CARE congratulates the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines on winning the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize
CARE is an active and vocal member of the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines. CARE works in 39 of the 64 countries riddled with anti-personnel land mines. In the last few years, land mines have killed three CARE staff in Afghanistan.
CARE knows first-hand how land mines kill and maim civilians, how they render whole regions useless for habitation and agriculture, how their presence paralyses development and threatens the economic survival of already poor families and societies.
In June of 1995, CARE joined the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Today, this campaign includes more than 1,000 non-governmental organizations in approximately 60 countries.
Land mines are a humanitarian catastrophe and awarding the Nobel Prize to the ICBL can only help to focus the world's attention on the problem. There are still 26,000 people who are killed or maimed by land mines every year.
Last month, 89 nations declared their support for a new treaty to ban land mines by the year 2000. The International Campaign played a pivotal role in helping to persuade governments all around the world to support it.
CARE hopes this award helps persuade the President and certain members of Congress that the United States should join the almost 100 countries who will go to Ottawa in December to sign a treaty banning land mines. Right now there are 60 Senators who support a ban on land mines, including all six Vietnam veterans. There are 185 supporters in the House. We need more.
