[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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