America faces moral duty on de-mining - removing landmines - Column

It is always thrilling to see a worldwide result in moral progress, as happened when nations from around the world gathered in Ottawa earlier this month to sign a treaty banning the manufacture, sale and use of land mines. The remarkable grassroots campaign that produced this achievement stands as a model for what people of good will can achieve.

It is important to remember, however, that the Ottawa treaty is not an end in itself. It does not really address the acute and desperate problem of removing the estimated 100 million land mines that remain in 72 nations. If the present rate of de-mining activity does not increase it will take over 1,000 years to rid the earth of these destructive devices.

The international community has overwhelmingly come to the conclusion that land mines are so hideous and indiscriminate in their effects that another, more humanitarian way of achieving their military objectives must be utilized. Even the United States, despite its insistence on using land mines to separate the two Koreas, has committed itself to renouncing the manufacture and export of land mines.

But the more than 100 nations that have pledged to abandon the use of land mines have not yet resolved to take all necessary measures to remove the existing mines that kill or maim someone every 22 minutes, resulting in death or injury to nearly 24,000 persons a year.

Even if the countries of the world never use any of the 100 million land, mines in military inventories, the silent killers already in place will continue to destroy the lives of farmers, children and animals. In addition, land mines prevent the development of agriculture in dozens of impoverished nations.

Every estimate of the full cost of removing the 100 million land mines is astronomical. It can cost up to $1,000 to remove a single antipersonnel device whose planting cost very little.

The great moral imperative is to develop a global plan by which virtually all of the land mines would be neutralized or removed. There are other cosmic menaces including global warming, the depletion of the ozone layer and the destruction of arable soil. But the widespread presence of inherently dangerous land mines should surely have a serious claim on the conscience of the world.

For Americans, this moral car should be especially urgent as it relates to the removal of antipersonnel mines planted by the United States. American forces made extensive use of land mines in Vietnam. Their use was so pervasive that up to one-third of all U.S. deaths in Vietnam were caused by mines. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was twice wounded by land mines in Vietnam. He is now an ardent advocate of the bill filed by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), which would ban the export or use of all land mines.

Surely the United States has a special duty to assist the government of Vietnam in eliminating all the land mines placed all over that nation by the United States. Similarly, America has a special obligation to assist Nicaragua in the de-mining of the antipersonnel weapons placed all over that country by the U.S.-financed Contras.

The United States also has a comparable moral obligation in El Salvador. America was involved directly in furnishing an estimated 37,000 antipersonnel land mines in El Salvador between 1981 and 1990. The U.S. State Department has affirmed that some 20,000 land mines remain uncleared in El Salvador. They are an impediment to repopulating the farmlands from which the people fled.

Religious groups and especially Catholic organizations have formed an unusually clear and cohesive coalition against land mines. A brochure issued by the U.S. Catholic Conference notes that 100,000 U.S. citizens have been killed or injured by land mines and that the Catholic campaign to ban these weapons has the endorsement of Pope John Paul II. The president of the conference, Bishop Anthony Pilla of Cleveland, notes perceptively that "Rapid progress toward a global ban on antipersonnel mines depends upon strong, unambiguous and convincing U.S. leadership now.'

The recent global moral awakening to the terrors of land mines may one day be regarded as a resurgence of conscience at the end of the most violent century in human history. It's unfortunate that, at present, the United States is obstructing the movement rather than leading it. But a serious commitment -- both financial and political -- to helping nations most traumatized by American mines remove those that remain would be a welcome contribution.

COPYRIGHT 1997 National Catholic Reporter
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group