29 November 2004
State's Bloomfield Outlines U.S. Position on Landmines
Op-ed by the U.S. assistant secretary of state for military-political affairs
(This column by Lincoln Bloomfield, special representative of the president and secretary of state for mine action and assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, is in the public domain. There are no republication restrictions.)
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Eliminating the Threat of All Landmines
By Lincoln Bloomfield
As nations are gathering in Nairobi for the First Review Conference for the "Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Landmines and Their Destruction" -- commonly known as the Ottawa Convention, this is a time to look back, and forward, at the challenge of eliminating the hazards posed by landmines that remain dangerous for months or years after the end of conflict.
Untold millions of persistent anti-personnel and anti-vehicle landmines lie in wait in some 60 countries around the world, keeping farmers from their fields, villagers from their homes, and children from their schools and play grounds. The United States is seized with the severity of this humanitarian issue, and shares common cause with all who seek to protect innocent civilians from indiscriminately used landmines.
With expenditures approaching one billion dollars, the United States is the largest donor to humanitarian mine action, and has been active in this important endeavor since 1988. During this time much progress has been made in reducing the threat of landmines, and we know that coordinated, targeted mine action can sharply reduce the incidence of casualties. Details on U.S. mine action efforts are available to the public at http://www.state.gov/t/pm/wra
On the occasion of this first review conference of the Ottawa Convention, the United States would like to salute all nations that have taken steps to rid the world of the threat of landmines. The United States, having decided not to sign the Ottawa Convention for valid security reasons, will not attend the conference. We nevertheless welcome the commitment among the countries gathered in Nairobi, and appreciate the Government of Kenya's gracious hosting of this event.
For all the progress that will be noted at the conference, the Ottawa Convention does not represent a complete solution. If, as we believe, our shared goal is to solve the totality of the landmine problem, we will need approaches and actions that move beyond the Ottawa Convention by addressing all persistent landmines, regardless of their size. While countries at Nairobi continue to pursue an initiative aimed at anti-personnel landmines, we call on all nations, whether treaty adherents or not, to take specific, concrete steps to reduce the harm from all mines left in the ground after conflict, including anti-vehicle landmines.
To that end, the U.S. announced a new landmine policy in February that focused on the feature that makes most mines so dangerous to civilians -- their persistent nature. The President has committed that after 2010, the U.S. will not have landmines of any kind that do not self-destruct or self-deactivate after a predetermined period -- usually within hours but in no case longer than 90 days after deployment. The U.S. policy thus covers an entire class of deadly landmines -- anti-vehicle mines -- not covered by the Ottawa Convention. We have proposed that other countries join the U.S. at the Conference on Disarmament in banning the sale or export of all persistent mines.
Additionally, states can act now to join efforts taking place in the context of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons to address the most dangerous aspects of anti-vehicle mines.
It is now the policy of the United States to eliminate from our inventory all non-detectable mines. These mines pose an extraordinary risk to deminers since they cannot be located using standard metal detectors. There is no such provision in the Ottawa Convention. We encourage all countries to join us in addressing the issue of landmine detectability and to make firm commitments to remove such mines from their inventories.
Finally, and most importantly, we have pledged to increase our funding for the U.S. Department of State's portion of the U.S. Humanitarian Mine Action program by 50 percent. Congress has now voted to support the President's request. The current total of the fiscal year 2005 U.S. Humanitarian Mine Action budget is approximately $100 million. We strongly encourage other countries to make increases of similar magnitude to their humanitarian mine action budgets.
The U.S. welcomes the spirit and commitment of those who have gathered in Nairobi. We share an important common cause with the parties to the Ottawa Convention -- addressing the humanitarian crisis caused by dangerous landmines left in the ground, and helping the victims and their societies recover from conflict. We are convinced that much more could be done to protect civilians around the world not only from persistent anti-personnel mines, but also from persistent anti-vehicle mines and non-detectable mines. The United States looks forward to building on its own and others' past contributions to mine action, and working with all nations to reach our common goal of a world where mines no longer pose a threat to civilians.
(Mr. Bloomfield is special representative of the president and secretary of state for mine action and assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs.)
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(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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