Coping with Clandestine Structures in International Intervention: Landmine Clearance Agencies in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Sudan
Coping with Clandestine Structures in International Intervention: Landmine Clearance Agencies in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Sudan

Summary/Abstract: Abstract: Contemporary conflicts radically reorganize the political and economic systems of societies, empowering 'clandestine structures' built by covert action, smuggling, war profiteering, black markets and organized crime. This 'underground', eschewing transparency and rule-based politics and economics, poses an enormous danger to international peacebuilding efforts. This essay examines how intervening international agencies interact with such structures, by drawing on fieldwork researching landmine clearance programs in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Sudan. Demining agencies offer telling insights into the nexus between international agencies and clandestine structures because they often employ significant numbers of demobilized soldiers, many of whom may have links to clandestine structures, and require information, access and goods that may be controlled by such networks. Using examples from the cases, this paper will show various attempted responses to this problem by international demining agencies, including collusion, avoidance, and building alternative structures.

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