Kurdistan region is heavily contaminated with millions of unrecorded and unmarked landmines and unexploded ordinance (UXO). Despite the fact that landmines and UXO have been identified as a major threat to economic development and resettlement efforts worldwide, governments in affected areas rarely focus on assuring the safety of formerly displaced communities that are exposed to extremely dangerous conditions once they return to traditional farming or husbandry practices. This reality also applies to Southern Kurdistan, where the Iraqi government established the National Mine Action Authority in 2003, which is today managed by the Ministry of Environment. In their book Socio-Economic Impacts of Landmines in Southern Kurdistan, Almas Heshmati and Nabaz T. Khayyat point out that a mere “one sixth of the mines lain have been cleared. According to regional government figures, landmines and explosive remnants of war have claimed 8,174 victims (including both injuries and casualties) in the Kurdistan region between the years 1991 and 2007” (p. 27).
MAG (Mines Advisory Group), an international NGO which emphasises land mine removal in regions that are disproportionately affected by unrecorded mines that kill and maim unsuspecting villagers and children, asserts that the Kurdistan region is one of the most densely filled mine zones in the entire world. According to MAG, at least one landmine has to be removed for every person in the entire Kurdistan region, which must be characterised as a devastating indictment of a number of states, militaries, and combatant organisations.
Heshmati and Khayyat emphasise four distinct historical periods in their book that produced the current landmine problems. In the mid-1970s, the Baathist regime sowed millions of unrecorded land mines throughout Southern Kurdistan to subdue Kurdish resistance. Throughout the entire Iran-Iraq war, from 1980 to 1988, landmines polluted the border regions to such an extent that certain rural zones are marked as “no-go areas”. Landmine maps have not been made available to international agencies by either Iran or Iraq, which could assist in setting up landmine removal protocols. During the Gulf war, so-called barrier mines made border zones between Turkey and the Kurdistan region inaccessible, which was followed by the enthusiastic use of landmines by various Kurdish factions without keeping records during periods of internecine fighting. In sum, the lack of leadership from the central government in Iraq with regard to landmine removal in the Kurdistan region has been appalling.
While the horrific facts are well researched in Heshmati and Khayyat’s work, the chapters are very short, frequently subdivided, and appear choppy. The book is extremely data-driven, full of charts, lists, and graphs that tend to serve a very esoteric audience. In addition, it seems that the authors could have benefited from a more rigorous editing process. In essence, Heshmati and Khayyat’s work provides scientific audiences with a detailed resource guide, and specifically focuses on informing a readership with an interest in protocols and processes linked to parameters of landmine removal. The segments of the book that address health concerns, injuries, and educational outreach and programming are particularly informative. It must be pointed out that the available academic literature on landmines in Kurdistan is extremely thin, which enhances the significance of this contribution by Heshmati and Khayyat. Few scholarly articles have examined the devastating results of landmines in Southern Kurdistan, except for regular NGO reports that address the economic repercussions of landmine injuries or the social consequences for disabled persons.
What is missing in this scientific study is the inclusion of the human toll of landmines. What should be done to reduce the disturbingly high numbers of young Kurdish boys who are killed and maimed by landmines while they guard and herd their families’ animals? What is the fate of landmine survivors in Southern Kurdistan? Victims typically are unable to find employment and often cannot access most buildings since even recent construction fails to consider the needs of disabled members of society. Heshmati and Khayyat’s work represents an important starting point for detailed studies related to the long-term consequences of landmine usage in Kurdish communities following decades of war.