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U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines Email
Newsletter In this edition. . .
As USA Today and other media outlets have been reporting, the US military may well be preparing to use antipersonnel landmines in Iraq, with disastrous consequences in store for innocent Iraqi civilians as well as US soldiers. Urge President Bush to not allow the US military to use this indiscriminate weapon in Iraq and to ban the weapon altogether! White House Switchboard Sample Letter White House fax: 202-456-2461 Dear President Bush, I am dismayed to hear that the US military may be planning to use antipersonnel (AP) landmines in Iraq. These weapons would be a danger to US troops as well as to innocent Iraqi civilians. AP mines have not been used by the United States since the Persian Gulf War of 1991 and not since the majority of the world's nations -including all US major allies-- have banned this indiscriminate weapon. Landmines renders land useless for cultivation. The overwhelming majority of landmine victims are innocent people living in extremely poor countries with very limited access to medical care. Please do not allow the military to use AP mines in Iraq and please ban this weapon altogether. Sincerely, Name/Address See www.banminesusa.org for more information. Let Us Know If You’re From Michigan We are looking for more people in Michigan who are willing to ask others in your community to sign postcards to Senator Carl Levin. Sen. Levin (D-MI) is a leader on the Senate Armed Services Committee. We are urging him to send President Bush a letter about the need for the US to ban antipersonnel landmines. Can you get 20 postcards signed? 50? 100 or more? It would be a great help! Contact Gina at the USCBL at landmines@fcnl.org or at 617-695-0041. Please let us know your name, mailing address, phone number, and email address as well as how many postcards you’d like. Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine who sits on the US Senate Armed Services Committee, has sent President Bush a letter urging him to ban antipersonnel landmines. Bravo to Senator Collins for being the first Republican Senator since September 11, 2001 to put in writing (publicly) her concerns about this indiscriminate weapon! Thank you very much also to the people in Maine who engaged in grassroots and media outreach on this issue. To see the letter, visit http://www.banminesusa.org/news/951_senatorcollins.htm Advocates Discuss Creation of Treaty to Protect Disability Rights The Landmine Survivors Network, in collaboration with disability, human rights, relief and development, religious, and other groups, is mobilizing support for a global campaign to secure a UN Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disability. On December 3 at the World Bank, Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan called for the need to create such a treaty. People with disabilities constitute 10% of the world population. Many are impoverished and live without fundamental dignity and rights. "Lessons learned in our Landmine Ban Treaty Campaign will inform the UN Convention development process," said LSN co-founder Jerry White." More than 300,000 landmine survivors and millions of other people with disability cannot find work, are denied an education, are forbidden to inherit or own land, are ostracized, and are held without consent in hospitals and sanatoriums because it is believed that disability pollutes society." The World Bank, with the leadership of the global development community, has declared that the time is now to address the poverty and marginalization of disabled people. The World Bank has reported that, "The combination of poverty and disability is a fearsome one. Either one may cause the other, and their presence in combination has a tremendous capacity to destroy the lives of people with impairments and impose on their family's burdens that are too crushing to bear." In honor of the Dec. 3 conference the International Day for the Disabled, the Center for International Rehabilitation/Physicians Against Landmines co-sponsored a Dance Celebration on Dec. 2 at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. Mikhail Baryshnikov, Nadia Adame, and Jaques Poulin-Denis of AXIS Dance Company performed. An award was presented to Senator Thomas Harkin (D-IA) in recognition of his work on behalf of people with disabilities.
See http://www.landminesurvivors.org/stories/article.php?id=169 for more information. Anti-Mine T-Shirts and Books Available from Paul McCartney and Heather Mills McCartney Original t-shirts designed by Paul McCartney (who has worn them recently while performing) and Heather Mills McCartney are now available. The front proclaims "NO MORE LANDMINES;" the back sports the Adopt-A-Minefield logo (this group serves on the US Campaign to Ban Landmines Steering Committee). $25.00 each. See http://www.landmines.org/Kiosk/kiosk.asp?id=sp to order.
In her autobiographic book "A Single Step" Heather Mills McCartney speaks about her commitment to medical relief work, describing her travels and the moving encounters she has had with others, like herself, who have lost limbs. She also tells of her first convoy of artificial limbs to amputees in Croatia, which she organized in 1994. In 2000, Heather Mills McCartney and Paul McCartney joined in the efforts of Adopt-A-Minefield to address the global landmine crisis, establishing a new Partner Campaign in the United Kingdom––Adopt-A-Minefield (UK) ®. As the goodwill ambassadors for the Adopt-A-Minefield Campaign, Heather and Paul speak out about the deadly threat posed by landmines and the need for survivor assistance and demining in mine-affected regions. See http://www.landmines.org/PressRoom/index-pr.asp?id=art&idtemp=708 for more information. 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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