LANDMINES UPDATE

Good news and Bad news

Good news

The worldwide ban on landmines went into effect on 1st March, 1999.

The ban is often called the "Ottawa Convention" or the "Ottawa Treaty" because it was first signed by 122 countries in Ottawa, Canada in December 1997.

WENT INTO EFFECT: (v) officially started

Countries that sign the treaty promise that:

• they will destroy all their stocks of antipersonnel mines within 4 years;
• they will clear all mines from their land, or land that they control, within 10 years.

135 countries have now signed it:
64 of these countries have officially approved the treaty and more are expected to do so soon.
Some countries, including the USA, Russia, China, India, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan have not signed the treaty.

A complete list of countries that have NOT signed the treaty

ANTIPERSONNEL MINES: (N) landmines that are designed to kill or injure people [but not mines that are designed to destroy tanks, for example, even if they kill the people inside the tanks.]

In the last 4 years:

• The number of countries producing landmines has gone down from 54 to 16;
• Exports of landmines have stopped almost completely;
• More than 12 million landmines have been destroyed (mines that countries were storing, ready for use);
  Even countries that did not sign the treaty have reduced the number of mines that they have.
• 17 countries spent around $640 million between 1993 and 1998 to help clear the world of landmines.

Facts and figures

Bad news: the USA

Clinton's promise:

President Clinton promised that the USA would work hard to try to sign the ban.
He promised that the USA would stop using antipersonnel mines everywhere - except on the Korean Peninsula - by 2003.
And he promised that the USA would stop using antipersonnel mines completely by 2006, if they could find a suitable alternative.

ALTERNATIVE: (n) another choice

Does the USA really want to ban landmines?

But a lot of people are asking if the USA is really serious about wanting to ban landmines.
Why?

Because the Clinton administration recently asked Congress to allow the government to spend almost $50 million for a new type of landmine. This kind of mine would blow up both tanks and people. It is called RADAM.

The Pentagon says that this kind of mine is "more humanitarian" than the range of landmines that the USA has now.

more HUMANITARIAN: (adj) causes less suffering

New landmines are not the answer

Other people do not agree with the Pentagon.

One Democratic senator (Patrick Leahy) who supports the landmine ban says that the Pentagon is just trying to re-package mines that have been banned under the Ottawa Convention. He says that this is "no solution" to the problem of landmines.

Stephen Goose of Human Rights Watch calls it a:

"very odd situation where the Pentagon is saying we are going to get a ban on antipersonnel mines by producing a new antipersonnel mine system."

REPACKAGE: (v) to make something look different by presenting it in a new way