[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 150 (Friday, October 31, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11529-S11531]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE ADMINISTRATION'S HUMANITARIAN DEMINING INITIATIVE
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I would like to speak briefly about an
announcement the administration is making today to increase funding for
humanitarian demining programs and appoint a demining czar. This is, of
course, on the subject of landmines, which has been a concern of mine
for many years. I have not received all the details, but I understand
the administration plans to spend $80 million on humanitarian demining
programs next year, which is a significant increase over the current
level.
They also plan to seek additional support from other governments,
corporations, and foundations. Their goal is to raise $1 billion to
clear most of the world's landmines by the year 2010. I also understand
Ambassador Karl Inderfurth, our Assistant Secretary for South Asia and
formerly the U.S. Alternate Representative to the United Nations, is to
become the new demining czar.
I can think of no better person to lead this effort than Ambassador
Inderfurth. The Ambassador, known as Rick to his friends, is a long-
time friend of mine. I have immense respect and admiration for him. I
have watched him prowl the halls of the United Nations and buttonhole
other representatives, as did Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
when she was our U.N. Representative, to get support for an
international ban on antipersonnel landmines.
Rick has been a passionate voice for the victims of landmines. I am
very grateful that he has agreed to take this on, especially as he
already has a full-time job that would be more than enough for most
people. He will do a superb job.
[[Page S11530]]
This announcement is being made today by Secretaries Albright and
Cohen. I commend them both, and I say that it is welcome news.
While its goals sound awfully ambitious, some may say even
unrealistic, time will tell. They have my full support. This is an area
in which not nearly enough has been done, and the United States has a
great deal to offer.
Mr. President, today we clear landmines much the same way that we did
in World War II or Korea. It takes an enormous amount of time and it is
extremely dangerous. There is very little money, especially as most of
these landmines are in the Third World.
Our leadership in this area could help immeasurably. Look what we did
after World War II with the tens of millions of landmines spread all
over Europe. We cleared most of them in a decade. There are still parts
of Europe that have landmines today, but most of them are gone.
The administration's plan builds on what the Congress began some
years ago. We established humanitarian demining programs at both the
Departments of Defense and State. At the beginning, the Pentagon did
not want to do it. They said it was not their mission. They said their
job was breaching mine fields, not clearing mines. That is one reason
there are so many unexploded landmines killing and maiming innocent
people around the world.
What happens, of course, Mr. President, is that the world's
militaries leave millions of landmines behind once the wars end, the
soldiers go home, the guns are unloaded, the leaders sign the peace
agreements, and hands are shaken.
But the landmines stay, and some unsuspecting child or farmer steps
on them--a child going to school or someone going to gather water or
firewood. Someone trying to raise crops to feed their family. Or an
unsuspecting missionary.
There are so many victims, long after anybody even remembers who was
fighting whom, or why. There are Russian mines, American mines, Italian
mines and mines from other countries in hundreds of varieties in over
68 countries. It is estimated that it would cost, at the rate we are
going now, billions of dollars over decades and decades to get rid of
them.
Over time, the Pentagon has become more supportive. I hope this new
initiative means that they are now fully on board. They have the
expertise and technology to make an important contribution. They could
cut years, years off the time it would take to demine the world.
Again, as I have said, we are using the same demining technologies
that were common years ago. We are not taking advantage of some of the
technology and expertise available today. And the demining programs
that we now use have been in place for several years have a mixed
record. The administration says they have spent some $150 million to
date. I wonder how many landmines have been removed for all that money?
I suspect if anyone did the arithmetic it would come to hundreds of
dollars, possibly even thousands of dollars, to remove each landmine.
Of course, the tragic irony of that is that it only costs $3 or $4 to
put the landmine in the ground in the first place.
So I suggest, in building on what Secretary Albright and Secretary
Cohen said today, that we begin with a top-to-bottom review of our
demining efforts. They are too uncoordinated among government agencies.
This should include a thorough review of the program that is in the
Pentagon itself.
The Pentagon should play a central role, but I am concerned that some
Pentagon officials have been more interested in using this program to
make contacts with foreign military personnel than to build the
sustainable demining capabilities in these other countries. The
soldiers we send to do the training in places like Eritrea and
Mozambique and other mine-infested countries are among our best, and
they do a terrific job. There is no one more proud of them than I am.
But we need to be sure that when they leave, the people they have
trained have the knowledge and the equipment and the support to carry
on.
We have the Humanitarian Demining Technologies Program. This program
funds research and development on new demining technologies. This
program, again, established by the Congress three years ago, has the
potential to revolutionize the way we detect and destroy landmines and
other unexploded ordnance.
This may be what enables us to make that quantum leap forward so that
instead of taking decades and decades to get rid of the mines, we cut
that time substantially. The Pentagon also has a lot to offer in this
area, but it has not been fully supportive of it despite the best
efforts of the people involved. As one who has spent nearly 10 years
working to ban anti-personnel landmines, to support programs to clear
mines and care for the victims, I must say that there should be some
thought given to moving this program elsewhere or reorganizing it,
because there needs to be much more coordination with the private
sector and with other governments that are also working in this area.
Mr. President, there is another part of this that needs to be
mentioned. Two years ago, the President of the United States went to
the United Nations to urge the world's nations to negotiate a treaty
banning antipersonnel landmines.
In December, over 110 governments will sign such a treaty in Ottawa.
But the United States is not going to be among them. In fact, not only
will we be absent, now we find the Pentagon is backtracking on the
pledge it made a year ago to find alternatives to anti-personnel
landmines.
So taken in this context, it is no surprise that the administration
feels it must do something to counter the growing impression around the
world that the United States has become an obstacle to an international
ban.
Thirteen members of NATO and most of the world's producers and users
and exporters of landmines will sign the treaty in Ottawa, but not the
world's only superpower. We have taken the position that even though we
are the most powerful nation history has ever known, we cannot give up
our landmines but we want everybody else to give up theirs. Rather than
lead this effort, we risk being left behind with a handful of pariah
states with whom we do not belong. We are too great a nation for that.
No one should suggest that a ban is a substitute for demining. There
are some 100 million unexploded landmines in the ground, and whether
there is a ban or not they will go on maiming and killing until we get
rid of them. We have to do that. But neither is demining a substitute
for a ban. Why spend billions of dollars to get rid of the mines if
they are simply replaced with new mines?
We need to destroy the mines that are in the ground. We need to stop
the laying of new mines. Both are necessary to rid the world of these
insidious weapons.
So I welcome this initiative. I will do everything I can to support
it. But let us not fool themselves. The United States is about to miss
a historic opportunity. We should sign the Ottawa treaty, just as we
should do everything we can to lead an international demining effort to
get rid of the mines in the ground.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an article in today's
Washington Post, which describes how the Pentagon is walking away from
its pledge last May to find alternatives to antipersonnel landmines, a
pledge that at the time they said reflected their ``complete
agreement'' with the President's goal of an international ban, be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Washington Post, Oct. 31, 1997]
Administration Drops Plans to Find Substitutes for Antipersonnel Mine
(By Dana Priest)
The Clinton administration has dropped its effort to find
alternatives to a certain type of antipersonnel land mine, a
move that has angered advocates of banning mines who say the
president has retreated from his pledge to find a substitute
for the weapon.
``There wasn't anything that conceptually made any sense,''
said a high-ranking Defense Department official who declined
to be named. ``And there is no humanitarian need for such an
alternative.''
Caleb Rossiter, director of Demilitarization for Democracy,
which advocates an international land mine ban, said: ``This
is a huge policy change.''
At issue are the millions of antipersonnel land mines used
by U.S. troops to protect anti-tank minefields.
[[Page S11531]]
Since May 1996, Clinton has pledged to find alternatives to
all mines this country uses, and the Pentagon has been
studying various approaches. In January, when Clinton
announced he would not sign an international treaty banning
land mines, he directed the Defense Department ``to develop
alternatives to antipersonnel land mines, so that by the year
2003 we can end even the use of self-destruct land mines.''
He also directed the Pentagon to find alternatives to the
mines used on the Korean Peninsula by 2006.
At the same time, Clinton redefined the only type of
antipersonnel land mine used by U.S. troops outside Korea--
mines that are scattered around anti-tank mines to protect
them from being breached by enemy troops. This is called a
``mixed system'' of anti-tank and antipersonnel mines. The
administration now calls these antipersonnel land mines
``devices'' and ``submunitions.''
The practical result of this definitional change is that
the Pentagon is no longer actively trying to come up with an
alternative for these mines, of which the United States has
more than 1 million.
``We are looking for alternatives to the Korean
situation,'' said Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon. ``The
mixed packages are not a humanitarian threat.''
The reason the mixed packages are not a humanitarian threat
is because they turn themselves off after a set period of
time, usually three hours. Even so, from May 1996 until this
January, Clinton still wanted to find alternatives to them in
hopes of inducing countries that use the troublesome non-
self-destructing mines to give them up.
Non-self-destructing mines, also known as ``dumb mines,''
are responsible for injuring or killing 25,000 people a year,
many of them civilians.
U.S. negotiators working on the Ottawa treaty tried
unsuccessfully to convince other countries to create an
exemption for the antipersonnel mines used in anti-tank
minefields.
Abandoning the search for alternatives, said Bobby Muller,
president of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation,
would make it impossible for the United States to ever sign
the treaty as it is written.
``Our bottom line is for the U.S. to sign the treaty,''
said Muller, who also is part of the International Campaign
to Ban Landmines, which won the Nobel Peace Prize this year.
``We are going to be in his [Clinton's] face. We are not
going away.''
Yesterday the international campaign began airing eight
days of Washington-broadcast television ads aimed at
pressuring Clinton to sign the treaty or to pledge to sign it
at a specified date.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, let us hope that the Pentagon's pledge
today to help lead an international demining effort is a lot longer
lasting.
Mr. President, I have spoken on this subject so many times. I think
of when I went to Oslo recently when governments were meeting there to
talk about an international ban. And I was joined by Tim Rieser, of my
staff, who has worked so hard on this, and David Carle. I met with the
American negotiators who were there and had a chance to speak to the
delegates and the NGO's and others who had gathered.
And I said: I dream of a world, as we go into the next century, a
world where armies of humanity dig up and destroy the landmines that
are in the ground and when no other armies come and put new landmines
down.
If we did that, Mr. President, if the world did that, removed the
landmines that are there, banned the use of new landmines, we would
give such great hope to people everywhere.
Today, there are countries where families literally have to tether
their child on a rope near where they live because they know within the
circle of that rope is one of the few areas that is free of landmines.
And the child can play only on the end of a leash like a dog.
These are the same places where people often go hungry. They cannot
work in their fields without risking their lives. And they often have
no choice. And when one of them loses a limb, or his or her life, the
whole family suffers. That is the reality for millions of people, and
that is why this demining initiative is so important.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Seeing nobody else seeking recognition, I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant 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. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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