Mined and Forgotten

Episode #409: His military experience enabled a rapport with Myanmar’s armed actors, says Rory McCann, who recently served almost two years as the country Weapons Contamination Specialist for the ICRC. A challenge at the beginning of the job was to build trust with different conflict parties, in part to convince them that the ICRC was teaching weapons safety regarding landmines and other explosive ordnance, not weapons handling.

As a 25-year veteran of the Irish Army, McCann was deployed in Chad, Syria and Uganda, with his training in the ordnance corps preparing him for humanitarian mine action. His ICRC role included interaction with the Myanmar Armed Forces and other armed groups.

“When you're talking about humanitarian mine action, it has to be much more systematic and you're looking at the international mine action standards,” McCann says. International standards, which are not adhered to in Myanmar, set guidelines across “five pillars": clearance, risk education, victim assistance, stockpile destruction, and advocacy.

McCann says his role was educating armed actors about obligations to protect civilians and landmine use under customary IHL. Myanmar is not a signatory to the CCW or the Mine Ban Treaty. Conflict actors are still legally bound by customary IHL that prohibits indiscriminate use of landmines.

“Landmine fields are designed to be an obstacle … What we were seeing in Myanmar … they’re simply being used in a sporadic and maybe punitive manner.” Known as “nuisance mining,” this fails to meet military objectives and poses indiscriminate threat to civilians.

At present, only risk education, victim assistance, and advocacy are underway. Since 2015, the ICRC and MRCS have conducted over 1,800 sessions reaching 69,000 people in 2024. More than 4,800 people with disabilities were supported through physical rehabilitation services.

National ownership is an ICRC goal, though McCann admits conflict makes realization unlikely, focusing instead on risk mitigation and advocacy.