The Hidden Killers

At a historic gathering in Oslo in September nearly 100 nations endorsed an immediate and total ban on anti-personnel mines. Shamefully, U.S. representatives in Oslo refused to support the treaty while actively seeking to sabotage the negotiations. Rejecting a flat ban on all land mines, the Clinton administration lobbied for numerous exceptions that would rob the treaty of its compelling moral character and vital practical utility.

The case for an immediate and total ban on land mines is overwhelming. Estimates of the number of land mines remaining from past wars range from 100 million to 300 million. Every 22 minutes someone is killed or wounded by land mines. Most of the 26,000 yearly victims are innocent civilians, and according to UNICEF many are children. During the last 50 years, children have become frequent casualties of war, as civilians now account for 90 percent of war deaths. An international ban on the production, use, stockpiling, sale, and export of land mines is a concrete and effective step in reversing this deadly trend.

President Clinton knows this. In a January 1997 letter to the Senate, he wrote, "[The treaty] will...help to prepare the ground for the total prohibition of anti-personnel land mines [APL] to which the United States is committed. In this regard, I cannot overemphasize how seriously the United States takes the goal of eliminating APL entirely. The carnage and devastation caused by anti-personnel land mines-the hidden killers that murder and maim more than 25,000 people each year-must end."

In addition to the compelling arguments of severed limbs and destroyed lives, 15 retired generals and admirals urged Clinton to support the international treaty. Anti-personnel land mines, they said, serve no necessary military purpose, and they expose both civilians and U.S. soldiers to unnecessary danger.

CLINTON UNDERSTANDS that civilians are overwhelmingly the victims of land mine use. He links land mines to murder. He knows that the world will ban land mines with or without the support of the United States. And yet still he opposes the international treaty.

In Oslo the United States sought an exemption for Korea. While the question of how to guarantee Korea's security and the achievement of a just peace on the peninsula is too complex to address in this space, the issue needn't have scuttled the U.S. involvement in the treaty. The U.S. Campaign to Ban Land Mines noted that granting such an exemption "would permit the United States to keep its stockpile of 10 million smart mines" (mines that are made to be but are not always self-destroying). The campaign believes that a Korea exception "is but a fig leaf to cover the real intent of U.S. policy, which is to continue to be able to use its smart mines indefinitely...[which] would open the treaty to a flood of exceptions from other countries with their own 'unique' concerns." In other words, U.S. exemptions were a means to sabotage the treaty.

Clinton's opposition to an immediate and total ban on land mines is in all likelihood rooted in his long-standing loyalty to arms manufacturers and the Pentagon. Abandoning moral principle and sensible policy in favor of special interests concerning land mines is consistent with decisions to approve arms sales to Latin America, to support the School of the Americas, and to allow a steady growth in military spending as a percentage of discretionary spending in the federal budget.

We find ourselves once again having to compensate for the destructive policies of our government and the unethical practices of U.S. weapons manufacturers. There are two vital actions needed. First, public protests against companies that produce land mines will need to intensify. In Minneapolis, for example, public pressure against land mine producer Alliant Techsystems is building. A recent trial of 79 nonviolent protesters has brought the land mine issue to public consciousness. Alliant Techsystems will one day, perhaps soon, be forced to get out of the land-mine-making business, following the leadership of Motorola and 16 other U.S. manufacturers that have agreed to end production of land mines. Second, we must press our government to join most of the rest of the world-either now or after the official signing of the treaty in Ottawa this December-in seeking to rid the world of this scourge.

The international movement to ban land mines is a powerful example of grassroots citizen action compelling reluctant governments to take action. The Canadian government, unlike our own, should be commended for its willingness to lead on this issue. As Jody Williams, coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines, said at the Oslo conference, "This treaty is not perfect...but it is a treaty that every government of the world should sign in Ottawa in December, and ratify as rapidly as possible."

STEVE CLEMENS and JACK NELSON-PALLMEYER are members of the Community of St. Martin's in Minneapolis, where Clemens works with Habitat for Humanity. Nelson-Pallmeyer is the author, most recently, of School of Assassins (Orbis Books, 1997).