[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 19 (Monday, February 28, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 28, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                               LANDMINES

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President this week in the Russell Building Rotunda, 
there is an exhibit of photographs which I urge all Senators and staff 
to stop by and see. They are photographs of victims of anti-personnel 
landmines. There are also several actual landmines on display--with the 
explosive removed, of course--and some printed materials which describe 
in shocking detail the global problem of landmines.
  This exhibit is not meant to offend anyone. In fact, the photographs 
that were selected do not depict the worst aspects of landmine 
injuries. But they do show the terrible consequences of landmines for 
hundreds of thousands of civilians around the world.
  Over the past 2 years, the Congress has taken bold steps to focus 
world attention on the epidemic of civilian casualties from landmines. 
Two years ago, my amendment to impose a 1-year moratorium on exports of 
anti-personnel landmines from the United States was signed into law by 
President Bush. Last year, the Senate voted 100-0 to extend the 
moratorium for an additional 3 years.
  On Veterans Day last year, I went to the United Nations to introduce 
on behalf of the United States a resolution calling on all countries to 
support an international export moratorium. That resolution passed the 
General Assembly unanimously on December 16.
  These are more than symbolic gestures, but they are only a beginning. 
By themselves, they will do little to stop the enormous numbers of 
civilian casualties from landmines.
  Today, despite the dramatic rise in public and media interest in 
dealing with this problem, far more mines are being strewn than are 
being cleared. In the former Yugoslavia, 3 million mines have been 
scattered in the past 2 years. Millions of mines contaminate Georgia, 
Azerbaijan, and Tajikistan.
  Let me give some examples of the incredible size of the landmine 
problem.
  In Angola, over one-third of the country is infested with mines.
  In Afghanistan, where tens of thousands of people have been maimed, 8 
out of 10 mine victims die before they reach a hospital.
  In northern Somalia, there are 23,000 amputees. Over two-thirds are 
under the age of 15.
  Over a third of all mine casualties are women and children.
  Mr. President, during the Second World War, Korea and a few other 
large scale conventional wars, landmines were used as defensive weapons 
against enemy soldiers--to guard a perimeter, or channel the enemy into 
an area. But that changed by the Vietnam war, and since then the 
overwhelming majority of mines have been used as offensive weapons 
against civilians, scattered indiscriminately by the millions.
  Cheap to buy, easy to make and transport, mines have become a weapon 
of choice of Third World armies and insurgent groups. Their purpose is 
not just to maim and kill, but to destroy the social and economic 
fabric of a society by isolating whole communities, depopulating vast 
areas of territory, and preventing the return of refugess.
  In dozens of countries where people survive by growing their own 
food, huge areas of scarce arable land have become useless death traps 
from landmines.
  Mr. President, years ago, the world outlawed chemical weapons because 
they do not discriminate between a soldier and a civilian. Our military 
also recognized that if we used chemical weapons we would endanger our 
own troops, because chemical weapons will poison whoever breathes the 
air.
  The world condemned Saddam Hussein when he used chemical weapons 
against the Kurds. When Iraqi troops dynamited the Kuwaiti oil wells, 
spewing millions of barrels of crude oil over the desert, we called it 
environmental warfare.
  I challenge anyone to explain to me how this is different from 
landmines.
  The State Department has said, and I quote: ``landmines may be the 
most toxic and widespread pollution facing mankind.''
  In Vietnam, over 7,300 American soldiers were killed by mines or 
booby traps, and many more were injured.
  Landmines can be scattered from the air by the hundreds-per-minute. A 
mine then lies in wait for weeks, months, or years, until an 
unsuspecting person, usually a civilian, steps on it. A mine the size 
of a shoe polish can is powerful enough to blow the leg off an adult, 
or pulverize a child.
  Landmines are easy to lay, but extremely difficult to detect and 
life-threatening to remove. They blend in with the soil or ground 
cover, and are quickly obscured by a layer of dust or vegetation. They 
are often made of plastic, undetectable to metal detectors.
  Imagine trying to get rid of millions of mines strewn 
indiscriminately over an area the size of Oklahoma. That is Cambodia 
today, where 1 of every 236 people is an amputee.
  This photograph shows a typical Cambodian street scene. A pair of men 
with crutches, each missing part of a leg.
  Another photograph shows a young Mozambican boy. He lost both his 
legs from a mine. He is one of tens of thousands of children around the 
world whose lives have been shattered by landmines.
  Mr. President, nobody doubts that landmines have some military use. 
What weapon does not? Anything that can wound or kill has a military 
use. But there are 100 million landmines littering the world that are 
maiming and killing hundreds of innocent people a month. If children 
walking to school or playing in a field were getting their legs blow 
off in Little Rock, Portland, ME, or Topeka, KS, you can bet we would 
be doing everything possible to stop it.
  Instead, it is happening in foreign places where medical care is 
often almost nonexistent, and physical labor is necessary for survival.
  It is time to ask whether landmines are so militarily necessary that 
they are worth the immense cost that society is forced to pay to repair 
the enormous damage, and the horrendous suffering they cause.
  It is time to ask whether we really need a weapon whose victims are 
80 percent innocent civilians. Is that something we should tolerate? I 
do not think we should.
  Over the next several months I intend to speak often on this floor 
about the landmine problem. There is tremendous public interest in 
strong international action to stop this scourge. A global campaign to 
ban landmines, supported by UNICEF, the Vietnam Veterans of America 
Foundation, and over 80 other non-governmental organizations around the 
world is gaining members every week.
  An U.N. conference on landmines is planned for late next year. In 
preparation for that conference, three experts meetings are scheduled 
this year in Geneva. The first is being held this week.
  The administration plans to actively participate in these meetings, 
and I have urged it to seek advisory status for Members of Congress and 
their staffs, and observer status for non-governmental organizations 
that have an expertise in this area. This is essential to ensure full 
consideration of all the issues, including an in-depth examination of 
the military use of mines versus their effects on civil society.
  I have also urged the administration to seek the broadest possible 
agenda for negotiations on the full range of issues.
  The central goal of these meetings should be to answer the following 
questions:
  How can the production, stockpiling, export, transfer, possession and 
use of mines be limited so they do not endanger civilians?
  Can such limitations be enforced in the real world?
  All options should be fully considered, up to and including a total 
ban on the production, possession or use of anti-personnel landmines.
  In addition, I plan to hold hearings on the landmine problem, as well 
as introduce legislation which builds on the anti-personnel landmine 
export moratorium amendment that was unanimously supported in the 
Senate last year.
  Mr. President, landmines have become weapons of terror for hundreds 
of millions of innocent people around the world. We can change that. 
The explosion in media and public attention on the landmine problem in 
the past year has shown that people everywhere want to put an end to 
this carnage.
  I ask unanimous consent that a February 28, 1994, article in the New 
York Times on landmines be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               Red Cross to Ask U.N. To Limit Land Mines

       United Nations, Feb. 27--The International Committee of the 
     Red Cross, at a meeting of the United Nations Disarmament 
     Committee on Monday in Geneva, plans to call for a complete 
     ban on the use of antipersonnel mines.
       The meeting, the first of three, is to prepare for a 1995 
     conference to consider changes in the 1980 Geneva Convention 
     on limiting the use of weapons deemed to be ``excessively 
     injurious or to have indiscriminate effects.''
       The ban would not cover antitank mines, which are bigger 
     and thus easier to locate, more expensive and not as widely 
     scattered.
       The Red Cross also wants to outlaw or sharply restrict the 
     industrial development of laser weapons, which inflict 
     permanent blindness. ``Blinding as a method of warfare has to 
     be outlawed now,'' Cornelio Sommaruga, president of Red 
     Cross, said by telephone from Geneva.
       He also said the Red Cross wanted to strengthen the 1980 
     convention by improving the verification of compliance and 
     extending the provisions to include civil wars. ``Most wars 
     today are civil wars, and it is illogical to ban the use of 
     certain weapons against foreigners but allow them against 
     your own people,'' he said.

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