landmines

MEDIA ADVISORY

Contact:

Kathy Doherty, home: 404/355-0207
Andy Pugh, home: 404/875-7467
Clarice Taylor: 770/986-9274

ATLANTA, January 19, 1997 -- Reacting to President Clinton's decision to seek a partial ban on land mines at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, CARE declared the decision a missed opportunity.

Clinton's policy released on Friday, steers a slower course toward a ban on the anti personnel weapons than that favored by many humanitarian organizations and other groups. CARE is the world's largest private relief and development agency, operating in 63 countries in the developing parts of the world.

This is a missed opportunity, said Clarice Taylor, a spokesperson for CARE. This was an unusual opportunity for the U.S. to show leadership in ridding the world of this menace. We don't favor a moderate approach to a very immoderate weapon that kills people every day.

Clinton's policy was characterized by the Los Angeles Times as a middle course between the conflicting views of the Pentagon and the State Department. The Pentagon uses land mines as part of its military strategy for defending South Korea, among other areas. The State Department, soon to be headed by Madeleine Albright, former Ambassador to the United Nations, reportedly wants to reduce deaths and injuries caused by land mines, estimated to kill or maim 25,000 civilians every year. There are an estimated 110 million mines planted across the globe.

CARE and other organizations argue that land mines not only kill or maim innocent civilians -- often months or years after conflicts have ceased -- but that they impede development, prohibiting the use of arable land, inhibiting farmers from using their fields, communities from accessing potable water and individuals free access to land around their communities.

CARE has begun new projects addressing land mines -- most notably in Cambodia and Angola -- to remove land mines and to educate civilians in the developing world about the danger of mines.