LANDMINES - The Ghostfaced Killah

The historic Ottawa Treaty on the Banning of Landmines has been signed by over 120 countries since signing started on December 3, but the real work to remove a deadly hazard to millions of people has just begun.

After Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy penned his name to the agreement, officials from nations around the world followed suit, amidst camera flashes and wide smiles. However, the groups responsible for organizing the conference admitted that much work still needs to be done. This includes de-mining operations around the world, and ratification of the treaty so that it becomes international law.

De-mining is extremely important, because experts estimate that over 110 million active, operational mines are planted in the soil of over 70 countries, most of which are developing nations with low standards of living. More than 110 million other landmines are in storage, waiting to be deployed. Every 22 minutes, another person is killed or injured by a landmine. Most of the victims are civilians who stepped on mines planted during wars which ended years ago. In Egypt, peasants are still being wounded or slain by the millions of landmines deployed during the battle of El-Alamein, which took place during WWII. For every mine cleared (at a cost of approximately $700 US each), 20 are laid. In 1994, 100 000 mines were removed, but 2 million were planted. If the international community wanted to remove all of the mines in the earth today, at the present speed of mine-removal, it would take more than 1 100 years to finish the job, at a cost of $33 billion (in today’s dollars).

Landmines have grown increasingly popular over the years because they offer several features in a low-cost, easy-to-use package. They stay where they are put, are extremely difficult to detect, and sap enemy morale and efficiency by severely wounding, but often not killing, soldiers. Landmine manufacturers boast that treating a heavily-injured soldier costs more, in terms of time, money, and staff, than burying a dead soldier. Mines also terrorize the civilian population, and are often designed specifically to look like toys, so that children will pick them up and be killed. Besides continuing to kill long after wars have ended, mines make travel, tourism, farming, and resettlement of war-ravaged areas next to impossible by causing large areas of a country to be unsafe to walk on. Mines also slow down emergency relief efforts, adding to the death tolls of famines and refugee movements. Surgical care and orthopaedic devices (false limbs) for landmine victims cost approximately $3000 per casualty. This cost iscompounded by the fact that most of the 250 000 mine amputees of the world live in developing countries, which cannot afford to pay such fees. Antipersonnel Landmines strike without warning and remain hidden for long periods of time, which causes terror and fear in civilian populations trying to get back to their normal lives after wars. It is hard for poor farmers to get back on their feet after a landmine has blown them off.

The Ottawa Treaty is less effective because some nations still refuse to abandon landmines. The United States, Russia, China, Cuba, India, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Israel, Vietnam, both Koreas, and Pakistan declined to put their signatures to the agreement. Landmine opponents hope that continued international pressure and time will coerce the uncooperative countries into signing the treaty. Many other arms agreements have expanded over time, eventually encompassing almost all but a handful of the countries of the world.

One of the most important holdout nations is the US. It says it cannot sign the treaty because it needs mines to defend South Korea against North Korea. The area of American control in South Korea is heavily mined, to discourage the North Korean army from invading the South. Obviously, no-one in the free world wants to see South Korea invaded, because the South is an economic success story and is a democracy. But using Korea as an excuse to refuse to sign the treaty is cowardly. America has good intentions, but since Vietnam, the United States has been unwilling to risk the lives of its soldiers to get its message across. Vietnam’s intensive media coverage exposed the American home front to scenes of American soldiers being killed by “backwards” foreigners. Despite the fact that America won almost all of the battles in Vietnam by huge margins, the American public formed the mistaken opinion that “barbarians” were slaughtering innocent American servicemen by the score, and lost the taste for war. Subsequently, American foreign policy has become one of talking a big game, but not committing the troops when it counted. Instead, America prefers to kill foreigners with technology. This is not only easier on the stomachs of US citizens (who aren’t particularly warlike in the first place), but is also makes for great TV. What is cooler than a bomb with a camera on it, or a televised war? It’s like GI Joe, but people really get killed. How many American soldiers had to die before the US pulled out of the UN mission to restore order in Somalia in the early 1990’s? Three. Three soldiers died, and the US army pulled out, leaving Red Cross and UN aid workers to labour in a place where the US army was scared to go. In the end, the US would much rather kill people in less developed nations with high technology, rather than with US soldiers. That is why the Ottawa Treaty will not stamp out the use of landmines across the world.