 Once placed, mines remain active for years, waiting the pressure of an unwary foot to detonate.With an estimated 100,000 land mines buried across Central America, mainly in Nicaragua, there was grave concern over their location and removal or deactivation as the Cold War began to wind down.In August 1991 Nicaragua asked the Organization of American States (OAS) for assistance, and the Secretary General forwarded the request to the Inter-American Defense Board (IADB), which sent a group of staff officers to Nicaragua to assess the situation.