§ Mr. RedmondTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the countries where United Kingdom forces are helping to discover and disarm anti-personnel minefields.
§ Mr. Archie HamiltonRoyal Engineers are currently deployed in Colombia, the Falkland islands and Kuwait. In Colombia they are providing bomb search and disposal 143W training as part of the Government's package of anti-drugs assistance. In the Falkland islands the explosive ordnance disposal detachment of the garrison field squadron is responsible for monitoring the minefields left behind by the Argentine invasion forces in 1982. In Kuwait, in the aftermath of hostilities, Royal Engineers co-ordinated the multinational effort of marking Iraqi-laid minefields. The current activities of the Royal Engineers in Kuwait do not include specific tasking on the search for and disarming of anti-personnel mines, but concentrate on the disposal of unexploded ordnance.