Coping With a Deadly Legacy

BY CHAD GOLDER and VANESSA MARVIN

The nations of the world are beginning to realize that land mines are more trouble than they are worth. In December, many nations will gather in Ottawa to ban the production, sale, and use of anti-personnel land mines. The United States, however, is not planning on joining them.

A child is playing with his friends in an abandoned field. He doesn't know that this field was once a battleground for a war that was fought before he was even born. Suddenly, a blast rips apart the stillness.

Without knowing it, he has stepped on a buried anti-personnel mine. The explosion tears through his leg; pieces of his shoe, bone chips, and stones are driven upwards into the tissue of his leg, buttock, genitals, arms and even his eyes. He is lucky it is only a small mine, a larger one would have killed him instantly. Still, his chance of survival is slim. If he gets to a hospital with the proper facilities in time, the doctors may be able to keep him alive but the messy and complicated damage caused by land mines is difficult even for the most well-trained war surgeons. Even if he survives, his future is bleak.
A scene like this one occurs 500 times a week, 2000 times a month. Every 22 minutes, a landmine explodes somewhere in the world. Most of the victims are innocent civilians. The child may have survived the initial blast but there is only a 15 percent chance that he will receive proper medical treatment. His family will be expected to pay over $3,000 in medical expenses, an outrageous sum for a family with a monthly income of $10-15. The means to obtain an artificial limb are non-existent. Getting a matching pair of second-hand crutches is equally difficult. Furthermore, he is left with the social, psychological, and economic implications of being an amputee in a country that relies heavily on physical labor.

Movement Toward A Ban Many weapons have been banned internationally because of the atrocities of their actions. Poison gas used in World War I was banned because of its horrible effects, and in 1996 the blinding laser was also banned. Many feel that land mines, which are designed to maim and kill by blasting their victims’ limbs, also deserve to be added to this list. The 1997 Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams, Coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines, and many others within the coalition have worked tirelessly to raise the world's awareness of the problems associated with land mines. Williams' involvement began in 1991 when she was hired by the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. On behalf of the Foundation, Williams and her co-workers began to build up support and membership for the creation of a coalition and the realization of its goals. Now, the Campaign has become one of the most prominent anti-landmines groups in the US. The Struggle Comes to Connecticut The Supreme Cambodian Patriarch, the Venerable Samdech Maha Ghosananda, has also gained worldwide recognition for his advocacy of a comprehensive ban on land mines. The monk's visit to Yale University last year, when he spoke about the dangers of landmines, inspired Yale student Rita Pin to organize the Connecticut Conference to Abolish Land Mines. The conference was held on October 18-19, 1997 at Yale University. This gathering was intended to "make links between experts, lay people, students, and people affected by mines." It attempted to increase public awareness of the land mines issue and explored the ways in which individuals and groups can work together to end the use of land mines around the world. Speakers included a victim of a land mine, an anti-land mine activist, and a military expert.

The killers.

The efforts of the anti-land-mine activists resulted in the Ottawa Treaty Signing Conference. The Conference will be held in December of this year. Over 100 nations, including Russia, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, will meet in Ottawa to sign the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpilling, Production, and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Land Mines by the year 2000. A key player in the international community, however, is missing from the list. During the treaty negotiations in September, US representatives announced that they would only agree to the ban on the condition that there would be a geographic exception to the ban. The US wants to continue using land mines against North Korea but the other nations held tight to the comprehensive ban, pointing out that other nations would want to start making geographic exceptions. In addition, the US wanted exceptions for certain kinds of mines and mine systems, as well as a delay in the target date of the ban. Again, the rest of the international community insisted on a comprehensive ban and refused to produce a treaty with loopholes just for the benefit of the US.

President Clinton at first said that he would support the ban but withdrew his support for this treaty under the pressure of the US military. Since then, numerous members of the military have tried to convince Clinton to agree to the ban. In a public letter to President Clinton, Lewis Sorely, one of the speakers at the Connecticut Conference, and many former heads of the US military, urged President Clinton to ban land mines because it would be "not only humane, but also militarily responsible. Given the wide range of weaponry available today, anti-personnel land mines are not essential. Thus banning them would not undermine the effectiveness or safety of our forces, nor those of other nations."
Paul Singer, a victim of land mines, pointed out at the Connecticut Conference, "If land mines were all over the US, like they are in the Third World, Clinton would be the first one to sign it." Why shouldn't everyone have the right to live with the security of freedom from land mines? The atrocity of land mines seems obvious to everyone but the Clinton administration.
“There is still time for President Clinton to take a long hard look at why its policies were rejected by the nations in Oslo and come clean to the rest of the world," said Mary Wareham, Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation and Coordinator of the US Campaign to Ban Landmines. "He can show true leadership by banning this weapon domestically and joining 100-plus nations, in Ottawa, Canada this December for the signing of the comprehensive ban treaty." For now, the international community is leaving the US behind in its endeavor to make the world land mine free.

Sources: 1. Scheer, Robert. “Banning Land Mines is a No-Brainer,” Los Angeles Times, October 14, 1997. 2.Winslow, Philip C. “The Harvest of Mines.” World View, Vol. 10, No.3, Summer 1997, pp.29-34.

Vanessa Marvin, PC’00, and Chad Golder, BK’01, are students at Yale College.