Banning land mines: what the U.S. can do

Christian Century, Jan 29, 1997 by James M. Wall

A DOCUMENTARY film on land mines first aired on British television includes a scene in which a Khmer Rouge leader in Cambodia shows his troops how to take apart a land mine. According to a story in the Burlington (Vermont) Free Press, the film captures in living color a computer chip in the land mine that has an "M" for Motorola stamped on it. Motorola, an international corporation based in Schaumburg, Illinois, produces computer chips for such commercial products as washing machines and hair dryers. The film demonstrated that the chips can also be used in land mines.

When Human Rights Watch first asked Motorola for an explanation, it received none. After the film received a far wider viewing on U.S. public television, Motorola began an internal review which revealed, says company spokesman Larry Barton, that Motorola was unwittingly involved in the production of land mines through secondary distribution. "Those sales were legal, [but] I don't think they were right," Barton said.

With the help of a surprising ally, Human Rights Watch, the organization that brought the issue to Motorola's attention, Motorola produced a 50-page handbook to instruct employees on how to keep their products from ending up in the wrong hands through secondary markets.

Steve Goose, who directs Human Rights Watch's Arms Project, cites the actions of Motorola as "a potent example" of a what can be done to stigmatize a weapon which continues to kill or maim 28,000 people a year, or one person every 20 minutes. His organization has contacted 48 companies that produce the mines or their components; thus far 14 have agreed to halt production. Human Rights Watch plans to release the names of companies still involved in land-mine production. It will also endorse efforts of companies like Motorola that have either stopped production of land-mine components or aggressively worked to block the use of its components in these weapons.

The Senate's leading activist against land mines is Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.). Leahy started what he describes as his "crusade" in 1989 after he saw what land mines were doing to children in Central America and Africa. Commenting on Motorola's quick response to the revelation that its chips were being used in land mines, the senator says: "It is only a matter of time before other manufacturers follow Motorola's example." Motorola is "acting in a way that will help convey the message that antipersonnel land mines do not belong in the arsenals of civilized nations."

Leahy has proposed legislation to ban the use and export of land mines, and he has criticized President Clinton for his reluctance to put the U.S. on a "fast track" toward enacting a worldwide ban. In a recent letter to the president, Leahy criticized current U.S. policy, which is to work on the issue through the United Nations, where countries like China and Russia are likely to block progress for many years. To get around the delaying tactics at the UN, Canada is planning a conference in December 1997 at which nations can sign an international treaty"banning the production, transfer, stockpiling and use of antipersonnel land mines."

An editorial in the Washington Post suggests that the Clinton administration is divided on which track to follow, with many military leaders preferring to go slow on the matter. And the Ottawa Globe and Mail reports: "The Pentagon initially wanted to declare that the United States would renounce the use of antipersonnel land mines by 2010, by which time lethal alternatives would be available. In their original use, land mines would have been deployed to protect a country's troops from attack and channel the movements of enemy soldiers."

According to the Post, however, Clinton has, "in his new secretaries of state and defense, people who have shown an understanding of the awful, unending toll these weapons take on civilians when the soldiers go home."

In response to the military's contention that it needs the mines in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, land-mine opponents argue that the Korean case sets a bad precedent and could lead to further use on borders between, for example, India and Pakistan, Ecuador and Peru, and Israel and Syria. To counter the military arguments, Leahy cites military commanders such as General Norman Schwarzkopf who maintain that American forces can be protected by weapons other then land mines.

Currently, more than 100 million land mines remain--some in fields slowly returning to agricultural use--in such countries as Angola, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Honduras, Cambodia, Afghanistan and Mozambique. The estimate of the cost of removing the mines: $33 million.

An international program to remove these mines should be a U.S. priority, as should the endorsement of the fast-track option to ban all land mines. Work toward the December Ottawa conference begins next month in Vienna. The U.S. should be involved. Delay is no longer an option.