| U.S. Campaign to Ban
Landmines Email Newsletter In this edition. . .
Iraqi Use of Antipersonnel
Mines Condemned The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) today condemned Iraq for using antipersonnel landmines at the outset of the conflict with the United States. Reuters reported on Thursday that Iraqi troops were laying mines near the Kuwaiti border when they were intercepted by U.S. Marines. There have been other reports that Iraqi forces were laying mines around Kirkuk in the north and elsewhere in the country. “There is no justification for using this appalling weapon,” said Jody Williams, ICBL Ambassador and co-winner with the ICBL of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. “Like chemical and biological weapons, any use of antipersonnel mines for any purpose is both illegal and repugnant to the civilized world,” said Williams. Former U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher and others have referred to antipersonnel mines as “weapons of mass destruction in slow motion.” Neither Iraq nor the United States is among the 146 governments that have joined the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, which prohibits use, production, transfer and stockpiling of antipersonnel mines. But the ICBL believes that any use of antipersonnel mines is prohibited by customary international humanitarian law, because they are inherently indiscriminate weapons whose limited military benefits are far outweighed by the long-term cost to civilian populations. Iraq has been a significant producer and exporter of antipersonnel mines in the past, and has been notable for its complete lack of involvement in global efforts to eradicate the weapon. Current U.S. policy is to join the Mine Ban Treaty in 2006 if suitable military alternatives have been found. However, the United States has deployed at least 90,000 antipersonnel mines to the region and incorporated them into war plans. The ICBL calls on Iraq to halt immediately
its deployment of antipersonnel mines and calls on the US to give
assurances that it will not use any type of antipersonnel mine during
the conflict. “We urge all parties involved to respect the
international norm which rejects mine warfare.” The campaign
also Iraq already suffers greatly from landmines laid in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Iraq-Iran War and previous conflicts. Landmines have been killing and maiming hundreds of Iraqi civilians every year, and new minefields will only add to these woes. The United Nations has suspended its major mine clearance program in northern Iraq. Once there is peace, landmines will greatly complicate the task of reconstructing Iraq, and will pose dangers to returning refugees and to the provision of humanitarian assistance and deployment of peacekeepers. For more information please see the ICBL’s
Iraq and Landmines page at US Marine Seriously
Injured by Landmine In Iraq A Marine staff sergeant from San Antonio was seriously injured after he stepped on a land mine in Iraq on Friday, March 21. Eric Alva lost his lower right leg, and parts of his upper body were hit by shrapnel, family members said. Alva is being treated at a hospital in Germany and is scheduled to return to San Antonio, possibly as early as March 27, said the family. Alva has been with the U.S. Marine Corps for 12 years and is a graduate of Southwest High School. Copyright © Yahoo 2003.
To deny Iraqi forces access to sites containing
chemical or biological weapons, US military commanders have plans
under certain scenarios to drop small land mines from warplanes
around enemy weapons sites, preventing Iraqis from taking away or
using dangerous arms. Leftover land mines take a huge toll on civilians,
800 deaths per month worldwide, according to the United Nations
Children's Fund. But the US policy on mines is at odds with that of Britain and most other nations, which have agreed not to use land mines. In Britain, members of Parliament are demanding that their forces stick to a treaty it has signed banning use of land mines. There is a dispute whether the kind of mines that US forces plan to use would be a violation of the treaty, although the United States has not signed it. In the United States, opponents of land mines say that the use of such munitions in an attack on Iraq would be a blow to the campaign to ban their use. That campaign took off in the 1990s with the backing of figures like Vermont activist Jody Williams, who shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for her advocacy against land mines, and the late Princess Diana. ''The more the US uses or retains the right
to use land mines, the more the government is on the outside of
the international norm banning these indiscriminate weapons of terror,''
said Gina Coplon-Newfield, coordinator of US Campaign to Ban Landmines,
a Boston group that first called attention to the Pentagon's intentions.
''No land mine is smart enough to distinguish between a soldier
and a child.'' In a letter last month to Bush, McGovern said that spreading land mines in Iraq ''would pose serious dangers to innocent civilians, our own troops, and future peacekeepers involved with post-conflict reconstruction.'' Since 1997, 131 countries have ratified
a treaty banning such weapons. Neither the United States nor Iraq
has agreed to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling,
Production, and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction,
which is better known as the Ottawa convention. ''It would be a tragic irony if a conflict that is supposed to be about upholding international arms controls resulted in the UK and others effectively tearing up their commitments,'' said Richard Lloyd, director of Landmine Action, a London organization that lobbies against the weapons and runs mine-clearing operations in Africa. Steve Atkins, a spokesman for the British Embassy in Washington, said Britain remains “fully committed to our obligations under Ottawa...” US plans to deploy land mines came to light at a press briefing at the Pentagon March 5 that focused on how US forces would try to minimize civilian casualties in Iraq. During the briefing, a defense official described how small land mines could be used to prevent enemy forces from gaining access to a site containing chemical or biological weapons... But activists in the campaign against land mines said such weapons are little different than older antipersonnel devices that kill thousands of civilians a year long after conflicts have ended. They said that within the first two days the weapons can injure medical personnel and other noncombatants and that the self-destruction timers can fail... Ross Kerber can be reached at kerber@globe.com. For full article, see www.banminesusa.org/news/945_bostonglobe.html Early Risk for U.S.
Ground Troops: Region's Legacy of Land Mines A handful of countries refused to sign the 1997 international treaty banning the use of land mines. Among them: the United States and Iraq. Now, as U.S. troops prepare for war in Iraq, one of the world's most heavily mined countries, army commanders are scrambling to locate all the mines so they can be harmlessly detonated. Before burning oilfields or street-fighting Republican Guards, mines may be the first life-threatening obstacles U.S. troops confront as they advance into Iraq. Specialized troops based here with the Army's Third Infantry Division will be among the first to cross the border because it's their job to clear the path. Yesterday, mine-clearing troops hustled their equipment into place as this area's entire contingent of 4,000 soldiers hurriedly broke camp, shipping nonessential items elsewhere and preparing to don their chem-bio suits for the move north. "Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to Baghdad we go," one soldier sang while taking down his tent. There are old Iraqi land mines throughout Iraq -- legacies of the Iran-Iraq War, the Persian Gulf War and conflicts with northern Iraq's Kurds. The International Committee to Ban Landmines says they kill or maim hundreds of civilians in the country every year. American commanders say military intelligence indicates that Mr. Hussein has sprinkled the country with numerous fresh land mines. "He's got about 10 million mines in his inventory," says Capt. Raphael Lopez, commander of one of the mine-clearing units here. There may even be some leftover American land mines from the Gulf War. The U.S. scattered 118,000 land mines in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991, mostly from planes and artillery devices. All were designed to harmlessly self-destruct or deactivate after no more than a few months, but land-mine opponents and ordnance experts say such designs aren't perfect. Kuwait paid contractors to clean up land mines and other unexploded bombs from its battlefields, and 84 workers were killed in the process, including two Americans, the U.S. General Accounting Office says. It's unclear whether cleanup efforts were undertaken in Iraq. "My guess is there probably are [some
American mines left], but that's almost insignificant in comparison
to the huge number that Iraq has deployed," says Kenneth Bacon,
a Clinton administration Pentagon official who lobbies against land
mines as president of Refugees International. During the Persian Gulf War, the Iraqis put mines throughout Kuwait and in Iraq along the border, expecting U.S. troops to come from the south. The mines killed 12 U.S. troops and injured 69 -- 6% of all American casualties in the war. But they avoided bigger mine losses by using the now-famous "left hook" approach, surprising Iraqi forces by coming through the desert from the west. American troops likely won't have the luxury of a left hook this time, since they are mostly massed to the south in Kuwait, and everybody — including Mr. Hussein — knows that. So they'll rely on mine-clearing equipment, military intelligence and explosive devices known as "miclics," Army parlance for Mine Clearing Line Charges. Some soldiers get giddy when discussing the miclic. It's a trailer-mounted 5-inch rocket attached to a 350-foot hose-like line containing about 1,750 pounds of C4 explosives. When launched at the edge of a minefield, the device whistles as it snakes through the air for up to 100 yards and lands innocuously on the ground. Then the line is detonated by remote control from a nearby tank, exploding most mines in an area 9 yards wide by up to 100 yards long. "It's awesome," says First Sgt. Secules, whose unit has dozens of miclics at its disposal. That clears a path for tanks equipped with plows that push aside remaining mines, some possibly blowing up harmlessly in the plowed earth. Then the area is deemed safe for other vehicles and foot soldiers... For full article, see www.banminesusa.org/news/944_earlyrisks.htm In Memorial: Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll The USCBL is sad to report that Retired Rear Admiral of the Navy Eugene Carroll died on February 19 of this year. In addition to his many other contributions to the arms control movement, Admiral Carroll was a vocal advocate for the Mine Ban Treaty. In fact, the day before he died, the Christian Science Monitor published an Op Ed written by Admiral Carroll and Rachel Stohl of the Center for Defense Information urging President Bush to prohibit the US military from using antipersonnel landmines in Iraq. Admiral Carroll was also one of the eight
retired admirals and generals who signed and sent a letter to President
Bush in May of 2001 urging him to join the the Mine Ban Treaty for
military as well as humanitarian reasons. For this letter, see www.banminesusa.org/urg_act/990_generalsltr.html.
For the Christian Science Monitor Op Ed, see www.banminesusa.org/news/965_news.htm
For more information about the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines or to donate on-line, please visit www.banminesusa.org |
| FREE EMAIL CAMPAIGN UPDATES |
|
| Please enter your email address and click "Go" | |
|
| SEARCH OUR SITE |
| For more information on the Mine
Ban Treaty and countries that have ratified it, contact the International
Campaign to Ban Landmines www.icbl.org
US Campaign to Ban Landmines |