SPOTLIGHT ON SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

Preacher Takes on New Mission
By Gary Martin
San Antonio Express-News Washington Bureau

(from left) Phineas Washer, Gina Coplon-Newfield, and U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines' Grassroots Coordinator Eileen Campbell answering questions aftering Dec. 6 House briefing

WASHINGTON--Phineas Washer pushed his tossed salad with a fork as he described a gruesome explosion that ripped through three young girls from Senegal. The land mine killed two instantly, but a third withered in pain as villagers looked on, unable to rescue her.

"They just couldn't get any closer," said Washer, a retired Presbyterian minister from San Antonio.

The Senegal villagers were frustrated that they couldn't help: They were too afraid to walk into the minefield. Washer personalizes that experience. "What if it were my grandchildren?"

There are 110 million land mines scattered through 64 countries, according to UNICEF, the global relief organization established after World War II to relieve the suffering of children in war-torn countries.

Those anti-personnel bombs, many left over from former conflicts, kill an estimated 800 people a month and maim thousands more.

Most of the victims are civilians. Many are children who wander unknowingly into mined areas or pick up unexploded armaments that often looks like an attractive toy.

"Phin" Washer, 68, said he has a new calling after leaving a pastoral career of 42 years.

He flew to Washington from South Texas for a two-day swing to urge members of Congress and the Bush administration to ban the use, production and stockpiling of land mines.

"As people find out what these do to human beings," Washer said, "the public will get aroused about it. There is going to be some change."

Butting shoulders with Gucci-shoed lawyers lobbying lawmakers for special interests, Washer stands out in the corridor of power with his 6- foot-2-inch frame.

Without the leverage of political action committee funds to donate to congressional campaigns, the Texas-born peace activist is using another incentive: chocolate chip cookies.

Washer admits his wife, Sylvia, cooked up the novel approach.

"I said, 'Man, that's the best idea I ever heard. That would make a real stand out,'" Washer said.

It made quite an impression. Congressional offices received a box of two dozen cookies.

"Isn't it nice to hear about people like that?" asked Gina Coplon- Newfield, the coordinator of the Boston-based U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines, which represents 500 organizations nationally.

"We have a lot of people involved in the campaign, but there are few people as involved as Phin Washer," she said. "Though soft-spoken, he has a lot of energy and a lot of commitment."

Washer said he sent the goodies to five congressmen. He got a reply from three of them, including Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, D-San Antonio, and Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio.

Rodriguez signed up with the cause, particularly since U.S. ground troops are deployed in Afghanistan, where there are an estimated 10 million active land mines.

"Our government should be taking steps to end the use of these indiscriminate killing machines," said Rodriguez, a member of the House Armed Services and Veterans' Affairs committees.

The bipartisan push to ban land mines includes Reps. James McGovern, D-Mass., Lane Evans, D-Ill., and Jack Quinn, R-N.Y.

"The response has been better than I expected," said Washer, who briefed lawmakers on the need for U.S. compliance with the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, which the United States, Russia and China did not sign.

The issue cuts across partisan lines, as the number of organized groups, including the Vietnam Veterans of America [Foundation], urge Congress and the Bush administration to curtail production and deployment of the deadly devices.

"It was out of the Vietnam Veterans of America [Foundation] that this thing really got going," Washer said, crediting Bobby Muller, a war hero and the president of the veterans organization.

Jordan's Queen Noor Al-Hussein and Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former United Nations secretary-general, also have been credited with helping the movement.

While the United States continues to produce and use land mines, it has spent $500 million since 1993 on research and demining activities, according the State Department. Funding for those efforts totaled $40 million in fiscal year 2001, which ended Sept. 30.

Humanitarian demining programs under the Defense Department totaled $25 million in the same year.

"Over the past 10 years, the results of our collective efforts have been most impressive," Secretary of State Colin Powell said. "We have seen a decrease in reported casualties from 26,000 to 10,000."

Activists say more can be done. Specifically, they want a ban on the production and use of the weapons.

It takes only $3 to purchase a land mine built by industrial countries but $1,000 to remove it from far-flung fields.

In the removal process, one injury occurs with every 1,000 mines dug up, and a death results with every 5,000 pieces cleared from areas of conflict.

There are always tragic stories, like the girls from Senegal, whose young lives were shattered by an indiscriminate explosion. Pictures of children with missing limbs and prostheses provoke anger.

Washer, who retired from Pipe Creek Presbyterian Church in 1999, said the images and "gruesome stories" convinced him that a ban on land mines should be his calling.

"I felt that this should be a priority," he said.

With his two children grown, Washer has become a tireless advocate on the issue, said Coplon-Newfield, whose U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines calls on the grass-roots efforts of 6,000 individuals.

"He has a sense of who the decision makers are on the issue," she said. "He has no qualms about contacting people."

At this point, Washer has the commitment of only one Texas lawmaker in the effort to ban land mines.

"With many of the other Texans, we've gotten a noncommittal answer," Washer said. "But I certainly feel a lot of people have been educated about the tragedy. So I would like to think there is a building awareness in Texas of the problem."

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