Introduction
Today, fifteen years after war events in the Republic of Croatia, we are still facing the mine problem as a perfidious remnant of the Homeland war.
Twelve years after the establishment by the Government of the Republic of Croatia, CROMAC, as roof mine action organization, has turned into an organizational leader in the region in the sphere of mine action. Continuous organizational development and incessant investing and use of most sophisticated techniques and technologies resulted in a successful creation of our own models for all phases of complex demining process.
These models have now been used almost routinely in the processes of quality assurance and quality control over demining operations, project documentation development, defining and marking of mine suspected area as well as development and maintenance of the most modern database. Introduction of market model and public tender procedure into mine action system but also linking the development projects with demining projects enabled fast development of capacities and obtaining fully transparent method of forming the prices that increased a great deal the economical quality of management on one hand and through performance results, the efficiency and quality of operations on the other hand.
In addition, thanks to the donation of the Kingdom of Norway, CROMAC MISportal was put into operation in February 2009. MISportal is a web application that provides each user with an insight into mine suspected areas in the Republic of Croatia. Such mine suspected area display is unique in the world.
The mine suspected area in the Republic of Croatia currently extends to ca. 830 km2 on the territory of 100 towns and municipalities in 12 counties what we still consider to be a very large area. However, we would also like to stress the fact that, thanks to the organized work methods and clear priority setting, Croatia has achieved security of the road network, tourist destinations, community and public facilities as well as house yards as part of the reconstruction process and generally in most parts of the area used in everyday living. In the framework of the National Mine Action Strategy 2009-2019, the Republic of Croatia committed to completely remove mine danger from the areas planned for reconstruction such as houses and infrastructure, agricultural areas, meadows and pastures in the next four to five years. This is also supported by considerable decrease of a number of mine victims and mine incidents in the period from 1998 until today when mine incidents happen extremely rarely and sporadically mostly due to lack of attention or human mistakes and not due to lack of information or marking of the area etc. what CROMAC believes to be a great success.
A lot of work to be done in the forthcoming years depends on two factors: available capacities and inflow of financial means. The fact that should be emphasized is that the Government of the Republic of Croatia, as one of the rare ones in the world, finances mine action in the Republic of Croatia in most part. We should not forget the donors that we are very grateful to. At the international plan, we intend to increase our business activity and put all our efforts in searching for donations for demining purposes.
With its priceless experience, knowledge and sophisticated technology at disposal, CROMAC is now open to all forms of co-operation and providing assistance to all countries that can not face the mine problem on their own or do not have proper knowledge or capacities to do themselves.
It is our aim to make our know-how, methods, techniques and technologies available to all and, in that way, involve ourselves in solving the overall mine problem in the world i.e. be a stabile and efficient partner in the global mine action community what we have already demonstrated by co-operating with many countries we have already signed memorandums of understanding with.
Zdravko Modrušan, director of CROMAC
