CARE USA Takes a Stand at the Ottawa Land Mine Conference
From December 2 to 4, 1997, government delegations from more than 160 countries met in Ottawa, Canada for the signing of the "Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction." Also present were representatives of over 300 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that have been active in working toward a global ban on anti-personnel mines. By the end of the Conference, 122 nations had signed the Treaty and confirmed a commitment to its ratification within one year. The remaining thirty-eight national delegations, including the United States, Russia, Israel and Cuba, were present as observers but declined to sign the Treaty.
The following statement was made by Clarice Taylor, CARE USA's Communications Officer & Policy Advisor, at a press conference held on December 3, 1997, at the Ottawa Land Mine Conference. The press conference was organized by the U.S. Campaign to Ban Land Mines, of which CARE USA is a member, to express dissatisfaction with the Clinton Administration's decision not to sign the Ban Treaty. The presenting panel consisted of Senator Patrick Leahy, a long-time leader in the movement to ban land mines, Congressmen Jack Quinn and Lane Evans, Bobby Muller of the Vietnam Veteran's of America Foundation -- and founder of the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines -- and Ms. Taylor.
The text of Clarice Taylor's statement follows:
December 3, 1997
I appreciate the opportunity to speak on behalf of CARE USA and our sister NGOs on the occasion of the signing of the Ban Treaty. We are proud of the role operational NGOs have had in helping to bring it about.
Unfortunately, our joy is tempered with deep disappointment that the U.S. Government will be absent at the treaty signing table, an absence that stands to further erode its moral leadership in the international community.
We are distressed at the U.S. Government's continued approach to the land mine issue as a purely political and military problem. For CARE, the crisis is essentially a human one, with complex and far reaching social and economic consequences.
CARE works in 39 of the 64 countries riddled with land mines, including such heavily mined nations as Angola, Afghanistan, Cambodia and Bosnia. In these countries CARE works to support the efforts of people whose daily reality includes the risk of death or dismemberment from antipersonnel land mines. For them, the presence of these indiscriminate killers is not a matter of policy. With mines buried in or around their homesteads, in agricultural land, near water sources, playing fields, clinics and schools, resettling refugees and other war affected populations are hampered in their efforts to rebuild their own lives and resume productive activities critical to the rehabilitation of their war-shattered communities and counties.
With 100 million mines still buried in the earth, a mammoth task lies before us. It is in this context that we welcome the announced U.S. Government initiative for increased funds for demining. It is hoped that this funding will make it possible for NGOs to expand community-based Mine Action programs that include mine awareness, marking and mapping of mined areas, training of deminers, and demining.
I was recently in Angola visiting CARE's Mine Action program in Menongue when I had an experience that brought home to me the horror that thousands throughout the world live with each day. While visiting a community of resettled refugees, the local elders wanted to show me a place on the way to the river where they'd recently discovered new mines. I accompanied them on foot, staying on the well-worn path which is a critical behaviour in mined areas. I noted that the path was becoming less well-worn as we went along, so I placed my feet only in the footsteps of the person in front of me. Just ahead, the men had stopped and were pointing at the ground. Not more that two feet from my feet was a landmine, its black disk-like shape exposed by the rains. Other mines were also visible, but I wondered about the ones I couldn't see. We slowly made our way out of the area, walking in each others foot steps until the path was clear again. The relief I felt is impossible to express. At the same time,I couldn't help thinking of the women and girls who take that path each day to get water for their families. I had the luxury of going no farther, of leaving the danger behind. But when they come to that same point each day, the needs of their families compel them to take the risk and keep on going. The have no choice. I wish the President could have shared that chilling experience with me.
The Ban Treaty being signed today and tomorrow is a critical step forward in the establishment of a new international standard of decency. We want our government to be among the inner circle of nations who have been swift to set and affirm that standard. The landmine issue is not a narrow military technical argument. It is a broader social and moral question - and it is to this level that we hope the President will rise.
I'll close with a message: Ottawa isn't more than an hour and a half from Washington. The Treaty signing will go on for another 36 hours. Mr. President, there is still time.
