[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 126 (Friday, September 19, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9722-S9723]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    BANNING ANTIPERSONNEL LANDMINES

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, earlier this week, the President of the 
United States announced that the United States would not sign the 
landmine treaty that was just negotiated in Oslo. This treaty is the 
culmination of a process begun a year ago in Ottawa, Canada, by the 
Foreign Minister of Canada, Lloyd Axworthy, who invited nations around 
the world to sign a treaty that would be a comprehensive ban on the use 
and the export and the manufacture and stockpiling of antipersonnel 
landmines.
  Antipersonnel landmines are these weapons that destroy the lives--
either by maiming or killing--of 26,000 people a year. There are 
approximately 100 million landmines in the ground of the 65 nations--or 
more--around the world. And more are being put down every day. As one 
person from one of the nations most severely impacted by landmines told 
me once, they clear the landmines in their country ``an arm and a leg 
at a time.''
  Thanks to the leadership of Canada, and Minister Axworthy, this 
effort gained support around the world. Close to 100 nations joined 
together in Oslo to put the final pieces together on a comprehensive 
landmine treaty that would be signed in Ottawa in December.
  The United States had basically boycotted this process, preferring a 
much slower and less effective one in Geneva following a very 
traditional route, the one that showed absolutely no movement. To the 
administration's credit, they finally did join the process, although at 
the 11th hour. Unfortunately, when they went to Oslo, they went to Oslo 
saying that the United States would need some major changes in the 
treaty to accept it, that they would have to have the treaty rewritten 
to accommodate the United States, and that these positions were not 
negotiable.
  I applauded the United States for going to Oslo, but I was 
disappointed in the steps they took once they were there. I went to 
Oslo for a few days and met with many of the delegates, including the 
chairman of the conference. Then it became clear to me--I also spoke to 
the American delegation--that the United States had come with basically 
a take-it-or-leave-it attitude and that other countries were not going 
to agree.
  The President said that we had obligations in Korea that were unique 
to the United States. We do have special obligations in Korea. But that 
was not an insurmountable issue. In fact, those who went there had said 
almost a year before, if the United States made an effort, they would 
help accommodate our security interests in Korea, but the United States 
ignored the entire process.
  Finally, hours, literally hours before the conference was to end, the 
United States became engaged and said, well, we need some changes. If 
you will give them to us, we can sign. The first change is to have a 
treaty that would not take effect for 9 years, plus the 10 years as 
provided for in the treaty to remove existing minefields. That is 19 
years from this December. We would actually be in the year 2017 before 
the mines would be removed. The United States asked for a 19-year 
period even though countries far less powerful than us were willing to 
act much quicker. The United States was saying that even though we are 
the most powerful nation on Earth, we want the ability to be able to 
use our antipersonnel landmines all over the world for another 9 years, 
and the antipersonnel mines we use near antitank mines, forever. And, 
lastly, of course, accommodate us on Korea. It became a bridge too far 
for the other nations. They said we were asking too much. They were, 
after all, the nations being hurt by landmines and they would go 
forward with the treaty with or without the United States, and that is 
where we now stand.
  After that, the President of the United States announced a number of 
steps that he is willing to take unilaterally, and I commend him for 
these steps because he has said that he also wants to see, as we all 
do, this scourge of landmines to end.
  Interestingly enough, many of the steps that he talks about are in 
legislation pending before the Senate--legislation sponsored by both 
the distinguished occupant of the chair right

[[Page S9723]]

now and myself. So I ask this: If, indeed, the main problem the 
administration has is our obligations, treaty obligations, defense and 
national security obligations in the Korean Peninsula, especially the 
defense of South Korea from a country that has proven its belligerence 
before, North Korea, a country that has an unstable political system 
today, faces drought, famine, and flooding--it is amazing it could have 
all those going on at once. It faces the consequences of its own 
secrecy and belligerence. If that is our main concern, they should look 
at the legislation we have before the Senate, similar legislation 
before the House of Representatives, the Leahy-Hagel bill in the 
Senate, the Evans-Quinn bill in the House.
  I urge the administration, disappointing as it is that it has not 
joined the Ottawa process, disappointing as it is it has lost this 
golden opportunity, to work with the Congress, the Congress which has 
driven the debate in this country on banning landmines--not the 
executive branch--the administration should now come and work with the 
Congress and continue forward, because, after all, the ultimate goal is 
to end the scourge of landmines. There is only one way to do that, and 
that is for the United States to join in the Ottawa Treaty. If not in 
December, then in the future. We need to get there, one way or another. 
There is no other treaty, and without the United States, we will never 
see the worldwide ban we all seek.
  We are coming to the close of the bloodiest century in history. It is 
a century where we have seen the world torn by wars, great and small, 
but wars that more and more saw their greatest toll in innocent 
civilian populations. Whether in Rwanda, in Angola, in Bosnia, in 
Mozambique, in Central America, or anywhere else, it is usually the 
noncombatants who suffer the most. And more and more those 
noncombatants suffer from the scourge of landmines.
  Peace agreements are signed at some time, and someday armies march 
away and someday the guns grow silent, but in more and more of these 
countries, after that happens, landmines stay in the ground and 
continue killing and continue maiming long after all hostilities have 
otherwise ceased. Sometimes long after people can remember what they 
were fighting about, a child walking to school is blown apart, a farmer 
going with his or her animals into a field is blown apart, a mother, 
following a child down a road, is blown apart; and nobody knows who put 
the landmine there. They may not even remember what the war was about. 
But they know--that person knows--that their life is changed forever.

  We have used, now, for several years, the Leahy war victims fund. We 
spend $5 million of our taxpayers' money each year for artificial 
limbs, for men, women, and children who have been injured by landmines.
  My wife, who is a registered nurse, has gone with me to some of the 
clinics where we use the fund. We have seen people our age get their 
first wheelchairs, even though they lost their legs in wars long gone 
by. We have seen children who have lost half their body from a 
landmine. We have seen a child who went to pick up what she thought was 
a shiny metal toy on the side of the road and lost her face and her 
arm.
  Mr. President, people talk about one type of landmine versus another 
type of landmine. They talk about the technical capabilities of one 
army or another. But what is often forgotten is the face of the 
victims. Some of those victims may no longer even have a face. When she 
was alive, I told the Princess of Wales that the greatest difference 
she made in the battle against landmines was to focus the world's 
attention on the faces of the victims. Because when she visited a 
hospital for landmine victims, the whole world visited that hospital 
with her. Those victims are still there. Just because the TV camera 
turns off, the victims don't disappear. They are still there. Their 
lives are still ruined. And in the time that I have been speaking, 
there have been two more victims of landmines. By the time we go home 
tonight, there will be a dozen more victims of landmines--26,000 this 
year alone.
  I commend the effort begun by Canada, and Foreign Minister Axworthy. 
I commend those nations that came together in Oslo to sign the treaty. 
Not in my lifetime has there been an arms control issue that so many 
nations have moved so quickly on, to sign a treaty so comprehensive. 
Never before have so many nations responded so urgently, and so 
effectively, to a humanitarian problem such as this.
  I regret very much that the United States was not among those who 
agreed to sign the treaty. Not because we are causing the problem. 
Other nations never even went to Oslo. Russia, China, Pakistan, India, 
others, who are part of the problem, they weren't even there. And that 
should be noted. But the United States is the most powerful nation 
history has ever known. The United States could be a moral beacon. 
Instead, the United States said: Notwithstanding our power, we want to 
keep our landmines, but you less powerful nations, you should give up 
yours.
  We should join them. We should be willing to set an example. Not to 
pretend that we are giving up our landmines when in fact what we are 
doing is calling them by another name. Let us use the steps that we 
can, through congressional action, which will be taken, I am sure, 
because there is an ever-increasing number of Members in both parties 
who want to see stronger U.S. leadership.
  Let us take that step here as a nation. But then let's give guidance 
to the rest of the world. Let's not have Russia, China, and others stay 
out of the process because the United States is staying out. Let us be 
wholeheartedly a part of this process and put pressure on other nations 
to join us, until the day arrives when we do with landmines what we 
have done with chemical weapons, and make their use a war crime.
  Throughout this process, the U.S. position has been driven primarily 
by the Pentagon; not by the State Department, not by the White House. I 
think back to the 1920's, to the First Geneva Convention, when Gen. 
Blackjack Pershing, no theoretical dilettante he, said we should give 
up poison gas. But the Pentagon said no, not so fast, because there are 
some instances when it could be very helpful in protecting our troops. 
Fortunately, our civilian leaders understood that the humanitarian 
disaster that could result from using poison gas outweighed whatever 
military utility could be got from using it. And so over time, poison 
gas was stigmatized so that anyone who used it risked being branded a 
pariah. And it was virtually never used, even though in the Korean war, 
or in Vietnam, there were any number of instances when it might have 
been militarily advantageous.
  Today we have a similar situation, where many of our best known, most 
decorated generals say let's give up landmines. Again, we hear the 
Pentagon saying, as General Pershing heard, ``No, there are instances 
when landmines can help us.'' Of course there are. There are instances 
when any nation would want to use landmines. But earlier this week, 89 
nations made the moral decision to put the lives of innocent people 
first.
  The balance of power throughout the world would still be the same as 
it is today. The only thing that would change is there would not be the 
thousands of innocent civilian casualties every single year.
  Again, my prayer for the next century is that armies of humanity 
remove and disarm landmines, and no armies, no armies, put any new 
landmines down. What greater gift could we give to those in the next 
century, than a world without landmines?

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