JMAS adds agricultural suppo to aid farmers
As well as its vital demining activities, the Japan Mine Action Service (JMAS) in Cambodia is now providing farmers with improved farming techniques and building systems to supply water.
THE Japan Mine Action Service in Cambodia (JMAS), which has been spearheading demining activities in the Kingdom for the past two decades – clearing unexploded ordnance (UXO) including anti-personnel and anti-tank mines – is now extending further humanitarian assistance.
“From this year, JMAS will begin providing agricultural support in addition to its demining and infrastructure-building activities by providing local farmers with improved farming techniques and building reservoirs for supplying water during the dry season.
“JMAS will continue with its many activities turning minefields into beautiful green farmland in order to bring smiles to people in Cambodia,” JMAS resident representative Suenaga Noriyoshi told The Post.
The organisation continues to turn once dangerous minefields into fertile farmland to lift up the economic conditions of rural communities, with land once plagued with dreaded explosive remnants of war (EWA) in Kampong Thom, Battambang and Banteay Meanchey provinces transformed with the help of Japanese-led demining experts.
JMAS is an international non-governmental organisation comprising former officers and noncommissioned officers of the Japan Self-Defence Forces.
It began its mine-clearing activities in Cambodia in 2002, partnering with the Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC). This year marks the 20th anniversary of its demining operations in the Kingdom.
As of September 2020, JMAS experts have cleared 4,100 hectares of minefields, removing more than 20,000 anti-personnel mines and 650 anti-tank mines, as well as 39,000 units of other UXO, and responded to 37,000 requests from residents to dispose of mines and EWA found around the areas they live.
“We transfer mine clearance techniques to CMAC and provide education about the dangers of UXO to local people and children. We also build roads and schools to support local communities.
“We have constructed 11 schools and built more than 80km of roads in and around former minefields. JMAS currently operates two demining projects in Banteay Meanchey and Kampong Thom provinces, while another project involves the rebuilding of basic infrastructure in Battambang and Banteay Meanchey provinces.
“Twenty-five JMAS staff including seven Japanese and around 100 deminers from CMAC are involved in this project.
JMAS deploys various machines for demining activities such as demining machines, cluster machines and brush cutters, which are supported by human deminers.
“Our activities are much more productive by integrating machine power and human deminers,” said Suenaga.
While the organisation currently has the capacity to clear some 200 hectares of mine-affected areas, it has set a target this year of demining 400 hectares, he added.
“We want to help Cambodia remove the mines and other unexploded ordnance that remain threats to people’s lives and to see Cambodians live peacefully free of deadly explosive remnants of war,” said Suenaga.
AVOLLEY of rockets targeting an airbase in Iraq’s Kurdistan region killed a foreign civilian contractor and wounded five others and a US soldier, the US-led coalition said. The attack late on February 15 was the first time in nearly two months that Western military or diplomatic installations have been targeted in Iraq, after a string of similar incidents.
US top diplomat Antony Blinken called for an investigation and promised to “hold accountable those responsible”.
“Several American contractors” appeared to have been wounded he added, without giving further details.
Former US president Donald Trump had threatened that the killing of a US national in such a rocket attack would prompt a mass bombing campaign in Iraq.
Iraqi and Western security sources said at least three rockets were fired in the direction of the city’s airport, where foreign troops are based as part of an international alliance fighting the Islamic State (IS) group.
Coalition spokesman Colonel Wayne Marotto confirmed that the dead contractor was not Iraqi, but could not give immediate details on the victim’s nationality.
Since Iraq declared victory against IS in late 2017, the coalition has been reduced to under 3,500 troops in total, 2,500 of them from the US.
Most are concentrated at the military complex at the Erbil airport, a coalition source said.
The attack was claimed by a shadowy group calling itself “Awliyaa al-Dam” or “Guardians of Blood”.
Around a dozen such groups have cropped up in the past year claiming rocket attacks, but US and Iraqi security officials have said they believe them to be front groups for prominent pro-Iran factions including Kataeb Hezbollah and Asaib Ahl al-Haq.
Two other rockets hit residential neighbourhoods on Erbil’s outskirts.
Delovan Jalal, the head of Erbil’s health directorate, said at least five civilians were wounded and one was in critical condition.
The Kurdistan region’s interior ministry confirmed “several rockets” had hit the city and said security agencies had launched a “detailed investigation”, urging civilians to stay home until further notice.
Following the attack, security forces deployed around the airport and helicopters could be heard on the city’s edges, an AFP correspondent said.
Iraqi President Barham Saleh tweeted that the attack
marked a “dangerous escalation and a criminal terrorist act”.
Masrour Barzani, prime minister of the autonomous Kurdish region, condemned the attack “in the strongest terms”.
Two intelligence sources confirmed to AFP that the attack was carried out from within the autonomous Kurdish region.
Western military and diplomatic sites have been targeted by dozens of rockets and roadside bombs since late 2019, with both foreign and Iraqi personnel killed.
In December 2019, a US contractor was killed in a rocket attack on a base in Kirkuk province, prompting the US to respond with air strikes against Kataeb Hezbollah.
In March 2020, another rocket attack killed two US citizens – a soldier and a contractor – and a British soldier.
In October, the US threatened to close its embassy in Baghdad unless the attacks stopped.
The Iraqi government facilitated an indefinite truce with hardline groups and the fire had come to a near halt.
But there have been violations, the most recent of which had been a spray of rockets targeting the US embassy on December 20.
Erbil has been targeted very rarely, although Iranian forces fired missiles at the same airport in January last year, a few days after Washington assassinated key general Qasem Soleimani at Baghdad airport.