In the end this is about something like prohibiting chemical weapons, or landmines.
Its 27-year civil war has left a landscape dotted with millions of landmines and a deep suspicion of outsiders among the victorious guerrillas, who tend to speak Portuguese, the former colonial language, rather than English.
Many will doubtless hear, at barbecues over the July 4th weekend, that voters want landmines in the Yuma desert and crocodiles in the Rio Grande.
By studying how the use of land has changed, a trained eye can spot a wealth of clues to the presence or absence of landmines.
The FSD team ended up studying the group's military doctrine and combing media reports for any mention of positions defended by the Tigers to help work out where landmines might be.Now such surveys can get help from a free service offered by the European Space Agency.
Other methods used to detonate IEDs and landmines, such as armoured machines that flail the ground or sift through it like a potato harvester, are less violent.
There is uncertainty as to whether the Colombian government is negotiating the participation in politics of guerrilla commanders who have committed crimes against humanity, such as kidnapping, child recruitment and planting landmines.
Together with the thousands of landmines laid by the Serbian army, police and paramilitaries, NATO unexploded ordnance guaranteed Kosovar refugees anything but a safe return.
A huge effort has been made to clean up the area, but is Kosovo now safe Even when the fighting stopped, simply going to school or gathering firewood for cooking was a potentially life-threatening activity in many areas: landmines and unexploded bombs caused over 340 casualties in the first six months after the fighting ended, and all in an area half the size of Wales.
There are plans to renovate (and clear landmines from) an extensive railway network that reaches Congo and Zambia.
Soldiers have forced most farmers into cities and planted landmines in their fields.
