| U.S. Campaign to Ban
Landmines Email Newsletter In this edition. . .
Buy some terrific items and have all the proceeds benefit the US Campaign to Ban Landmines. Items include -- a Week Stay in Colorado; See www.banminesusa.org for pictures of items. If you are interested in purchasing any of the items or have questions about them, please email landmines@fcnl.org or call 617-695-0041 (ask for Gina Coplon-Newfield). We are selling these items "first-come, first-serve," so tell us now if you're interested. Note: these are the 7 items (out of 92 donated to us) that did not sell during our October on-line charity auction. We’re not quite sure why they didn’t sell; they’re such wonderful items! Jimmy
Carter Mentions Landmines in Nobel Peace Prize Speech “We deny personal responsibility when we plant landmines and, days or years later, a stranger to us - often a child - is crippled or killed. From a great distance, we launch bombs or missiles with almost total impunity, and never want to know the number or identity of the victims.” Jody Williams and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997. For the full text of former President Jimmy Carter’s
speech, click here (Link: http://www.nobel.no/eng_lect_2002b.html)
Washington Post: Human
Rights Groups Urge Bush to Not Use Mines
Nominations Sought for
Disability Rights Monitory Board The International Disability Rights Monitor (IDRM) is a proposed annual report that will document the progress, problems and barriers experienced by people with disabilities on a country-by-country basis. The goals of the IDRM project are to promote the full inclusion and participation of persons with disabilities in society and to advance the use of international humanitarian law to ensure that the rights of persons with disabilities are respected and enforced. The IDRM mission will be accomplished through extensive grassroots training, data collection, analysis and distribution. Those involved with this initiative will continue efforts already begun to develop a United Nations Convention on the rights of people with disabilities. I would like to request your nominations for the
IDRM advisory board. This board, of between 7-9 members, will be
comprised of volunteer leaders in the international disability and
human rights movements who will be tasked with providing advice
to guide the activities associated with the compilation and publication
of the annual report. The board will review materials, definitions
and activities and provide guidance to the project. Qualifications
for membership on this board include: 1) Participants must be leaders
in the disability or human rights movement; If you know of any outstanding individuals who fit the above profile and might be willing to serve, we would be most grateful if you would nominate them. You may fax or mail your nomination to Anne Henry here at the CIR. The contact for this matter is: Anne Henry Phone 312-926-0014 Full Text of Washington Post Article: December 27, 2002 Bush Urged to Limit Weapons in Iraq: Human Rights Groups Warn of Harm to Civilians From Land Mines, Cluster Bombs By Peter Slevin and Vernon Loeb Humanitarian organizations are petitioning President Bush not to use antipersonnel land mines or deadly cluster bombs in a military campaign against Iraq, arguing that the danger to civilians and allied soldiers during and after a war outweighs the benefits. The use of land mines designed to kill individuals -- in contrast to mines intended to destroy vehicles -- could endanger U.S. personnel and Iraqi citizens, as well as slow the rehabilitation of Iraq, wrote Kenneth H. Bacon, president of Refugees International, in a letter to Bush. "Unexploded landmines are hidden killers that inflict damage long after the fighting stops," wrote Bacon and the organization's chairman, Virginia businessman James V. Kimsey. They said U.S. attempts to eliminate dangerous Iraqi weapons "will be undermined by the use of weapons of indiscriminate destruction." Steve Goose of Human Rights Watch said organizations have been lobbying U.S. allies in the NATO alliance and beyond to urge the Bush administration not to use antipersonnel mines if it attacks Iraq. "The United States is isolated on this," Goose asserted yesterday. The Bush administration's policy on the military's use of land mines is "under review," National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton said yesterday. Pentagon officials offered no comment, but military planners have not publicly foresworn their use. They considered them effective in limiting enemy movements in the 1991 Gulf War. Pentagon officials point out that modern land mines, known as "smart mines," are equipped with timing devices that defuse a mine at varied intervals from a few hours to 15 days. A separate hazard is posed by cluster bombs, which scatter 202 small bomblets designed to explode on impact. When they fail to detonate -- 5 percent are typically duds -- they effectively become antipersonnel mines. Attempts to pressure the United States into avoiding the use of antipersonnel mines in Iraq are part of a wider effort to limit the possible war's destructiveness. Humanitarian groups have been meeting with the Pentagon and the United Nations to plan relief efforts, while the U.S. military has been urging Iraqi officers not to fight back if war erupts. In its letter to Bush, Refugees International noted a General Accounting Office warning that the self-destruction mechanism on land mines failed to work in an unexpectedly large number of cases. The mines "often explode after the battle is over," the letter stated. "In Iraq, this could pose risks to U.S. troops, Iraqi civilians -- including returning refugees -- and humanitarian workers," wrote Bacon, chief Pentagon spokesman during the Clinton administration. "Malfunctioning land mines could also endanger road building and reconstruction crews working to rehabilitate the country after a war." The U.S. military has not used antipersonnel
mines since the Gulf War, when U.S. forces deployed about 118,000
self-destructing land mines in Iraq and Kuwait, according to the
GAO, the investigative arm of Congress. They were typically scattered
across battlefields by aircraft and artillery shells. The Pentagon maintains a stockpile of about
18 million land mines, including 15 million of the newer, self-destructing
mines designed to kill individuals or destroy vehicles. The U.S.
government has not endorsed a 1997 treaty signed by 146 countries
that bans the production, use, stockpiling and transfer of antipersonnel
mines. For more information about the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines or to donate on-line, please visit www.banminesusa.org
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