MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

US de-mining courses for Chilean Army and Marines

For the second year running United States Armed Forces experts are holding land mine detection and removal courses for Chilean Army and Marine personnel reports the Santiago press.

The six weeks program which begun last August in the Calama Topater Regiment, northern Chile, includes theoretical and practical capability in the detection, removal and destruction of land and anti personnel mines as well as medical emergencies and the use of specific software for planning mine sweeping activities.

Field work in Calama for the detection, removal and destruction of mines is conducted by twelve experts from the US Army Special Operations Forces and the medical emergencies and evacuations by a team of four doctors from the US Air Force.

Simultaneously another group of US officers is teaching Chilean personnel how to use the specific mine sweeping operations software at the Engineers Regiment of Tejas Verdes in Llo-Lleo.

The training program is in the framework of the Humanitarian De-mining Program from the US State Department with support from the Southern Command of the US Armed Forces together in co-ordination with the Chilean National De-mining Committee.

The US State Department Humanitarian De-mining program is active in many different countries round the world with the specific purpose of reducing the risks for civilian populations of land and antipersonnel mines.

In related news the Chilean Air Force announced six refurbished former Dutch F-16 jet fighter-bombers recently incorporated, landed safely in the northern base of Cerro Moreno in Antofagasta. The six fighters left Holland last Monday with fuel support from a KDC-10 Extender with technical stops in Canary Islands and Brazil.

The six will replace outdated Mirage Elkans and are the first batch of three totalling 18 refurbished F-16 MLU. Chile also purchased directly from United States ten brand new F-16s, Block 50, turning the Chilean Air Force into the best equipped in the area.