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Campaign to Ban Landmines In this edition. . .
Mom works for big goal: world peace Several years ago, when Deb Sawyer was writing letters to Congress to put an end to nuclear testing, her son Jason asked, "Mom, do you really think your little group matters? Do you really think you're going to make any difference?" Deb thought about the question for a moment, then told her son, "Maybe not. But there are lots of little groups all over. Together, maybe we can make a difference." Her son, now a teenager and the only "non-hippie" in the house, has learned to live with piles of mail addressed to politicians and dinnertime talk that centers on peace walks, alternatives to violence and the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now Deb is hoping the rest of us might learn a thing or two from her nonprofit group, the Gandhi Alliance for Peace. For the past eight years, the small Utah club has brought Mahatma Gandhi's teachings to local schools and reached out to people in war-ravaged countries. Currently, Deb and her friends are raising funds to help villagers in Afghanistan, a country littered with millions of land mines and unexploded ordnance. Through the "Adopt-a-Minefield" program, land is being cleared so war refugees can find a safe place to resettle. "When you go to Afghanistan, it's very distressing to see how many people have lost arms and legs to land mines," says Deb, 56. "And now, since the United States bombed the country, there are unexploded cluster bombs everywhere. It's a terrible mess." A shell from one of those cluster bombs sits on Deb's bookcase — a souvenir from her recent trip to Afghanistan and a reminder that her group has much work to do. Hoping to share the mission of the Gandhi alliance, Deb recently asked me to meet her for a Free Lunch of Middle Eastern appetizers at Mazza, her favorite restaurant. To read the full article, go to: http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635190364,00.html Putting a face on wounded veterans By Michael Clancy New York Newsday March 20, 2006 In many parts of America, returning soldiers and Marines are well known in their small community. In the anonymity of a big city like New York, the returning GI might be the woman on line at the coffee shop or the guy sitting across the subway aisle. This is the story of two New Yorkers -- one from the Midwest, and another from Brooklyn by way of Belarus -- who fought in Iraq and are among the 17,124 who have been wounded in the war that began three years ago Monday. His mother and father are both Marines, so Garth Stewart chalks up his decision to enlist in the Army as an act of rebelliousness. The 23-year-old from the "pretty little river town" of Stillwater, Minn. was also drawn by romantic notions of being a soldier and defending his country. Stewart looks back fondly on basic training, the months spent in Kuwait during the buildup to the war and even the 16 days he was in Iraq before he stepped on a landmine. During basic training at Fort Benning in Georgia, he built a rep as a guy who's good with his hands. In Kuwait, he played baseball in the desert with a rolled-up ball of tape. And when his battalion took artillery on the route to Baghdad, he snapped a quick picture of his buddy, saying "Wait. Pause for a cool guy picture in case you die." To read the full article, go to: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/amiraqam0320,0,7754004.story Significant Progress Made To Reduce Land Mine Effects By Wendy Lubetkin, Washington File Staff Writer Geneva -- Through concerted international action, real progress is being made in clearing land mines and reducing their effects on lives and livelihoods in countries around the world, U.S. and U.N. officials said March 8. The effect of land mines is a “solvable problem” that “can and will be addressed, not in some distant time frame, but in the immediate future,” said Richard Kidd, director of the State Department’s Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement. The number of annual casualties from land mines has declined from 26,000 three years ago to 10,000 in 2005, Kidd said. Although that number is still significant, “there has been a marked improvement in terms of the severity of the impacts around the world,” he said. Among the successes are Guatemala, which became mine-free in December 2005; Angola, where there has been a significant decrease in the number of mine casualties; and Afghanistan, which has registered a 12 percent decrease in casualties. The State Department considers a country to be “mine-free” when the most pressing humanitarian effects of land mines have been addressed but does not guarantee that every single mine has been removed. Kidd said that U.S. financial support for humanitarian mine action recently surpassed the $1 billion milestone. This includes U.S. contributions made since 1993 when the U.S. Humanitarian Mine Action program was established. To read the full release, go to: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2006&m=March&x=20060309123753FRllehctiM0.689068&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html Leahy casts 12,000th vote, against Patriot Act By Evan Lehmann Sen. Patrick Leahy cast his 12,000th vote in the United States Senate Tuesday, surpassing all but a handful of senators in history to do so. His colleagues took to the Senate floor to congratulate him, talking about his dedication to Vermont and the underprivileged citizens around the world for whom he has worked. "Sen. Leahy has a lot of things in mind when he comes to cast a vote, but the No. 1 on the list is Vermont," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Leahy's known worldwide for his work to help those hurt by landmines. Frist, a doctor, recalled how villagers would remember Leahy as the face of the United States. "It reflects a great legacy for our country," Frist said, "what he has stood for, the values and the principles." To read the full article, go to: http://www.reformer.com Landmine Treaty Seventh Anniversary By Joe De Capua March 1st is the seventh anniversary of the day the International Landmine Treaty took effect. The treaty was signed in Ottawa, Canada in 1997 and went into force on March first, 1999, after ratification by 40 countries. The United States has not yet joined the treaty. Sylvie Brigot is the executive director of the Nobel Prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). From Ottawa, she spoke to English to Africa reporter Joe De Capua about the effect of the treaty: “I think it has been very successful. We started this more than 10 years ago, in 1992, calling for a total ban on landmines. We today have a convention banning this weapon. One hundred forty-nine states are parties to this convention.” The treaty bans the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel landmines. It also calls on states to destroy mines already in the ground and care for those who’ve been maimed by the weapons. To read the full article and to listen to the interview, go to: http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/2006-03-01-voa35.cfm Adopt-A-Minefield's Night of a Thousand Dinners is happening March 1 - April 4 Night of a Thousand Dinners is an annual, global event that brings together thousands of individuals and organizations from around the world to help raise funds to clear landmines and assist landmine survivors. Starting this year, participants will host dinners between March 1, which commemorates the date the Mine Ban Treaty entered into force, and April 4, recently recognized by the United Nations as International Day for Mine Awareness. How to Get Involved
Night of a Thousand Dinners is an initiative of Adopt-A-Minefield (AAM), a campaign of the United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA), in partnership with AAM Canada, AAM UK and AAM Sweden. It began as an opportunity to come together on a single night, enjoy a meal and help resolve the global landmine crisis. Since its inception in 2001, 4000 dinners have been held in over 50 countries, raising over $4 million. AAM Goodwill Ambassadors, Paul McCartney and Heather Mills McCartney, Secretary General Kofi Annan, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and former Canadian Prime Minister Chrétien all support Adopt-A-Minefield as a prime example of a successful public-private partnership. Clarification on humanitarian demining budget memo from February 2006 Newsletter We included a budget memo from the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL is the USCBL's coordinator) on the U.S. government's humanitarian mine action program in the February 2006 newsletter. The memo addressed the recent FY 2007 Administration funding request for humanitarian demining. The USCBL received comments disputing the numbers because they did not include funds appropriated for humanitarian mine action in supplemental bills funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A large block of supplemental funding was received in FY 04 and used throughout the following two years. According to the U.S. Department of State, an additional $13 million will be received this year. A footnote was included in the FCNL memo noting this supplementary appropriation. As a matter of practice and principle, FCNL budget memos are based on what is actually included in the annual budget process. Since the U.S. has different responsibilities in countries under occupation or where U.S. troops are engaged in fighting than in other places, supplemental mine action funds were listed in a footnote to the FCNL memo while mine action funds appropriated through the normal budgetary process are in the forefront Factoring in the supplemental funding for Iraq and Afghanistan, the State Department provided the following numbers for its mine action programs worldwide: FY 04-- $120,127,000 To read the FCNL budget memo, go to: http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=1720&issue_id=9 To read more about the U.S. Humanitarian Demining Program, go to: http://www.state.gov/t/pm/wra/ For more information on the US Campaign to Ban Landmines, go to www.banminesusa.org U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines To make a donation to the US Campaign to Ban Landmines go to: www.banminesusa.org/support/body.html and click on Donate. |
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For more on the Mine Ban Treaty, go to www.icbl.org |