[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 6 (Wednesday, January 10, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S135-S136]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               LANDMINES

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, according to Landmine Monitor, which is the 
world's best source of data on the production, use, export, 
stockpiling, and clearance of landmines, cluster munitions, and other 
unexploded ordnance, 2016 was a terrible year for casualties caused by 
mines and other UXO.
  In 2016, the Monitor recorded 8,605 casualties, of which at least 
2,089 people were fatalities. That is the highest number since 1999, 
and it includes the most casualties of children ever recorded. 
Civilians represented 78 percent of recorded casualties in 2016. There 
are still 61 countries that are known to be contaminated with 
landmines.
  On the positive side, approximately 232,000 landmines were destroyed 
in 2016, and 66 square miles of land were cleared of mines and other 
UXO. International donors and UXO affected countries increased support 
in 2016 for UXO clearance programs by $40 million above the previous 
year to $564.5 million. The United States was, like previous years, by 
far the largest donor.
  It is also encouraging that, since March 1, 1999, when the 
international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines came into force, 
163 countries have joined. That is an extraordinary achievement for a 
treaty that owes its existence to the vision and perseverance of 
hundreds of advocacy, human rights, arms control, humanitarian 
organizations, and journalists, around the world, and the leadership of 
former Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy; yet despite this 
progress and substantial declining in the past few years, the number of 
innocent people maimed and killed by mines has steadily increased.
  There are several explanations for this. Rebel groups like ISIS 
routinely use landmines and other improvised explosive devices. The 
wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen have been largely 
responsible. It may never be possible to completely eradicate the use 
of landmines by rebel groups, for the weapon is so cheap to manufacture 
while causing such harm.
  But the major powers that have not joined the treaty--the United 
States, Russia, China, Pakistan, and India--also share the blame. 
Antipersonnel landmines, which are designed to be triggered 
indiscriminately by the victim, whether an unsuspecting farmer or an 
enemy or friendly combatant, have no place in the arsenals of modern 
militaries. It is hypocrisy to claim on the one hand, as our military 
does, that it uses every precaution to avoid harming civilians and 
prides itself on its precision weapons, and on the other hand to insist 
on the right to use a weapon that is the antithesis of precise and 
overwhelmingly harms civilians.
  I have spoken more times than I can count about the scourge of 
antipersonnel landmines and the need for the United States to join the 
Mine Ban Treaty so we are no longer an excuse for other countries not 
to join. Our military has not used landmines for more than two decades. 
In fact, U.S. policy now strictly limits the use of antipersonnel mines 
to the Korean Peninsula, but we do not need them. What we need is the 
best protection for our troops to maneuver safely through minefields. 
We should have banned these indiscriminate weapons a long time ago, and 
we would have if landmines were blowing off the arms and legs of 
children in this Nation the way they are in others, but we have learned 
that the Pentagon is not in the habit of giving up weapons, even if 
they are weapons that deserve to be relegated to the dustbin of 
history. That decision will only be made by a President who is willing 
to do what is morally right.
  Landmines have been aptly described as weapons of mass destruction in 
slow

[[Page S136]]

motion. President Trump reacted with anger and disgust, as he should 
have, when Syria's President Assad used chlorine gas against his own 
people. He should react the same way toward antipersonnel landmines and 
set an example for the rest of the world.
  I ask unanimous consent that a January 6, 2018, New York Times 
editorial on this subject be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, Jan. 6, 2018]

                 Why Do Land Mines Still Kill So Many?

                        (By the Editorial Board)

       The world is rolling backward, and at a disturbingly faster 
     pace, in the struggle to limit carnage from land mines and 
     other booby-trap explosives. The most recent numbers, 
     covering 2016, are appalling.
       Known casualties that year came to 8,605, including 2,089 
     deaths, according to a new report by Landmine Monitor, a 
     research arm of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. 
     The toll was nearly 25 percent higher than the 6,967 maimed 
     and dead counted a year earlier, and more than double the 
     3,993 in 2014. And these numbers are almost assuredly an 
     undercount. ``In some states and areas, numerous casualties 
     go unrecorded,'' Landmine Monitor said.
       Much of the 2016 mayhem stemmed from conflicts in 
     Afghanistan, Libya, Ukraine and Yemen, but people in 56 
     countries and other areas were killed or wounded by 
     improvised explosive devices and other ordnance placed by 
     governments or, more commonly, by insurgent groups. The sheer 
     indecency of it is self-evident. Nearly 80 percent of the 
     victims were civilians; children accounted for 42 percent of 
     civilian casualties in situations where the ages were known.
       One subset of the menace, cluster munitions, is singularly 
     vicious. A single cluster bomb can contain dozens, even 
     hundreds, of baseball-size bomblets that spray in all 
     directions, ripping apart anything in their path. All too 
     often, they fail to detonate right away and thus become time 
     bombs that imperil unwary civilians who pick them up, 
     including curious children. Cluster munitions alone caused 
     971 known casualties in 2016, more than twice the toll of the 
     previous year, according to Cluster Munition Monitor. Most 
     victims were Syrians, nearly all of them civilians, but Saudi 
     Arabia has also used American-supplied cluster bombs in 
     Yemen.
       Perhaps the saddest part of all this is that for well over 
     a decade the world seemed to have gotten a grip on what are 
     referred to generically as the ``explosive remnants of war.'' 
     Thanks to an international treaty that came into force in 
     1999--now signed by 163 countries and banning the production, 
     stockpiling and transfer of land mines--casualties declined 
     steadily worldwide. They reached a low of 3,450 in 2013, 
     compared with 9,228 in 1999. (A companion treaty outlawing 
     cluster munitions, joined by 119 countries, went into effect 
     in 2010.) As the death and injury toll for 2016 shows, nearly 
     all that hard-won progress has been erased by the brutal 
     conflicts of recent vintage.
       The picture is not irredeemably bleak. The Landmine Monitor 
     said that 32 donors, led by the United States, contributed 
     nearly $480 million in 2016 for mine clearance and victim 
     aid. That was an increase of 22 percent from the year before. 
     More than 232,000 antipersonnel mines were reportedly 
     destroyed in 2016, and about 66 square miles--an area nearly 
     the size of Brooklyn--were cleared of explosive hazards.
       The grim reality, though, is that the land mine and cluster 
     munitions treaties are undercut by the refusal of some of 
     modern warfare's most powerful players to sign them. Among 
     those countries are China, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Russia 
     and Saudi Arabia. And the United States. The Pentagon has 
     long insisted that eliminating cluster bombs could put 
     soldiers at risk. As for land mines, they are deemed by 
     Washington to be a useful tool in the demilitarized zone 
     separating North and South Korea--a first-line defense for 
     the South against a possible invasion. But given the North's 
     nuclear buildup, a mined DMZ seems to be a Cold War vestige 
     of diminished value.
       Washington is not immune to international suasion. Land 
     mines are so stigmatized that American forces have barely 
     used them since the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The United States 
     stockpile, estimated at three million mines, is significantly 
     reduced from pre-treaty years; it's puny compared with the 26 
     million mines that Russia has on hand, according to the 
     International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Similarly, American 
     reliance on cluster munitions, which peaked in the early 
     stages of the 2003 Iraq war, has all but disappeared.
       In 2014 the Obama administration even signaled it might be 
     willing to join the anti-mine treaty. Regrettably, that step 
     never came. It might have been a moral statement encouraging 
     others to follow suit. Now, with President Trump openly 
     disdainful of international agreements, the likelihood of 
     Washington's signing the treaty would seem to be about zero. 
     The Pentagon, under his ultimate control, recently authorized 
     the military to restock older cluster munitions, whose 
     immediate failure rate can be high, leaving bomblets that can 
     explode and kill civilians even years later.
       For countries like Afghanistan, Libya, Ukraine and Yemen, 
     the risks may endure long after the guns go silent. Vietnam 
     provides an example. Since the war there ended in 1975, at 
     least 40,000 Vietnamese are believed to have been killed and 
     another 60,000 wounded by American land mines, artillery 
     shells, cluster bombs and other ordnance that failed to 
     detonate back then. They later exploded when handled by 
     scrap-metal scavengers and unsuspecting children.
       The lesson is stark for today's war-torn countries. They 
     could reap the same whirlwind in coming decades.

  (At the request of Mr. Schumer, the following statement was ordered 
to be printed in the Record.)

                          ____________________