That's right, you all read the title and for once it's exactly what it's supposed to be with none of my usual typos. According to the Associated Press the Cambodian government has decided to cancel the Miss Landmine 2009 pageant. Because it claims that it is an insult to the disabled.
Miss Landmine has been held as far back as 2007 in Angola, and the pageant's aim is to raise awareness about the very real problems that landmines have caused and still cause around the world. The Ottawa treaty served as a reminder to the world of how bad the situation with landmines was, with 156 countries signing on ( the Notables who did not: China, India, Russia, USA).
The pageant in Cambodia was to feature some 20 contestants, they're photos and profiles are available at Miss Landmine's website.
Personally, I love the idea behind this contest. I think that if anything, in this vain and superficial world we live in, it's important to show the other side of beauty. I think that this contest is probably the one beauty contest that I would actually watch and vocally support. So my hat is off to the women with enough guts and confidence to know that despite burns, disfiguration or loss of limbs they are still beautiful.
4 comments:
We should also mention that there's a huge landmine field planted by the Cuban government in... Cuba*. In addition to the ones they planted in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Ethiopia, Somalia, Nicaragua, and the ones planted with the mines supplied by Castro elsewhere in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Central America, in Colombia, and many other places. Our good friends the Castros are leaders in the industry of death and destruction Hell, Inc. They have shone in the mine field "agriculture" as well in offering training to all sort of guerrillas and other adepts to plant these devices, with great "success" -as the ever growing rooster of dead and maimed shows....
* The Cuban minefield is located right outside the Guantanamo Base, and its tactical designation is not to prevent an American invasion, it's to prevent Cubans for leaving Cuba, and many people have ventured inside that living hell in order to escape from.... Hell.....
Landmines and any sort of anti-personnel devices are just plain evil.
Most of the old communist countries made a killing (in both meanings of the word) exporting these. But in this hemisphere, you're the Castros were top notch as far as supplying them and training people to use them.
And just to add what you were saying: "U.S. and Cuban troops placed some 55,000 land mines across the "no man's land" between the U.S. and Cuban border, creating the second-largest minefield in the world, and the largest in the Western Hemisphere. On May 16, 1996, U.S. President Bill Clinton ordered their removal. They have since been replaced with motion and sound sensors to detect intruders. The Cuban government has not removed the corresponding minefield on its side of the border." (source Wikipedia)
Yeah, those castro guys... They really overdid themselves providing land mine happy thugs with an education....
Sorry, I left out the part of the Clinton ordered removal of the land mines for writing in a hurry, still, the ones that stay are the ones planted by the castros and they still constitute the biggest land mine field in the western hemisphere.
In a few words, land mines and antipersonnel devices of all sorts (including suicide bombers, car bombs, roadside bombs) are the cruelest methods of combat ever deviced, alongside with the bombarding of civilian enclaves.
100% in agreement.
Really...
And that's why I think a pageant such as this one actually makes sense.
It puts a face on the victims of these atrocities and on the very real consequences that are a direct result of "help" given by those who enabled them to happen.
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