Africa: Landmines Campaigns Letter

Note: This document is from the archive of the Africa Policy E-Journal, published by the Africa Policy Information Center (APIC) from 1995 to 2001 and by Africa Action from 2001 to 2003. APIC was merged into Africa Action in 2001. Please note that many outdated links in this archived document may not work.

Africa: Landmines Campaigns Letter
Date distributed (ymd): 980323
Document reposted by APIC

Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +economy/development+ +security/peace+ +US policy focus+
Summary Contents:
This posting contains a letter from the African Campaigns to Ban Landmines to President Clinton, on the occasion of his visit to six African countries, calling for the U.S. to sign the treaty to ban landmines and take other actions. The campaigns ask for additional endorsements for their demands, particularly from African non-governmental organizations. Endorsements should be sent to the South African Campaign to Ban Landmines ([email protected]). For additional information on landmines and Africa see: http://www.africapolicy.org/action/lmine.htm

Re: President Clinton's visit to Senegal, Rwanda, Ghana, Botswana, Uganda, and South Africa. During the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) meeting in Frankfurt (February 1998), the African Campaigns met and discussed forthcoming actions for President Clinton's visit to Africa.

" It is ironic that President Clinton will come to Africa to discuss economic recovery support when one of the most critical factors impeding economic recovery in Africa are the millions of acres of land that cannot be developed as a result of landmines."

Africa is a continent that is solidly behind the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on their Destruction. In fact thirty-eight African nations have signed the Treaty - including all those in the Southern African Development Community. Thus far the Clinton Administration has refused to sign.

All six countries Clinton will visit have played significant roles in the international collaborative efforts to create a mine-free world. In May 1997, member states of The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) met in Johannesburg for the First International Conference for African Experts on Landmines. Representatives from governments and non-governmental organisations agreed to adopt as a common goal the elimination of all anti-personnel landmines in Africa and the establishment of Africa as an anti-personnel landmine free zone.

The following pages consists of the statement prepared by the African Campaigns to Ban Landmines, which is being released today for endorsements and for galvanizing the support of international civil society to the problems of AP mines on our continent.

For the next 10 days while Clinton travels through Africa we will be collecting endorsements protesting against US policy. The African Campaigns will be calling on the Clinton Administration amongst other steps, to take the following immediate actions:

Please support the African campaigns in their efforts to pressurise the Clinton Administration to sign and ratify the Landmine Ban treaty and provide mine action and victim assistance. Endorse this statement which will be sent to all the US embassies in Africa and support African efforts to become a mine free zone.

Richard Sherman
South African Campaigns to Ban Landmines
Tel: + 27 11 403 7666 Fax: + 27 11 403 7563
Email: [email protected]

A call to the United States Government from the African Campaigns to Ban Landmines:
"Mr. Clinton! You are entering a mine free zone!"

" Our country has a bitter experience with mines and their impact. In every corner of our land these treacherous explosive devices have left their countless evil trails and marks on the families and lives of our citizens. The nearly thirty years of destablising war waged against the Mozambican people brought along the ghosts of death, maiming and scars, which were inflicted on all this nation's inhabitants regardless of age, sex, skin colour or social function."

-- President Chissano of Mozambique,
Speaking at the Fourth International NGO Conference on Landmines
"Towards a landmine-free Southern Africa"
Maputo 1997.

The presence of anti-personnel landmines (AP mines) in our continent has created and continues to create a humanitarian crisis of massive proportions. Anti-personnel landmines pose a major obstacle for sustainable community development and agricultural activity. Problems of reconstruction and development, foreign debt and poverty are exacerbated by the presence of these deadly weapons in our soil.

In Africa, the legacy of war and in particular anti-personnel landmines continue to burden the most vulnerable sectors of our societies, amongst them women and children. African people continue to experience first hand the effects and tragedy wrought on civilian populations by the indiscriminate use of anti-personnel landmines.

The international community now accepts that mines are no longer a security issue, but a humanitarian crisis of global proportions and have thus united to negotiate a treaty banning these weapons. Besides for countries such as the U.S.A, China, Russia, Pakistan and India, the world has largely been unanimous in its condemnation and revulsion of war and anti-personnel landmines, which have targeted civilian populations.

As part of President Clinton's official agenda when he travels to several Africa states this month are discussions around the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act and an African Peacekeeping Force. It is ironic that President Clinton will come to Africa to discuss economic recovery support when one of the most critical factors impeding economic recovery in Africa are the millions of acres of land that cannot be developed as a result of landmines. President Clinton, whose visit to Africa is the first by an American President in 20 years, will visit six countries who have positively responded to the humanitarian crisis of landmines. All have played significant roles in the international collaborative efforts to create a mine-free world. In May 1997, member states of The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) met in Johannesburg for the First International Conference for African Experts on Landmines.

Representatives from governments and non-governmental organisations agreed to adopt as a common goal the elimination of all anti-personnel landmines in Africa and the establishment of Africa as an anti-personnel landmine free zone.

Senegal, Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, Botswana and South Africa signed the Brussels declaration, participated in the Oslo treaty negotiations and were in Ottawa in December to sign the Landmines Convention.

Furthermore, Ghana's military forces do not use or have any stockpiles of anti-personnel landmines. Uganda, a former producer of two types on anti-personnel landmines has successfully converted its production infrastructure into a dry cell battery production line. South Africa, a former producer has destroyed over 300 000 of its anti-personnel landmine stockpiles in under six months and prior to its signing of the Convention.

How many more African women, children and men will have their lives destroyed by landmines? How many more hospital beds filled? Prostheses made? How much more agricultural land rendered unusable? How many more roads destroyed? How many more veterans, development, humanitarian, women's, medical, children and religious groups will need to write to you? How many more petitions must be signed and delivered to you before you sign and ratify the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction ?

The United States has manufactured anti-personnel landmines which have left Africa the most severely affected continent in the world. U.S. mines can be found in farmers' fields from the Horn to Southern Africa and as far across the continent as the Bedouin routes of Western Sahara. U.S. manufactured anti-personnel landmines have been found in Ethiopia, Somalia, Morocco, Tunisia, Angola, Malawi, Western Sahara and Zambia. For years, the U.S. supplied mines covertly to rebel groups in Angola and Mozambique, two of the most mined countries in Africa. The U.S. provided mines to UNITA rebels in Angola until 1991. In addition many areas are strewn with unexploded U.S.-manufactured air-delivered anti-personnel and anti-tank sub-munitions.

President Clinton was the first world leader to call for the elimination of anti-personnel landmines in September 1994 at the United Nations. Since then American policy has not mirrored his call. Current U.S. policy dictates that by the year 2003, anti-personnel landmines will not be used outside Korea and by 2006 anti-personnel landmines will no longer be used on the Korean peninsula. This policy, however does exempt the use of mixed-mined systems - containing both anti-personnel landmines and anti-tank mines.

This policy ensures that the U.S. will stay on the outside of the global effort to ban this weapon, which threatens the security of many communities throughout the entire African continent. The U.S. will continue to pursue negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament, where they will fall into a slow incremental process that fails to address a comprehensive solution to the problem. There is an international norm already out there regarding the landmine crisis and it is the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on their Destruction.

Most recently, there have been attempts by the U.S. to bypass the treaty by increasing its efforts to dissuade NATO countries, which have signed the treaty to ratify it. The Clinton administration is pursuing this so that can retain its own stockpiles on their soil. These actions highlight the continued breach between U.S. rhetoric and policy. Of the U.S.$94.5 million projected for U.S. mine-related initiatives worldwide for the fiscal year 1998 less than 13% will be expended on mine action programmes which are integrated into a development response. Less than 1% is allocated for mine victim assistance. In contrast over 65% will be expended through Department of Defence programmes - the present U.S. policy is that funds will only be allocated to United Nations demining programmes when a direct U.S. Military Training Mission 'is not appropriate'.

U.S.$21 million, over one-third of the Department of Defence budget, will be expended on research conducted by military-linked institutions which, to date, have concentrated on technologies with little potential utility for widescale demining in developing countries. U.S.$16 million of the Department of Defence funding, more than the total budget allocated for development-based demining, is earmarked for 'other support' . The Department of Defence's demining programmes are based on dispatching Special Forces training teams to equip and conduct initial training of military personnel in the host country. For instance, in Eritrea since 1994 only 120 deminers have been trained (30 of these only in recent months) at a cost of over U.S.$6 million. No detailed clearance information is available and no widescale community awareness initiative has been undertaken to minimise the impact of landmines in Eritrea. There is no victim assistance component within the U.S. programme although funding has been allocated to facilitate the transportation of 60 trucks for demining support - one truck per two deminers. The scale of the programme is totally inadequate for a national demining programme and few people in the country are aware of its existence.

With these facts in mind it is hardly appropriate for President Clinton and Madeleine Albright to boast of the U.S. doing more about the landmines problem than other countries - they have a moral responsibility to remedy the humanitarian disaster to which U.S. mines and U.S. military assistance programmes have been a major contributor.

In 1994, the U.S. president made a personal commitment to the banning of landmines when he declared the goal of "ridding the world of those often hidden weapons to save the lives of tens of thousands of men and women and innocent children in the years to come". Today, the African Campaigns to Ban Landmines challenge President Clinton to put his words into action by recognising that the Ban Treaty, signed in Ottawa in December, is indeed the best way to achieve what he pledged. Therefore, the African Campaigns to Ban Landmines and the undersigned non-governmental organisations call on President Clinton, to take the opportunity on this visit, the first by an incumbent U.S. president in 20 years, to undertake the following actions immediately:

Finally with regards to the U.S. governments funding and participation in demining and victim assistance, we call for the following immediate actions:

The African Campaigns to Ban Landmines are:
South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya, Malawi, Sudan, Somalia

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