Landmines:
Mass Destruction in Slow Motion

"I remember bow outraged everyone was in this country when Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against the Kurd". But! wonder how many people realize that all of the deaths from chemical, biological, (and even nuclear weapons are only a fraction of the number of people who have been killed or maimed by landmines." Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT)¹

The Problem
Landmines - camouflaged explosives made to cripple or kill people, or to destroy weaponry - turn fields, paths, and travel routes into potential death traps for innocent civilians long after the conflicts end and the causes of war are forgotten. Though they receive less attention than nuclear or other conventional weapons, landmines kill 800 people every month, 26,000 victims every year. This means one casualty every 22 minutes. ²

Landmines are cheap,³ easy to acquire, easy to carry, and capable of making large areas inaccessible.⁴ Antipersonnel landmines, designed smaller to target people on foot, pose a danger to civilian populations in dozens of nations. Combatants lay landmines to cordon off areas, cripple potential adversaries, and wreak economic havoc on strategic areas. For example, an estimated four million mines, some supplied by the United Stares, remain buried in Cambodia as a grim reminder of two decades of fighting. Children's exercise books contain pictures of antipersonnel mines 6n their back covers in an attempt to teach the young about the dangerous nines that lay hidden all over the country.⁵ There is no solution to the landmines problem in Cambodia in sight. According to Handicap International:

In 1979.-. there were about 10,000 Cambodian amputees. After 10 years of hard work... nearly 15,000 are walking again. The problem is that - today - there are 30,000 amputees! And the figures are growing at just such an rate in almost half of the countries we are working in (emphasis added).⁶

Although mine-clearing technologies do exist and work to some extent, they risk human lives and drain scarce resources in many developing-world nations. In the West, World War II landmines in the Netherlands continue to maim an average of 12 people per year. In the developing world, a landmine that costs as little as $3 to purchase often costs as much as $1,000 in equipment and labor to remove.⁷ This robs these nations of precious resources that otherwise could be invested in sustain-able development programs.

Because of the tremendous number of mines strewn indiscriminately throughout the developing world (an estimated 110 million at this time), poor nations have no choice but to undertake the enormous project of mine clearance. The complete dc-mining of Cambodia alone will take an estimated 250 years.⁸ To remove all of the mines in the world today, according to a report by U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ohali, would cost $33 billion and take nearly 1,100 years If the effort continues at the current rate and landmine proliferation were stopped completely in 1996, an unlikelyprospect (Toward Freedom April/May 1995).⁹

As the world's number one power, the United States -which has funded the placing of landinines in wars from Angolato Nicaragua - has a special responsibility to take a leadershiprole in the effort to enact an international ban on the expon,manufacture, possession, and use of landmines.

Current Efforts
In 1995, the United States ratiiled the Second Protocol to the1981 Inhumane Weapons Convention (JWC), joirnng 52 othernations. Protocol II of the IWC prohibits the indiscriminate useof landmines in inter-state conflicts, anddeals with marking andrecoiding minefields. The nearly 14 - year delay by the UnitedStates in ratIfying the IW'C was in part responsible for its failureto live up even to its limited goal of lessening the use oflandmines.

However, the Convention's main weakness is the fact thatwhile most of the wars today involving massive landminespreading are internal conflicts, the IWC continues to applyonly to conflicts between nations. Many national liberationgroups (revolutionaries) use Iandmines because they are cheapand easy to acquire. These groups are not bound by and cannotsign any current treaty that limits warfare, including the use of landmines.

A natiqn that has ratified thistreaty has the nghtto call for * restria U.S. military sales to any cot:'try that continues toa review conference 10 years after it enters into force. Francehas done so, providing the international community with theopportunity to take the definitive action on the landmines issuethat it has shied away from in the past. The review conference,scheduled for September 1995 in Vienna, is expected to adoptproposals by a panel of experts that would eliminate some ofthe loopholes in Protocol II, but would not ban the use oflancirnines, nor would it attempt to restrict landmine use inintra-state conflicts.¹⁰

In the past, the United States was one of 35 nations thatexported antipersonnel landmines. Before Congress passedthe landmines Moratorium Act in 1992, which imposed a oneyear moratorium on the sate and export of antipersonnellandmines, the United States licensed more than $1.9 million insales and exports of antipersonnel landmines. These salesneither enhanced U.S. security nor provided lor a significantnumber of U.S. jobs. In fact, their use by nations to which theUnited States has sent troops, such as Somalia, directly threatHened the security of US forces.

The U.S. moratorium has been extended through 1996 andhas been joined by 18 other nations, including the RussianFederation, Italy, the Czech Republic, and Cambodia, but moreaction needs to be taken. The United States continues to uselandinines in its strategic planning, as do most other nations inthe world.

Clinton and the "Safe" laridmine Regime
In October 1994, President Clinton addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations. In his speech, he called uponthe global community to work toward "the eventual eliminationof all anti-personnel landmines." Toward that goal, thePresident adopted a plan created by the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. This so-called "safe" landmines regimecalled for a shift to the use of iandmines that would self-neutralize or self-destruct *within a fixed period of time.According to this plan the United States would be able toresume the export of these safe landmines after the expirationof the U.S moratorium in January 1997.

Reaction to this new policy was swift. An October 6 letterfrom 28 national veterans, environmental, arms control, disarHmament, religious, and human rights organizations said, "Whethermines are active for 30 minutes, 30 days, or 30 years, they willbe used to injure civilians and soldiers alike until they areoutlawed as indiscriminate, unacceptably cruel weapons."Preparatory discussions for the rwC review conference alsoslowed down as the Clinton policy degenerated into a fightabout what the fixed period of time for a self-destruct landmine should be.

Rep. Lane Evans (D-IL) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), also condemned the "safe" landmine policy. In response; theyintroduced a bill on June 16. The 1995 Landmine UseMoratorium Act would:

• call upon the President to pursue an internationallandmines ban at the Vienna conference this fall;
• place a one-year moratorium on the use of antipersonnel landmines by the United States except along intentionally recognized borders. The moritorium would go into effect after three years, giving defense planners the opportunity to devisenew strategies that do not require landmines;
• restrict U.S. military sales to any country that continues to export landruines and call upon the President to undertake efforts to achieve a global ban on landmine export and use.
• Individuals may debate which political tactics should be used to address the landmines problem, but the costs in terms of human lives ldst and destroyed put the seriousness and urgency of this issue beyond dispute.

• ban the use, production, and proliferation of landmines;
• create a U.N. firrtd to dear mine fields and to aid victims;
• amend Protocol II of the 1980 Inhumane Weapons Convention to include a ban on all uses of landmines by both state and non-state actors at the September 1995 review conference.
  

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1. Congressional Record, July 22, 1993, p.59290
2. Media Natura, Report on l,andmines,' citing "U.N. Working Group on Mines," April 21-23,1993, p.1. A more recent article suggests that this fugure may underestimate the extent of the destruction caused by landmines: tjody Williams, coordinator of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation's land mines campaign, estimated that land mines are killing 4,000 people a month in Angola alone.' Thomas W. Uppman, "Sen Leahy Continues Crusade Against Export of Land Mines,' The Washington Poit, August 8,1993,. p. 20.
3. "Some... mines can be bought for less than S3 per rnine... [ they are readily available on the international market to any party With cash. United States Department of State, Hidden Killers: The Global Problem With Uncleared Landmines, prepared by the Office of International Security Operation, July 1993, p. I.
4. Senator Patrick Leahy, "Landmine Moratorium: Astategy For Stronger International Urnits,' Arms Con trot Today January/February 1993, p.11.
5. "Demining the Killing Fields,' TowardFreedom, December1994, p. 30.
6. Eric Prokosch. The Technology ofrctfling: AMditary and Political History of Antipersonnel Weapons (New Jersey: Zed Eooks, 1995), citing a statement by Handicap International at the NGO Conference on landmines, Lcnddn, 24 May 1993.
7. Campaign To Ban Lancimines Fact Sheet, July 1995.
8. "Demining the Killing Fields," p.30.
9. Jim Wurst, "Dance of Destruction," Toward Freedom, April/May 1995, p.20.
10. ibid.

Based on "Landmines" Fact Sheet wntten by Mark Stemman. Updated by Scot Natbanson, Disarmament Campatgn Organizer; and Eric Cox. Thanks to the Compton Foundation, Ruth Mott Fund, & Winston Foundation for World Peace.
- July 1995