[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
[September 17, 1997]
[Pages 1183-1186]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 1183]]


Remarks on International Efforts To Eliminate Landmines and an Exchange 
With Reporters
September 17, 1997

    The President. Thank you very much. I want to talk now about what 
the United States has done and what we will continue to do to lead the 
world toward the elimination of antipersonnel landmines.
    Every year, landmines kill or maim more than 25,000 people: 
children, women, farmers peacefully going about their business. That is 
why, since I called for the global elimination of landmines in 1994, the 
United States has been at the forefront of the effort to ban them, not 
just in words but in actual, concrete deeds.
    Eighteen months ago, I ordered a ban on the most dangerous types of 
landmines, those that remain active and dangerous long after soldiers 
have left the scene. These are the mines that are causing all the damage 
around the world today. These hidden killers prey on innocent civilians. 
They are responsible for the horrific mutilation of children from Angola 
to Cambodia to Bosnia.
    In the months since I ordered that ban, the United States has 
destroyed 1\1/2\ million of these landmines. By 1999 we will have 
destroyed all the rest in our stockpiles, another 1\1/2\ million, with 
the exception of our mines at the demilitarized zone in Korea, the cold 
war's last frontier.
    The United States has also led the world in the effort to remove 
existing landmines, again not with talk but with action that has saved 
lives. Since 1993 we have devoted $153 million to this cause. Our 
experts have helped to remove mines from the ground in 15 nations. They 
have trained and equipped roughly one-quarter of all the people who work 
at this effort around the world.
    These efforts are paying off. In the areas of Cambodia where we've 
been active, the death rates for landmines has dropped by one-half. In 
Namibia, the casualty rate has fallen 90 percent.
    These efforts do not come without real cost and sacrifice. The C-141 
plane that went down in that terrible collision off the coast of Africa 
on Monday, in which nine Air Force crew members were lost, had just 
carried a unit of special forces demining experts to Namibia.
    Last month I instructed a U.S. team to join negotiations then 
underway in Oslo to ban all antipersonnel landmines. Our negotiators 
worked tirelessly to reach an agreement we could sign. Unfortunately, as 
it is now drafted, I cannot in good conscience add America's name to 
that treaty. So let me explain why.
    Our Nation has unique responsibilities for preserving security and 
defending peace and freedom around the globe. Millions of people from 
Bosnia to Haiti, Korea to the Persian Gulf, are safer as a result. And 
so is every American. The men and women who carry out that 
responsibility wear our uniform with pride and, as we learned in the 
last few days, at no small risk to themselves. They wear it secure in 
the knowledge, however, that we will always, always do everything we can 
to protect our own.
    As Commander in Chief, I will not send our soldiers to defend the 
freedom of our people and the freedom of others without doing everything 
we can to make them as secure as possible. For that reason, the United 
States insisted that two provisions be included in the treaty negotiated 
at Oslo. First, we needed an adequate transition period to phase out the 
antipersonnel mines we now use to protect our troops, giving us time to 
devise alternative technologies. Second, we needed to preserve the 
antitank mines we rely upon to slow down an enemy's armor offensive in a 
battle situation.
    These two requests are not abstract considerations. They reflect the 
very dangerous reality we face on the ground as a result of our global 
responsibilities. Take the Korean Peninsula. There, our 37,000 troops 
and their South Korean allies face an army of one million North Koreans 
only 27 miles away from Seoul, Korea. They serve there, our troops do, 
in the name and under the direct mandate of the international community. 
In the event of an attack, the North's overwhelming numerical advantage 
can only be countered if we can slow down its advance, call in 
reinforcements, and organize our defense. Our antipersonnel mines there 
are a key part of our defense line in Korea. They are deployed along a 
DMZ where there are no villages and no civilians. Therefore, they, too,

[[Page 1184]]

are not creating the problem we are trying to address in the world.
    We also need antitank mines there to deter or stop an armored 
assault against our troops, the kind of attack our adversaries would be 
most likely to launch. These antitank mines self-destruct or deactivate 
themselves when the battle is over, and therefore, they pose little risk 
to civilians. We will continue to seek to deter a war that would cost 
countless lives. But no one should expect our people to expose our Armed 
Forces to unacceptable risks.
    Now, we were not able to gain sufficient support for these two 
requests. The final treaty failed to include a transition period during 
which we could safely phase out our antipersonnel landmines, including 
in Korea. And the treaty would have banned the antitank mines our troops 
rely on from the outskirts of Seoul to the desert border of Iraq and 
Kuwait, and this in spite of the fact that other nations' antitank 
systems are explicitly permitted under the treaty.
    We went the extra mile and beyond to sign this treaty. And again, I 
want to thank Secretary Cohen and General Shalikashvili and especially 
I'd like to thank General Ralston for the enormous effort that was made 
and the changes in positions and the modifications in positions that the 
Joint Chiefs made, not once but 3 times, to try to move our country 
closer to other countries so that in good faith we could sign this 
treaty.
    But there is a line that I simply cannot cross, and that line is the 
safety and security of our men and women in uniform. America will 
continue to lead in ending the use of all antipersonnel mines. The offer 
we made at Oslo remains on the table. We stand ready to sign a treaty 
that meets our fundamental and unique security requirements. With an 
adequate transition period to a world free of antipersonnel landmines, 
this goal is within reach.
    As further evidence of our commitment, I am announcing today a 
series of steps America will take on its own to advance our efforts to 
rid the world of landmines. First, I'm directing the Department of 
Defense to develop alternatives to antipersonnel landmines so that by 
the year 2003 we can end even the use of self-destruct landmines, that 
is, those, again, that are not causing the problem today because they 
destroy themselves on their own after a short period of time. We want to 
end even the use of these landmines, everywhere but Korea.
    As for Korea, my directive calls for alternatives to be ready by 
2006, the time period for which we were negotiating in Oslo. By setting 
these deadlines, we will speed the development of new technologies that 
I asked the Pentagon to start working on last year. In short, this 
program will eliminate all antipersonnel landmines from America's 
arsenal.
    Second, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff David Jones has 
agreed to be a personal adviser to me and to Secretary Cohen to help us 
make sure the job gets done. Throughout his career he has demonstrated a 
concern for the safety of our troops second to none, and in recent years 
he's been a powerful, eloquent voice for banning landmines. There's no 
better man for the task, and I thank him for accepting it.
    Third, we will significantly increase our demining programs. No 
nation devotes more expertise or resources to the problem than we do 
today. Next year, we currently plan to provide $68 million for worldwide 
demining efforts, almost as much as the rest of the world combined. We 
will begin demining work in as many as eight new countries, including 
Chad, Zimbabwe, and Lebanon.
    But we can, and will, do more. I am proposing that we increase 
funding for demining by about 25 percent beginning next year. We must 
improve our research and development to find new ways to detect, remove, 
and dispose of these landmines. We must increase assistance to landmine 
victims to help them heal and take their place as productive members of 
their societies. And we must expand our training programs so that 
nations that are plagued by landmines can themselves do more to clear 
away these deadly devices. Every mine removed from the ground is another 
child potentially saved.
    Fourth, we will redouble our efforts to establish serious 
negotiations for a global antipersonnel landmine ban in the conference 
on disarmament in Geneva. We will begin by seeking an export ban next 
year and one that applies to the major landmine producers, the people 
who themselves cause these problems because they're making and selling 
these landmines--none of them were present in Oslo. In the end, we have 
to get them on board as well.
    I am determined to work closely with the Congress, with Senator 
Leahy, Senator Hagel,

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and others to implement this package, because I think together we can 
take another step in the elimination of landmines that will be decisive.
    In that connection, let me say, I had a brief visit with Senator 
Leahy today, and I think that there's no way I can say enough about what 
he has done. He is a genuine worldwide leader in this effort. He has 
been recognized around the world. He has worked with us very closely, 
and I thank him. And I'm confident that we can do more by working 
together.
    I believe, and I think everyone in the United States and everyone 
leading the Pentagon believes, that every man, woman, and child in this 
world should be able to walk the Earth in safety, that we should do 
everything we can to guarantee this right, and we can do it while 
preserving our own ability to secure the safety of our troops as they 
protect freedom around the world. These steps will make a major dent. We 
are working hard, and we intend to keep going until the job is done.
    Thank you.

North and South Korea

    Q. Does that mean the U.S. will not be represented at Ottawa? And 
how much threat is there of a famine-stricken North Korea being able to 
invade South Korea? I mean, aren't they starving to death?
    The President. Well, first of all, we've done everything we could to 
prevent them from starving to death, you know. I've strongly supported 
humanitarian food aid to the North Koreans. But frankly, it depends on 
how you read the risk. I mean, the tension between the two Koreas is 
still there. They have a million troops there. And my elemental 
experience in human psychology--and I think a lot of our experts in 
military strategies agree that sometimes people are most dangerous when 
they feel most threatened and most helpless, most frustrated.
    So I would just say to you, the fact that they have had some food 
problems does not in any way, in my mind, mitigate the risk. And anybody 
who's ever been to the DMZ and who has ever driven from Seoul to the DMZ 
and seen how short it is and has seen a million--you know, the numbers 
of troops there, and you see our people up there in those outposts and 
how few they are--and again I say, these mines are put along the DMZ in 
clearly marked areas to make sure that no children will walk across 
them. There is no place like it in the world.
    And let me also say, this is not a unilateral American presence 
there. We are there under an armistice agreement that proceeded from the 
authority of the United Nations to conduct the Korean war in the first 
place and then to have the armistice. We are there fulfilling the 
worldwide community's responsibility to preserve the peace and safety 
there.
    And it's very easy if you're not one of those Americans in uniform 
up there, saying, ``Oh, well, this will never happen. They'll never do 
it.'' But you could move a million people into Seoul pretty quickly. And 
no one I know believes that under present circumstances, with the 
hostilities that still exist between the two countries, that we could do 
anything to stop that if we didn't have the strong deterrent of the 
landmines that are in that very carefully marked field there.

United States Action Against Landmines

    Q. Sir, does it pain you to be in the company of Russia and China, 
Iran, Iraq--other countries that won't be signing in Ottawa?
    The President. No, we're not in their company. It pains me that for 
whatever reason--and I understand--I have a lot of sympathy with a lot 
of these countries in Ottawa, that were in Oslo. I have a lot of 
sympathy with the countries that have themselves had a lot of people 
killed from landmines. But the argument that I have tried to make to 
them is that what we really have to do--we will never solve this problem 
until we get the producers, the people that are making these landmines, 
to stop making them, stop selling them, and stop using them. That's what 
we have to do. And I believe the United States is in a better position 
to work with the rest of the world to get that done than nearly any 
other country. But I don't feel that I'm in their company at all.
    We unilaterally stopped producing, stopped selling, stopped using 
these landmines. We have unilaterally destroyed a million and a half of 
them. I imagine that no country in Oslo can make that claim. We're going 
to destroy another million and a half by 1999. I doubt that any country 
in Oslo can make that claim.
    We have done everything we could. We have even said we are going to 
unilaterally give up our self-destruct landmines that do not--as far as 
I know, have not killed a single civilian or

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maimed a single child anywhere in the world. And thousands of them have 
been tested. They all self-destructed when they were supposed to, except 
one that was an hour late.
    So we are not in their company. I wish we could sign the Oslo 
agreement. I understand the difficulties of the countries involved and 
the emotional feelings surrounding this issue, but we have to have some 
time to deal with our challenge in Korea. And our antitank mines, we 
believe, are more effective than other countries' are, and there is an 
explicit exception for antitank mines that is written in such a way that 
doesn't cover ours. And I could never agree not to have antitank 
weapons, given the kinds of combat that our people are likely to be in, 
in any kind of projected scenario, over the next 20 to 30 years. I 
couldn't do it. We have to have some resolution of that. It would just 
be--that would be completely irresponsible for me to let our people be 
in combat situations without an antitank device that I thought was the 
most effective available.

Proposed Tobacco Legislation

    Q. Will you ask Congress to stay in session in order to pass tobacco 
legislation?
    The President. Well, let me just say, what I will ask Congress to do 
is to get into this now, bring all the parties together, have hearings 
as quickly as possible, and move as quickly as possible. I think the 
most important thing is that we make it clear that this process is not 
dead. It's taken new life. It's gone on to a new step. Congress has to 
resolve all these jurisdictional questions--how many committees in the 
House, how many committees in the Senate, who does what. But I'm going 
to work with them. I hope to give new life, a new impetus to this by the 
announcement I made today, and I think we did.

Middle East Peace Process

    Q. Sir, you have the Secretary of State with you. What do you think 
are the next steps for the Middle East peace process, and what impact 
will that have on your remarks to the U.N. on Monday?
    The President. Well, first of all, I think she did a superb job in 
the Middle East with a very difficult circumstance. And I have nothing--
I could sit here until midnight and not give a better synopsis than the 
one line she used in the Middle East where she said, ``The good news is 
we made some small steps, but we need to take big steps.'' And that is 
my--that Secretary Albright distilled in that one phrase where I think 
we are.
    But Mr. Berger and the Secretary and all of us, we're putting our 
heads together. We're going to do everything we can to keep pushing 
this. And I have seen some encouraging signs in the last couple of days 
that all the parties realize that they have special responsibilities to 
get this thing back on track. And we're going to look at our options and 
do everything we can.
    But I also say what I've said from the beginning: If you look at all 
the good things that happened early on in my administration in the 
Middle East, the United States facilitated them but did not create them. 
In the end, the peace is for the parties there to make, and they have to 
have the vision and the courage and the strength to do it. But we're 
going to do everything we can to try to create the conditions in which 
they can succeed and to try to protect them from the downsides if they 
do take risks for peace.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 12:30 p.m. in the Roosevelt Room at the 
White House.