[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 96 (Thursday, July 1, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1470]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    CLINTON HYPOCRISY ON LAND MINES

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                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, July 1, 1999

  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, the Contra Costa Times, 
my hometown newspaper in the East Bay of San Francisco, got it right 
today when they took the President to task on the issue of land mines. 
``Hypocrisy on Land Mines,'' an editorial, points out that while 
President Clinton is now giving his compassion and his warnings of 
safety to returning Kosovar refugees because their homeland is wired 
full of land mines, it was the same President Clinton who refused to 
sign the international treaty to ban land mines two years ago. Over 100 
other nations signed the treaty and the United States should have taken 
the lead to see this treaty enacted and enforced. Instead, all the 
United States can do now is hope that not too many Kosovar refugees 
have their limbs blown off as they venture home after the war.
  Tens of thousands of civilians are killed by land mines around the 
world every year. The world needs America's leadership to bring an end 
to this cruel form of warfare where the main victims, in fact, are 
civilians. I commend the editorial below to my colleagues and to my 
President.

                [From Contra Costa Times, July 1, 1999]

                        Hypocrisy on Land Mines

       President Clinton gave good advise when he warned Kosovar 
     Albanians to delay their return to Kosovo because of the many 
     land mines still scattered about the countryside and in 
     towns. But there must have been much gnashing of teeth at the 
     office of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, whose 
     members watched two years ago as Clinton and the United 
     States refused to sign a treaty that would have banned land 
     mines around the world. Why they must have wondered is it all 
     right for Angolan and Cambodian children to be exposed to 
     these deadly weapons, but not Kosovars?
       Clinton was in full ``caring'' mode as he spoke with 
     refugees in Macedonia last week. ``I know a lot of people are 
     anxious to go home,'' he said. ``But you know there are still 
     a lot of land mines in the ground, on the routes into Kosovo 
     and in many of the communities. You have suffered enough. I 
     don't want any child hurt. I don't want anyone else to lose a 
     leg or an arm or a child because of a land mine.''
       The president neglected to mention that while the 
     retreating Serb army left many of those land mines, much of 
     the danger to returning civilians comes from unexploded 
     ``bomblets'' from cluster bombs dropped by NATO planes.
       Unexploded ordnance dropped by NATO aircraft floods the 
     province. Two NATO soldiers died trying to deactivate some of 
     it, and some children died when they tried to play with it. 
     Cluster bombs contain 202 of the bomblets that scatter over a 
     wide area.
       The bomblets' purpose is to kill enemy troops. But of 
     course, as with land mines, it is civilians who pay the 
     price.
       None of this is new. There are more than 100 million land 
     mines in the ground around the world, many of them in 
     unmarked fields where even the soldiers who put them there 
     cannot find them. Most were sown during regional conflicts, 
     such as the decades-long Angolan Civil War. Afghanistan and 
     Angola have roughly 9 million land mines each. The mines kill 
     or maim some 26,000 civilians yearly.
       Despite full knowledge of these obscene numbers, Clinton 
     refused to sign the land mines treaty two years ago, even 
     though 100 other nations did sign it. Now here he is in 
     Macedonia warning civilians and their children about land 
     mines, the spread of which he did nothing to stop, and 
     cluster bomblets, which NATO deposited on Kosovar land.
       It is heartening to see the president of the United States 
     acknowledging the danger of land mines. Perhaps now he will 
     turn his attention to halting their further proliferation.

     

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