27 February 2004
U.S. Announces New Worldwide Landmine Policy
Assistant Secretary of State Bloomfield briefs February 27
By David Anthony Denny
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- In a sweeping policy change, the United States will accelerate its efforts to end the global humanitarian problem of landmines by eliminating all of its non-self destructing landmines and by increasing funding for mine action programs worldwide, a State Department official says.
Lincoln Bloomfield, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs and the special representative of the president and secretary of state for mine action, told reporters February 27 that the new policy "serves two important goals: a strong push to end the humanitarian risks posed by landmines, and ensuring that our military has the defensive capabilities it needs to protect our own and friendly forces on the battlefield."
The new policy, Bloomfield said, has several components:
-- After 2010 the United States will use neither long-lasting or "persistent" anti-personnel nor persistent anti-vehicle landmines;
-- Within one year the United States will no longer have any undetectable landmines in its inventory;
-- The United States will push to develop alternatives within the decade to its current persistent anti-personnel and anti-vehicle landmines, incorporating enhanced self-destructing, self-deactivating technologies and control mechanisms;
-- The administration is asking Congress to increase the budget for global humanitarian mine actions programs in the 2005 budget to $70 million; and
-- The administration will lead an international effort to conclude a worldwide ban on the sale or export of all persistent mines with minor exceptions for training purposes.
Following a long review, the Bush administration arrived at its position, Bloomfield said, drawing on 16 years of U.S. experience assisting mine-affected countries around the world. He pointed out that the United States is already "the world's largest contributor to humanitarian mine action," he said, having spent nearly $800 million in 46 countries in the past 10 years for landmine clearance, mine risk education and survivor assistance.
Bloomfield pointed out that there have been at least 300,000 innocent victims of landmines, with some 10,000 more added annually. An estimated 60 million landmines remain deployed in 60 countries around the world, he added.
The new policy, Bloomfield said, is focused on persistent landmines -- those that remain active for years or decades until something or someone sets them off -- almost always with tragic results.
"What we have seen, very simply, is that the landmines harming innocent men, women and children, and their livestock, are persistent landmines," he said. "Nor are these lingering hazards caused solely by the anti-personnel category of persistent landmines. We find that persistent anti-vehicle landmines are left behind following conflicts, posing deadly risks to innocent people and requiring remediation by ourselves and the many other parties engaged in humanitarian mine action."
Bloomfield said the deployed persistent mines causing the annual toll of deaths and injuries "are not mines left behind by U.S. forces, the only potential exception being U.S. mines left behind during the Vietnam conflict more than three decades ago. ... The U.S. military already follows the strictures of the Amended Mines Protocol and the Convention on Conventional Weapons, which specifies obligations to mark, monitor and clear persistent minefields after hostilities end."
While the new policy emphasizes doing away with persistent landmines, it conversely emphasizes the use of non-persistent landmines. "These munitions have reliable features that limit the life of the munition to a matter of hours or a few days, by which time it self-destructs," Bloomfield said. "And in the unlikely event the self-destruct features fail, the battery will run out within 90 days, rendering it inert, and these batteries always expire," he said.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Stability Operations Joseph Collins, who briefed with Bloomfield, provided the rationale for retaining and deploying landmines.
"It is the considered judgment of our senior military commanders," Collins said, "that they need the defensive capabilities that landmines can provide. The capabilities enable a commander to shape the battlefield to his or her advantage. They deny the enemy freedom to maneuver his forces. They enhance the effectiveness of other weapons systems, such as small arms, artillery or combat aircraft."
Landmines, Collins continued, "act as force multipliers, allowing us to fight and win with ... fewer forces ... against numerically superior opponents; and they also protect our forces, saving the lives of our men and women in uniform. At present, no other weapon system exists that provides all of these capabilities."
Bloomfield also addressed the issue of the 1997 Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel landmines. Continuing the policy of the previous administration, he said the United States "will not become a party to the Ottawa Treaty."
"The Ottawa Convention offers no protection for innocent civilians in post-conflict areas from the harm caused by persistent anti-vehicle landmines, and it would take away a needed means of protection from our men and women in uniform who may be operating in harm's way," Bloomfield said.
There are two types of landmines: anti-personnel and anti-vehicle. But both anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines can be divided further into persistent and non-persistent. The Ottawa Convention, in banning all anti-personnel landmines, fails completely to address the great problem of anti-vehicle landmines, while unnecessarily prohibiting the use of non-persistent anti-personnel landmines. Bloomfield said the United States will continue to work internationally through the "Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons to ... end the ... indiscriminate use of all landmines."
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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