Contact your U.S. Representative to ask him/her to sign onto the letter to President Bush urging support for a U.S. ban on landmines!

The Department of Defense has just recommended to the President that the U.S.

• abandon all efforts to join the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty by 2006 or ever;
• abandon all efforts to get rid of "dumb" mines by 2003;
• eliminate the search for landmines alternatives program;
• and assert the need for U.S. mine deployment in Korea and elsewhere!

Ask your U.S. representative to sign onto the letter to the president urging him/her to support a ban on landmines

To find you member of the House of Representatives and how to contact him/her by email, fax, or phone, visit www.vote-smart.org/index.phtml or www.house.gov.

Sample Fax to Your House Member

I am dismayed to hear that the United States may be moving away from its commitment to join the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. I am contacting you to respectfully ask you to sign the McGovern/Quinn/ Evans sign-on letter to President Bush urging him to support a U.S. ban on landmines. The White House is expected to finalize its formal landmines policy in December 2001!

Antipersonnel landmines maim and kill upwards of 18,000 people each year, mostly children, farmers, and other innocent civilians. The indiscriminate weapon also renders land useless for cultivation. Most of the world's nations, including almost all of NATO, have joined the Mine Ban Treaty. It is time for the United States to do so as well.

In Afghanistan, there are already 8-10 million landmines on the ground. U.S. deployment of mines in that country, an option military leaders say is possible, would only exacerbate the humanitarian crisis and put U.S. ground troops at risk. Please advocate for our country to give up this dishonorable weapon, in Afghanistan and everywhere else.

Sincerely,

Name, Address

Click here for a PDF version of this flyer to print, copy and distribute widely.
Click here to see the House of Representatives sign-on letter to the President.

Background

President Clinton instructed the U.S. government to move towards 2006 compliance with the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, which bans the use, stockpile, trade, and production of the weapon. It looks like the Bush Administration is poised to abandon that policy altogether. The formal landmines review, which began at the Department of Defense, now moves to the State Department, headed by Secretary Colin Powell. Tell him how you feel at fax 202-261-8577. Also ask your Representative to sign the letter to President Bush circulating in the House of Representatives. More than 140 countries have joined this treaty, which has already made great strides in reducing the global landmine threat. We need improvement, not backtracking on the landmines issue!