Plenary Session-04

At present, an estimated 120 million landmines are buried in countries worldwide. Moreover, this number is increasing by more than one million each year. Landmines continue to cause damage even after wars have ended, and 80% of their victims are civilians. 85% of children die before they even reach hospital. Landmines can remain dormant underground for more than 50 years, and people get left behind in fear and poverty.
I first visited Cambodia in 1994 on business. Walking around the capital Phnom Penh, I noticed children begging by the roadside. Among them was an old woman was lying on the ground beside a young girl. The old woman didn’t have a right leg and her face was badly burned. She was an antipersonnel landmine victim. I saw this woman, without family and overcome by fear and poverty, with my own eyes, but all I could do was press a one dollar bill into the palm of her hand. The words that came from the old woman mouth, “Thank you. Please help the people of Cambodia.” remain in the front of my mind to this day.
Owner of a machinery sales and maintenance company in my native Yamanashi, I am a mechanic. I wondered if I could make demining equipment from the construction equipment I worked with. This was the beginning of a long journey. I appealed to my employees saying, “I want to open up a road to international contribution from our humble factory here in the country”. This is how my project team of six people got together and completed our antipersonnel demining machine No. 1 - a hydraulic shovel with a high speed revolving cutter attached to the tip of its arm - in 1998.
The thing that troubled me most during the development process was finding a place to test the blast proofness and durability of the deminer. We conducted tests in Cambodia in September 1999. We were able to confirm their safety and durability, and we currently have 52 deminers at work in Cambodia and Afghanistan.
Orange trees were planted in demined areas in Nicaragua, and five years later, 600,000 cases of oranges were being shipped annually, earning 1.5 million dollars in income from export. Demined areas in Cambodia have also been converted into fruit and vegetable farms; farmers in this mined country are gaining independence and this is beginning to produce results. My dream of a “Peaceful World without Landmines” is, step by step, taking shape.