[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 82 (Thursday, June 12, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5609-S5610]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. LEAHY (for himself, Mr. Hagel, Mr. Kerrey, Mr. McCain, Mr. 
        Cleland, Mr. Kempthorne, Mr. Inouye, Mr. Lugar, Mr. McConnell, 
        Mr. Levin, Mr. Hatch, Mr. Lieberman, Ms. Snowe, Mr. Kerry, Mr. 
        Grassley, Mr. Robb, Mr. Chafee, Mr. Breaux, Mr. Smith of 
        Oregon, Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. Moynihan, Mr. Specter, Mr. Bumpers, 
        Ms. Collins, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Jeffords, Mr. Reid, Mr. Dodd, Mr. 
        D'Amato, Mr. Byrd, Mr. Campbell, Mr. Conrad, Mr. Rockefeller, 
        Mr. Johnson, Mr. Bingaman, Mr. Dorgan, Mr. Daschle, Ms. 
        Mikulski, Mr. Torricelli, Mr. Lautenberg, Ms. Landrieu, Mr. 
        Reed, Mr. Wellstone, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Bryan, Mr. Feingold, Ms. 
        Moseley-Braun, Mr. Sarbanes, Mr. Kohl, Mrs. Boxer, Mr. Harkin, 
        Mrs. Murray, Mr. Ford, Mr. Akaka, Mr. Baucus, Mr. Biden, and 
        Mr. Wyden):
  S. 896. A bill to restrict the use of funds for new deployments of 
antipersonnel landmines, and for other purposes; to the Committee on 
Armed Services.


                  the landmine elimination act of 1997

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I rise to introduce legislation, with 56 
cosponsors--Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, men 
and women--to ban new deployments of antipersonnel landmines beginning 
in the year 2000.
  I am honored to be joined by Senator Chuck Hagel, who was injured by 
landmines in Vietnam, and who is the chief cosponsor of this bill.
  I also want to give special thanks to Senators Bob Kerrey and John 
McCain, both decorated Vietnam veterans, who are cosponsors of this 
bill and know far better than I about the terror landmines inflict on 
our own soldiers. In and out of Congress, those who know these weapons 
best, hate them most.
  Landmines have some marginal military value. So, for that matter, do 
chemical weapons. But the damage done by these hidden killers long 
after the guns fall silent and the armies have gone home far outweigh 
whatever small benefits they add to our enormous and unsurpassed 
military arsenal.
  The victims are not only innocent civilians. There were more than 
64,000 American casualties from landmines in Vietnam. If that is not 
appalling enough, the overwhelming majority of those mines contained 
U.S. components. They were made here, and they killed and maimed our 
soldiers half-way around the world.

  In Bosnia, more than 250 soldiers under U.N. and NATO commands have 
been injured, and 29 killed, by landmines. Every American casualty from 
enemy causes in Bosnia has been from landmines.
  And that does not include the thousands of civilians who have fallen 
victim to these indiscriminate weapons, and the thousands more who will 
lose their legs, their arms, their eyesight and their lives in the 
future. For some 68 countries, the bridge to the 21st century is strewn 
and landmines. 100 million of them.
  The purpose of this legislation is to exert U.S. leadership. But what 
we propose here is no different, indeed it does not go as far, as what 
others have already done. Great Britain, Canada, Germany, South Africa 
are some of the countries who have unilaterally renounced their 
production, use, and export of these weapons, and are destroying their 
stockpiles.
  Some 72 nations have said they will meet in Ottawa this December to 
sign a treaty banning the weapons, and I suspect that number will 
continue to climb. Our country has not said if we will go to Ottawa. 
Why is this administration--which showed such moral leadership on 
chemical weapons to isolate the rogue nations--putting the United 
States in the role of a helpless giant when it comes to antipersonnel 
landmines? Why can we not use that same moral suasion, as others have 
done? We are not a pariah nation, and we should not act like one.
  The United States shows leadership worthy of a great and powerful 
nation when we are bold on a practical and moral issue like this. We 
squander that potential and are no different from other nations when we 
sit on the sidelines, as the administration has done here.
  For the past 5 years, the leadership on banning landmines has come 
from Congress. I hope the President will step forward to move the 
United States into the front ranks of this global effort, along with 
Canada and our other allies.
  Before some in the Pentagon start drumming up opposition to this 
bill, I would urge them to consider who is supporting it, and why we 
support it. Every Member of the Senate who has seen combat is a 
cosponsor of this bill. This is not about taking away a weapon the 
Pentagon needs. It is about beginning the next century by renouncing a 
weapon that does not belong in the arsenal of civilized nations. The 
Pentagon has far more to gain if the use of antipersonnel landmines is 
made a war crime.
  Finally, to those in the Pentagon who say that so-called smart 
mines--that are designed to self-destruct automatically--are the 
solution to this problem, I challenge them to find me a landmine that 
is smart enough to tell the difference between a soldier and a child. 
And let us not fool ourselves--the rest of the world does not use self-
destruct mines, and they are not going to. They are not going to feel 
pressured to give up their mines, if we refuse to renounce smart mines. 
We saw that with chemical weapons, and with the nuclear test ban. There 
is no substitute for U.S. leadership.
  I recognize that the Pentagon may be institutionally incapable of 
giving up a weapon that has some value, however marginal. Their job is 
to protect American soldiers, and there are undoubtedly instances when 
antipersonnel landmines have done that. But they should consider the 
horrendous casualties these weapons have inflicted on our troops. And 
they should recognize that just because a weapon has some marginal 
value does not justify its use when the victims are overwhelmingly 
innocent civilians, indeed whole societies.
  Ultimately, it is a political decision, and the President, as 
Commander in Chief, needs to act. The question no longer is whether we 
will ban antipersonnel landmines, but when. This bill moves us closer 
to that goal.
  There is only one way to stop this, and that is to stop it. And the 
sooner the United States does that, as others have done, the sooner the 
world can sweep these weapons into the dustbin of history.
  Mr. HAGEL. Mr. President, I am proud to serve as the principal 
Republican sponsor of this important legislation. I want to express my 
gratitude to my colleague from Vermont, Senator Leahy, for the 
dedication and leadership he has shown in bringing this issue before 
the U.S. Senate.
  I approach this issue from two perspectives. First, I've had a real 
life experience with this issue. My brother and I were wounded twice 
together in Vietnam as a result of landmines. Second, I am a strong 
supporter of our military. It's important that we not take any action 
that would inhibit the military's ability to fight and win wars, do 
their jobs, and maintain valuable weapons options and strategies.
  However, we are dealing with a different world than we fought in 
world wars, Korea and Vietnam. Our recent military actions have been 
actions where we've been in and out relatively quickly. I am concerned 
with the effects of laying down mines and then leaving them behind when 
our troops leave. There are already an estimated 110 million landmines 
in the ground around the world, and the destruction that these mines 
continue to inflict on innocent lives is devastating. It's the 
indiscriminate nature of their killing that makes landmines so hideous.
  I believe this legislation addresses a number of the concerns 
expressed by the military. Exemptions have been provided for when the 
military needs specific options, such as Korea and the use of antitank 
mines and claymores.
  We have a responsibility to those who've served and those who are now 
serving in the military and the peoples

[[Page S5610]]

of the world to take a close look at this issue. This question comes 
down to, is this really a military option we need today? I don't 
believe it is. After careful study and consideration and seeking the 
opinions of many present and former military commanders, I have decided 
that America should show leadership on this issue. We can take the 
moral high ground and still insure a strong, flexible military. I am 
proud that my five Senate colleagues who are also Vietnam combat 
veterans have joined me in support of this legislation.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am pleased to rise as an original 
cosponsor of the bill to prohibit U.S. deployment of antipersonnel 
landmines introduced today by the Senator from Vermont [Mr. Leahy] and 
the Senator from Nebraska [Mr. Hagel]. I want to commend the Senator 
from Vermont for his countless hours of work to ban antipersonnel 
landmines.
  As we all know, Mr. President, antipersonnel landmines continue to 
ravage the populations of war-torn areas around the world long after 
the last shot has been fired and the soldiers have gone home. These 
weapons pose an enduring threat to postwar reconstruction efforts and 
to innocent civilians in places such as Bosnia, Angola, and Cambodia. 
These instruments of war lay in fields where children now play or where 
farmers seek to grow food for the local populations. In fact, displaced 
populations are often unable to return to their homes because of the 
presence of unmarked landmines, and roads have been rendered useless 
since they cannot be traveled. Antipersonnel landmines cause such high 
levels of civilian casualties, 500 wounded or killed per week in fact, 
that they have been called weapons of mass destruction in slow motion.
  In 1995, this body went on record against landmines by passing an 
amendment offered by the Senator from Vermont [Mr. Leahy] to the fiscal 
year 1996 Department of Defense authorization bill which I was pleased 
to cosponsor. That amendment imposed a moratorium on the use of 
antipersonnel landmines except in limited circumstances.
  While, unfortunately, we can never be sure that war-torn areas are 
completely clear of all active landmines, the current Leahy-Hagel bill 
will prohibit any U.S. agency from deploying or arming any new 
antipersonnel landmines after January 1, 2000. This bipartisan 
legislation also contains language relating to the deployment of 
landmines on the Korean Peninsula. While I believe that this is an 
important first step in the eventual elimination of new landmines from 
the face of the Earth, there is much work still to be done.
  I, and many other Senators, believe that this legislation represents 
the least we can do on this subject. Because of this view, I wrote to 
President Clinton in February to express my contention that a ban on 
antipersonnel landmines should be an urgent priority for the United 
States.
  In that same letter, I voiced my support for the so-called Ottawa 
initiative, which calls for a total ban on the production, storage, 
trade, or use of antipersonnel landmines and includes a plan to develop 
and sign a treaty by December 1997. In my view, the administration's 
decision to pursue negotiations through the United Nations Conference 
on Disarmament, rather than the Ottawa initiative, jeopardizes the 
likelihood that the Ottawa initiative will succeed. I believe that we 
should work within the framework of the Ottawa initiative because it is 
the best avenue currently available to a total worldwide ban on 
landmines.
  As a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and the ranking member 
of the Subcommittee on African Affairs, I cannot ignore the 
approximately 110 million uncleared landmines across the globe. To 
their credit, some of the countries whose landscapes are riddled with 
these weapons have begun to take positive steps to ban their further 
use. In February, the South African Government announced its intention 
to ban the use, production, development, and stockpiling of 
antipersonnel landmines. In a news conference announcing this decision, 
the South African defense minister said that the ``indiscriminate use 
[of landmines] has had a devastating effect internationally, in Africa 
and in our region. In Angola, the number of amputations resulting from 
antipersonnel landmines is, tragically, one of the highest in the 
world, and in Mozambique, thousands of these mines remain uncleared.''
  The worldwide devastation caused by landmines was discussed earlier 
this year at the Fourth Annual NGO Conference in Landmines in Maputo, 
Mozambique. While the conference focused on clearing landmines from 
Southern Africa, the tales of destruction and death could apply to many 
areas of the globe. Since the 1992 Peace Agreement ending the civil war 
in Mozambique, more than 100 people have been killed by landmines, two-
thirds of them children. Mr. President, we owe it to these children--
who have seen too much violence and death in their young lives--to make 
sure they have a safe place to play. And we owe it to our young men and 
women in uniform, who have represented our Nation so well across the 
globe, to make sure that the United States will cease deploying new 
landmines.
  In closing, Mr. President, this legislation is an important first 
step in protecting future generations from the devastation that many 
face on a daily basis all over the world. This bill gives the United 
States the opportunity to take a leadership role in the banning of 
antipersonnel landmines. This is an opportunity we should not miss.
                                 ______