wfn.org | NCCCUSA/CWS PART OF WORK TO BAN LANDMINES

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the 
U.S.A.
Contact: Wendy McDowell, NCC, 212-870-2227
Internet: c/o carol_fouke.parti@ecunet.org

NCC5/16/97  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

"PRESIDENT CLINTON, NOW IS THE TIME TO BAN 
LANDMINES,"
SAY RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL LEADERS AND LANDMINE 
SURVIVORS

 WASHINGTON, D.C., May 16 ---- Old shoes were 
piled high today across the street from the White 
House to illustrate a grim statistic - 26,000 people 
around the world lose life or limb each year to 
anti-personnel landmines.  

The shoes were center stage at the "Ban 
Landmines Now!! Action Day Rally" in Lafayette 
(Peace Park), co-sponsored by Lutheran World Relief, 
the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines and Church World 
Service, the humanitarian assistance ministry of the 
National Council of Churches.

"We are here today to say to the President of 
the United States, 'Enough is enough.  You need to 
sign on to an international ban of landmines now,'" 
said the Rev. Dr. Rodney Page, CWS Executive 
Director, addressing the 250-member audience.

 President Clinton could be getting those and 
other shoes in the mail soon, from Americans asking 
him to make good immediately on his year-old promise 
to support a total ban on the use, manufacture, 
stockpiling and export of antipersonnel landmines.  

 Petitions signed by 110,000 people from across 
the nation were delivered to Washington, D.C., this 
week, asking President Clinton to join the many 
countries preparing to sign the international 
"Ottawa Treaty" banning anti-personnel mines at a 
December 1997 conference in Ottawa, Canada.

 Tun Channereth, a 37-year-old Cambodian whose 
legs were blown off when he stepped on a landmine in 
1982, urged Americans to follow up by sending "one 
or two shoes" to President Clinton along with their 
plea that he sign the Ottawa Treaty.

 Although President Clinton has agreed to 
negotiate a treaty banning anti-personnel mines 
through the United Nations Conference on 
Disarmament, that body has declined to take up the 
issue this year and ban activists say that the U.N. 
process is sure to take too long while people 
continue to be killed and maimed.

 "I heard yesterday that the President has said 
the United States probably won't sign onto the 
Ottawa Treaty," said Mr. Tun, here as part of his 
three-city U.S. tour under Church World Service's 
auspices.  "I trust that those of you here today 
will say to him, 'This is not acceptable!  We insist 
that you sign!  The United States should live up to 
its reputation as a role model for other countries 
and do the right thing in December.'"

Mr. Tun encouraged people to make banning 
landmines their first priority.  He described how 
mines continue to be laid in Cambodia - so many that 
in spite of the concentrated efforts and millions of 
dollars spent on demining, there are as many or more 
landmines in Cambodia as there were when demining 
began.

 More than 100 million landmines litter the 
earth, killing and maiming innocent people every 
day.  Most casualties are civilians, and 60 percent 
are children under age 15.

 "I'm often asked why Americans should care 
about landmines," said Jerry White of the Landmine 
Survivors Network, Washington, D.C.  "One reason is 
Americans actually are affected by landmines.  The 
plague is creeping closer to us."  He pointed out 
that U.S. peacekeepers, relief workers and tourists 
have been killed and maimed by landmines.  

Mr. White himself lost a foot to a landmine 
while on vacation in Israel.  Added Rabbi Amy Klein 
of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, 
Washington, D.C., 90 percent of landmines used 
against U.S. soldiers in Vietnam were either made in 
the United States or manufactured with U.S. 
components, and landmines were responsible for 34 
percent of U.S. casualties during the Gulf War.

Quipped Mr. White, "Now that President Clinton 
has spent some time on crutches, he should be even 
more sensitive to this matter."

 The rally drew participants from the religious 
community, the Afghan community, physicians groups 
and the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, 
among others.  Speakers included three children, 
among them Allan Schaeffer of Brooklyn, N.Y.

 "President Clinton talk about protecting 
American kids from drugs and tobacco," he noted.  "I 
agree with that, but if he really cares about the 
children of the world, he'll make the United States 
a leader in this campaign" against landmines.  Added 
Christina Verigan, a 15-year-old from New Jersey, 
"President Clinton, we are the people.  We say, stop 
the mining now!  We are the children and we are 
dying.  We are Americans, and the world is waiting 
for our leadership."

 On Thursday, May 15, Mr. Tun was among speakers 
at a news conference held by Senator Patrick Leahy 
(D-Vt.) in support of an immediate landmines ban.  
"So far, about 60 countries have signed on or 
pledged support to the Ottawa ban, "but that is not 
enough," Mr. Tun said.

 Representatives from the U.S. Campaign to Ban 
Landmines handed Sen. Leahy the petitions with more 
the than 110,000 signatures, collected since May by 
the Campaign, Church World Service and Lutheran 
World Relief.

"When I first started on this issue, I could 
look around and be lucky to find 12 people 
interested," Senator Leahy said.  "Today, I believe 
there is a ban in sight."  He added, "Trust me, this 
is going to be mentioned on the floor of the Senate 
quite a bit in the next few weeks.  This is truly a 
moral issue, which is why so many churches have 
joined (the fight for a ban)."

Mr. Tun expressed gratitude to the countries 
who have already decided to sign the ban treaty that 
will be completed in Ottawa, Canada in December. He 
said, "At least 30 countries are waiting to see what 
the U.S. does on this issue."

At events in Chicago, New York City and 
Washington, D.C., Mr. Tun has explained the 
suffering that he and others around the world have 
experienced as a result of landmines.

 He told a gathering at the Interchurch Center 
in New York City, "I have never tasted true peace."  
He described a life of war, displacement and loss 
during which he has spent most of his years in 
refugee camps.  After stepping on a landmine in 1982 
and losing both of his legs, Mr. Tun lost hope.  
Realizing he would spend the rest of his life in a 
wheelchair, "I wanted to die," he said.  

But then three and a half years ago, he was 
able to get employment with Jesuit Services in 
Cambodia where he and other disabled people design 
and produce wheelchairs suited to individual needs.  
He joined the effort to ban landmines, helped get 
his own government to agree to a ban, and has spent 
the last three years traveling all over the world, 
including to England, Ireland, Spain, Switzerland 
and Mozambique, to bring the same message to those 
countries.

 "As it is now, my country is going to suffer 
(from landmines) for the next 50 years," Mr. Tun 
told several groups he visited.  "If you don't ban 
landmines now, we will never be able to see an end 
in sight."

 "I am not here for myself," Mr. Tun concluded.  
"The damage has already been done to me.  I am here 
for my children and my neighbors' children.  I 
maintain hope that children in my country will be 
able to experience lasting hope, more than I have 
been able to experience, but (this will happen) only 
if there is a ban on landmines."
 
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