Last week the text of the treaty was finalised at a conference in Oslo. It bans the manufacture, export and use of landmines by signing countries.
Australia should now move as quickly as possible to sign and ratify the Ottawa treaty on the total abolition of landmines. It should then move as quickly as possible to destroy the thousands of landmines Australia has in stockpile for training purposes.
The United States will not sign. It wanted an exemption for its activity on the Korean peninsula. President Clinton argued that landmines were necessary for the protection of US troops stationed there. The US is in company with Russia and China who are major manufacturers of the mines.
The US is in a slightly better moral position than the sellers of landmines. At least it is confronting a present danger. None the less the need for landmines on the Korean peninsula must be questioned in the face of the huge amount of other weaponry available.
Originally, the US wanted to be able to withdraw from the treaty in case of war. This was an absurd position. The very reason for the treaty was to stop the use of landmines in war. The US recanted from that position, but maintained its insistence on being able to keep mines in Korea. Once again the logic and morality are weak. Presumably the US is striving for permanent peace, democracy and perhaps reunification in Korea. It must be hoping that the present “”demilitarised zone” between the north and south will be occupied by ordinary citizens leading ordinary lives. If it achieves that aim, its efforts will be poisoned by a legacy of landmines that will continue to kill and maim long after the fighting is over.
The landmine has been a major weapon in wars in poor parts of the world. They are very cheap to make and lay. It takes about $4 to make a mine. But they are expensive to remove, as much as $40 times their cost to lay. Several countries now have a hideous legacy after the fighting has ceased or died down, especially Afghanistan and Cambodia.
About 2000 people are killed or wounded by mines every month throughout the world. In Cambodia one person in every 384 is an amputee (compared to one in 22,000 in Australia). The costs associated with this loss are incalculable in terms of human suffering. In economic terms it costs about $4000 to fit an artificial leg and for rehabilitation, and then there is the on-going cost of lost production by those who injuries prevent them earning a living.
Large tracts of valuable agricultural land are unusable, adding to poverty and misery. Large numbers of people are killed or maimed. Insidiously, the very poverty inflicted on families through injuries caused by mines causes them to take further risks in attempting to cultivate mined land.
As a weapon of war, they are not especially effective. They block the way of some troops temporarily. It is only because they are so cheap that they are attractive to warring sides. Tragically these sides are often participants in civil wars who must ultimately share in peace the lands they have mined.
That is why the making and selling of mines by countries not involved in the fighting is so immoral.
Of course, war as a means of resolving disputes unacceptable. It would be nice to eliminate it total. But failing that, every step to reduce its after effects and the suffering of the innocent should be taken. Australia must now take that step.