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Psychological Support and Ventilation Programme for Croatian Army Mine-Clearning Personnel

Once war conflicts are over, military power and equipment are put under the international military supervision. Mines, however, remain, as decades- long humanitarian, economical and psychological threat. The mission of clearning mines, the "heritage" of the 20th century makes a critical obligation within human rights protection and peace preservation initiatives. Mines disable or kill 26 000 people woldwide annually, mostly civilians, with children victims accounting for half the figure. According to the data of UN Disarmament Institute in Geneva (UNIDIR), in the 1945 - 1995 period over 400 000 million landmines were laid throughout the world. Croatia is pressently among the ten most critical countries in this regard. In the Homlend Defence War almost half of the territory of the Republic of Croatia was scene of fighting, and over about 13 000 kms2 as many as 3 million anti-armor and anti-personnel mines were laid, and over million different artillery shells fired. Since the liberation operations in 1995 the lion's share of heaviest amount of mine-clearing task was carried out by Croatian Armed Forces and policie specialists using the equipment at disposal and improvised. The job was gradually taken over by civilian organizations. Recent estimates suspect that still some 1-1, 2 million mines are found in the 4 500 km2 area, which, as planned, is not to be cleared completetly before the year 2010. Psycological determinants, especially the stressful nature of mine clearning job, demand psychological involement. In tje 1996 Department of Military Psychology of the Armed Forces of Republic of Croatia authored the Psychological Support and Ventilation Programme. The programme was primarily intended for mine-clearing personnel, but it allows modifications which render it usable with other military specialities. So, a version of the programme is conducted with the Air Force (pilot)population. Initially, the programme contained psychological prepairing of mine- clearing personnel for deployment, ventilation and relaxation, processing of traumatical incidents, individual and family counselling, assessment of psychological preparedness of mine-clearing teams as well as the proposed of optimization measures. The programme was applied with each group separately, whereas the wives of the teams members were approached collectively. Systematic evaluation of the program's effectiveness and psychological efficiency makes makes an integral part of the Programme. This poster demostrates the Programme as applied in 1996 and 1997, incorporated into the active vacation organized for the Arned Forces mine-clearing personnel deployed in the Danubian basin. Also shown are the results of the program efficiency evaluation.

Psychological Support and Ventilation ; Croatian Army ; Homeland War ; Mine-Clearning Personnel

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