[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 37 (Monday, March 18, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2213-S2216]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
BANNING ANTIPERSONNEL LANDMINES
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I have some photographs here that have
become all too familiar to the Senate. This is a photograph of a young
boy, a victim of a landmine. You can see from the photograph, he has
one badly injured leg, another leg that has been torn off, and an arm
that is also missing. These are similar to photographs I have on my Web
page in my office on the Internet. Thousands of people turn to that Web
page, and what they see there are these photographs of landmine
victims.
Here is one that they turn to, this young woman. I have had somebody
tell me that as the picture comes down on the computer screen, the page
ends at the bottom of her long skirt. Then they click on further and
the picture
[[Page S2214]]
continues down and they realize she has only one leg. This woman is
from Laos. She lost her leg from a landmine.
Mr. President, these photographs are not unusual. Each one represents
a tragedy, of course, not only for the person involved, but also but
for his or her family. These are only two victims. There are hundreds
of thousands of victims of antipersonnel landmines alive today, and of
course as many more who died. They are the victims of these tiny,
hidden explosives that litter whole countries. They are scattered like
seed. They are a blight on our planet, and they must be stopped. This
mine I am holding in my hand cost $2 or $3, and is made almost entirely
of plastic to make it harder to detect.
These are not weapons that know the difference between a combatant or
civilian. They are, as somebody else said, the only weapon where the
unsuspecting victim pulls the trigger.
A little over a year ago, President Clinton, in a courageous speech
at the United Nations, declared the goal of ridding the world of
antipersonnel landmines. With 100 million of these weapons in over 60
countries waiting to explode, they have become the world's most
devastating cause of indiscriminate, mass suffering.
Every 22 minutes, the State Department estimates someone somewhere,
usually an innocent civilian, is killed or maimed from stepping on a
landmine.
NATO forces have suffered 42 landmine casualties since they arrived
in Bosnia in December, including 7 deaths. There were three casualties
just last Friday, all soldiers of our European allies. Landmines are,
by far, the worst threat to our troops there, but also to the people of
Bosnia who will be clearing these landmines, an arm and a leg at a
time, for decades to come.
The entire 184-member U.N. General Assembly adopted the goal
announced by the President. But since President Clinton's announcement,
a debate has ensued over how to reach the goal of eliminating
antipersonnel mines.
The Pentagon, which says it shares the goal, pushed a strategy to
promote the use of so-called smart mines. Mr. President, technology has
an answer for many things, but this is not one of them. Antipersonnel
landmines are by nature indiscriminate.
There is nothing smart about a landmine that cannot tell the
difference between a soldier and a 5-year-old child. These mines are
scattered from the air by the tens of thousands, and the same areas can
be reseeded many times during a conflict. They legitimize the use of
landmines despite their indiscriminate effect.
I am very pleased that Pentagon officials are now questioning the
distinction between smart and dumb mines. Again, landmines are by
nature indiscriminate. That is what makes them so insidious. I also
want to commend our U.N. Ambassador, Madeleine Albright, and her Deputy
Karl Inderfurth, who have urged a stronger policy against antipersonnel
mines.
A growing coalition, from our soldiers in Bosnia to retired Army
generals to officials in the Pentagon to the Pope and the American Red
Cross, are urging that we renounce these weapons as we have nerve gas
and other indiscriminate killers.
On February 12, my amendment to impose a moratorium on U.S. use of
antipersonnel mines was signed into law by President Clinton. That
amendment had broad bipartisan support with over two-thirds of the U.S.
Senate of both parties voting for it. It represents a clear shift in
U.S. policy. But it is already being eclipsed by events elsewhere.
In the past 2 months, Canada and the Netherlands have unilaterally
banned their use of antipersonnel mines, and they have joined 22 other
countries that have called for an immediate international ban. Many of
these countries have been among the largest contributors to U.N.
peacekeeping forces, and they have seen the havoc wreaked by landmines.
Several, like Belgium and Austria, are destroying their stockpiles of
these weapons.
Mr. President, yesterday's New York Times ran a front page story
entitled ``Pentagon Weighs Ending Opposition to a Ban on Mines.'' It
reports that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General
Shalikashvili, has ordered a review of the landmine issue. I want to
applaud General Shalikashvili for this. There is nothing harder than
challenging the conventional wisdom, and when others have said
something cannot be done, to ask why not and to look for a way to do
it.
I want to reiterate what I have said before. There is a tremendous
opportunity here for U.S. leadership. We should listen to our Armed
Forces veterans, many of whom say antipersonnel mines made their job
more dangerous, not safer, and who remember their buddies being blown
up by their own minefields.
Over 7,400 of the Americans killed in Vietnam, 20 percent in the
Persian Gulf, and 26 percent in Somalia died from landmines. We have
more to gain if the use of landmines is a war crime.
We should think of the devastation these weapons are causing around
the world. Regardless of what some here may think, the world does look
to the United States for leadership. We are the most powerful democracy
ever known in history, by far the most powerful nation on Earth. We can
exert great moral and political leadership when we want to lead as a
country. The President can lead. There are few people more persuasive
when he is convinced of something. I have seen him in meetings with
world leaders, and I know how effective he can be. With the support of
the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the
President could bring enormous pressure to bear on world leaders to
follow our example.
It is not just the example of the Leahy amendment, but the leadership
to press ahead for a ban on antipersonnel landmines worldwide.
Mr. President, this is not a Democrat or Republican issue. It is not
a matter of civilians versus the military. It is an opportunity for the
United States to end this millennium as the leader of a global effort
to ban a weapon that Civil War General Sherman called ``a violation of
civilized warfare.''
Mr. President, I commend the Congress for first adopting the
moratorium that I proposed, the moratorium on the export of landmines
from this country.
I commend the President for supporting my efforts in introducing a
resolution in the United Nations to call for the eventual elimination
of antipersonnel landmines.
I also commend the U.S. Senate, Republicans and Democrats,
conservatives, liberals, moderates joining together to vote for a
moratorium on the use of landmines by the United States. Each one of
these steps, Mr. President, has given hope and encouragement to other
countries. Each one of these steps has reinforced our leadership.
Years ago when I first started on this quest, it seemed a lonely one.
So many times Tim Rieser and I would visit other countries, and here on
Capitol Hill and to the United Nations, to speak to world leaders and
U.N. ambassadors about landmines. At first, we heard only a few
encouraging words. But then the International Red Cross, for the first
time since the 1920's when it condemned chemical weapons, called for a
ban on antipersonnel mines. Then the Pope, and the leaders of so many
other nations, especially those who had sent peacekeepers overseas,
humanitarian organizations like the American Red Cross, religious
organizations, veterans organizations--they are all speaking out
against the use of these weapons.
Mr. President, the only way to stop the use of antipersonnel
landmines is to stop the use of antipersonnel landmines. When 100
million of these killers are hidden in the ground in over 60 countries,
we have to say ``enough is enough.'' Another 2 million are being added
each year.
The only way we will stop this is to ban their use, and to turn our
attention to the immense job of clearing the mines that have turned so
many parts of the world into death traps.
This is an issue whose time has come. I commend those at the
Pentagon, the White House, and here in the Congress, in both parties,
who have supported this effort so far. Let us go one step further, and
make this for all time U.S. policy, to ban their use; and then go to
our allies around the world, and to other countries, and say, join with
us in what is both a security and a moral imperative.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the article from
yesterday's New York times and an Associated Press article related to
the subject be printed in the Record.
[[Page S2215]]
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the New York Times, Mar. 17, 1996]
Pentagon Weighs Ending Opposition to a Ban on Mines
policy review ordered--threat to u.s. force in bosnia brings
reconsideration of moves against weapon
(By Raymond Bonner)
Washington, March 16.--With the daily threat of land mines
to American soldiers in Bosnia having brought the issue home,
Gen. John Shalikashvili, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, has ordered a review of the military's longstanding
opposition to banning the use of land mines, which kill or
maim more than 20,000 people a year, primarily civilians.
In asking for the review last week during a meeting with
the chiefs of the military services, General Shalikashvili
said he was ``inclined to eliminate all anti-personnel land
mines,'' a senior pentagon official said.
The Pentagon was prompted to review its policy in part by a
strong bipartisan anti-mine sentiment in Congress, led by
Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, as well as by
a growing international campaign to ban antipersonnel mines,
Pentagon officials said.
These separate Congressional and international campaigns
against mines gained new momentum after American soldiers
began arriving in December in Bosnia, where an estimated
three million land mines have been planted. Three American
soldiers have since been wounded by the weapons.
Nearly a dozen countries have banned the use of land mines.
Senator Leahy and other advocates of a ban argue that if the
United States renounced their manufacture, sale and use, many
other countries would follow. While they concede that there
would still be outlaw states, they counter that an
international ban backed by sanctions would result in a
substantial overall reduction in the use of land mines.
Pentagon officials say General Shalikashvili acted after he
and Defense Secretary William J. Perry received a
confidential letter from the American representative to the
United Nations, Madeleine K. Albright, who has just returned
from a trip to Angola. That country has many young men and
children whose limbs were ripped off in landmine explosions.
Ms. Albright wrote that a new policy on land mines was
urgently needed, because the Administration's current policy
would not achieve their elimination ``within our lifetimes.''
She sent copies to other senior Administration officials;
parts of the letter were read to The New York Times by a
supporter of the ban who had received a copy.
Two years ago in a speech at the United Nations, President
Clinton called for the ``eventual elimination'' of land
mines. Under current policy, the Administration supports an
amendment to the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons that
would allow the use of only ``smart'' mines, which deactivate
or destroy themselves after a few weeks or months.
The United States was barred by Congress in 1993 from
exporting land mines for three years. Another law prohibits
the United States from using land mines for one year in 1999.
There are an estimated 100 million land mines planted in 62
countries, and an official with the Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency said last week that the number is
increasing by two million a year. The State Department has
said 600 people a month are killed or wounded by mines; the
American Red Cross has estimated that it is twice that many.
This week, the Dutch Government renounced the use of land
mines, joining Canada, Mexico, Belgium, Austria, Norway and
five other countries; France recently prohibited the
production and export of land mines. Twenty-four countries
have called for an international ban, according to the latest
tally by Human Rights Watch, the New York-based human rights
organization, which has been a leader in an international
campaign for a ban.
Last fall, the International Committee of the Red Cross
opened a campaign to ban antipersonnel land mines. It was a
highly unusual step for the Swiss organization, which is not
an advocacy organization and only once before has called for
a weapons ban--of chemical weapons, back in the 1920's.
``We've simply seen too much,'' said Urs Boegli, director
of the Red Cross's land mine campaign, explaining why the
organization had acted.
More than any other single organization, the Red Cross
works in conflicts around the world, he said. He added that
the Red Cross had begun its ban campaign only after having
fought unsuccessfully to strengthen the 1980 conventional
weapons treaty to restrict their use.
China and Russia, which each have stockpiles of more than
100 million mines, have been the major countries blocking an
amendment to the convention that would allow all but
``smart'' mines.
In the Pentagon, the Office of Special Operations and Low-
Intensity Conflict has pushed for a complete ban on all
antipersonnel mines--``smart'' and ``dumb''--except in
limited situations, such as along the border between North
and South Korea.
Land mines should be put in the category of chemical
weapons, said Timothy Connolly, principal Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense for special operations. Even though they
have military utility, chemical weapons have been banned
because of their devastating consequences, to soldiers and
civilians.
``Some day, and that day has to be sooner rather than
later, we are going to reach that same conclusion about
antipersonnel land mines,'' Mr. Connolly, who was an Army
captain during the Persian Gulf War, said during an interview
this week.
Mr. Connolly's office rejects the ``smart'' mine
compromise.
The basis of the American support for such a compromise is
that it is possible to develop a mine that will self-destruct
or self-deactivate with 99.7 percent certainty, according to
Robert Sherman, director of advanced projects of the Arms
Control and Disarmanent Agency and a negotiator in talks on
amending the conventional weapons pact.
But Mr. Connolly said, ``There is no evidence in the United
States that we are capable of building a device capable of
working 100 percent or nearly 100 percent of the time.''
Until this recent review, Mr. Connolly's voice had been a
lonely one in the Pentagon.
Pentagon officials predicted that the Army and Marine Corps
would fight the hardest to be allowed to keep at least some
land mines, Pentagon officials said. Military doctrine calls
for land mines to reduce the number of soldiers needed in
certain situations, to canalize the enemy and to protect
vital installations, like power stations.
In the closed-door meeting last week when Gen.
Shalikashvili ordered the review, the chiefs of the Army and
Marine Corps said they needed land mines to police the border
between North and South Korea, a Pentagon Official said.
``The U.S. Army's position is that we use land mines
responsibly,'' said an Army general who spoke on condition of
anonymity.
Senator Leahy believes, however, that with American troops
in Bosnia, if President Clinton renounced the use of land
mines, ``he would get very substantial support in the
military.'' Mr. Leahy, who has led a four-year effort in
Congress to ban land mines, said he was constantly hearing
from servicemen, from sergeants to generals, who urge him on.
Recently, he received an E-mail message from an Air Force
master sergeant, Dale A. Lamell, on duty in Bosnia, who
wrote: ``I would like to salute you for your efforts to
eliminate the international use of land mines. Bosnia should
serve as an example to the rest of the world.''
Requesting anonymity, a senior military officer at the
Pentagon also said this week that there was considerably more
support among officers for getting rid of land mines than
emerges publicly.
Freed from the constraints of being in uniform, several
prominent retired generals have agreed to sign an open letter
to the President calling for an international ban on the
production and use of antipersonnel land mines, said Robert
Muller, director of the Vietnam Veterans of America
Foundation, which began soliciting signers three weeks ago.
Among them are Gen. Frederick R. Woerner, a former commander
of the United States Southern Command in Panama, and Lieut.
Gen. Harold Moore, a former commander of the Seventh Infantry
Division and author of ``We Were Soldiers Once . . . and
Young.''
``I very much oppose antipersonnel land mines because they
are indeed indiscriminate in their killing and maiming,''
Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf wrote this month in a letter to
Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., who was chairman of the Republican
National Committee during the Reagan Presidency and who had
written to the general asking him to join the campaign to ban
antipersonnel mines.
Though he said he wanted to think a bit longer before
deciding whether to sign the letter to the President, General
Schwarzkopf said his wish to see land mines ``forever
eliminated from warfare'' was based on his personal
experiences of ``having seen hundreds of my own troops killed
or maimed by them,'' as well as being ``keenly aware of the
devastating effects'' of land mines on civilians.
____
[From the Associated Press, Mar. 17, 1996]
Senator Praises Pentagon For Reconsidering Landmine Use
(By Sally Buzbee)
Washington.--A Senator long opposed to U.S. use of land
mines said Sunday he's delighted the Pentagon will reevaluate
its position that the deadly, hidden weapons are needed for
troop safety.
``There are certain weapons you just don't use,'' said Sen.
Patrick Leahy, D-VT.
A Pentagon spokesman confirmed Sunday that a review of the
military's longstanding policy on anti-personnel land mines
was under review.
``It's been an ongoing issue here,'' said Pentagon
spokesman Major Steve Manuel. ``We're still in the process of
examining it.''
Gen. John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, ordered the review last week, The New York Times
reported Sunday.
A senior Pentagon official told the newspaper that
Shalikashvili was ``inclined to eliminate all anti-personnel
land mines.''
Worldwide, the use of land mines targeted at people, not
tanks, has escalated in the last 15 years, They now kill or
injure 26,000
[[Page S2216]]
people each year, the State Department estimates.
Most victims are civilians in war-torn countries like
Angola, Cambodia, Vietnam and El Salvador, but land mines
also pose risks to U.S. troops participating in the Bosnian
peacekeeping mission.
U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and the
International Red Cross have urged a worldwide ban on land
mines. And Canada, Austria, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Mexico,
the Netherlands and five other countries already have
renounced their use.
But until now, U.S. military officials have insisted they
needed the option of using land mines to protect the lives of
American soldiers. They also have argued that the United
States should not give up a weapon if other nations won't.
Despite Pentagon objections, Leahy pushed through Congress
a one-year ban on the military's use of anti-personnel land
mines, except along borders and in demilitarized zones. The
ban would begin sometime within three years, and President
Clinton signed it into law.
``The rest of the world wants the United States to lead on
this,'' Leahy said in an interview Sunday. ``If the most
powerful nation in the world can't do away with land mines,
how can we ever persuade other countries to?''
Shalikashvili ordered the review of Pentagon policy after
he and Defense Secretary William J. Perry received a
confidential letter from the U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations, Madeleine K. Albright, the Times said.
Albright, who had just returned from Angola, urged that the
current policy on land mines be changed, the Times said.
Parts of the letter were read to the newspaper by an
unidentified official who received a copy.
Leahy argues that many military officials, both retired and
active-duty, also privately support a permanent ban on land
mines.
``This is not a Republican-Democratic, liberal-conservative
or civilian versus military issue,'' Leahy said.
The Pentagon estimates Bosnia has 3 million land mines and
Croatia another 3 million. Some are sophisticated; others
crude or homemade. NATO officials say no more than 30 percent
have been mapped.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I see nobody else seeking the floor, so I
suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The absence of a quorum has been noted. The
clerk will call the roll.
The assistance legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thomas). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I do not see anybody seeking recognition,
so I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak as in morning
business for 6 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________