wfn.org | United Methodists focus on landmine removal

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Oct. 22, 1999   News media contact: Linda Bloom*(212) 870-3803*New York
10-21-71B{557}

STAMFORD, Conn. (UMNS) - With the help of a task force of military and
engineering experts and humanitarian activists, the United Methodist Board
of Global Ministries is becoming directly involved in the removal of
landmines around the world.

In actions taken during the Oct. 18-21 annual meeting, board directors
decided to:

·	Hire a Landmine Action Needs Director (LAND) to guide and implement
the board's initiatives.
·	Target the African country of Mozambique for its first demining
effort, in consultation with experienced specialists currently working
there.
·	Analyze the cost effectiveness of promising state-of-the-art
equipment that could be part of a humanitarian demining program.
·	Consider investing in innovative technologies to make landmine
removal faster and safer.

The new landmine director will bring a long-range sustainable plan to the
board of directors, based on the approved recommendations.

As part of the landmine removal effort, the board also will recruit United
Methodists with specialized skills and experience to assist; will restore
any demined agricultural lands owned by the church to productive use; and
will expand the current Landmine Victims Rehabilitation Program in Angola to
other countries.

The human suffering caused by the millions of landmines still buried in the
ground has been well documented. Currently, 69 countries are affected,
according to the United Nations Mine Action Service. Of the 26,000 deaths or
injuries that occur annually because of landmines, one third are to
children.

"Possibly more devastating is the long-term damage which landmines do to
rural communities by halting economic and social development," the board's
Landmine Action Task Force report said. "Landmines prevent farmers from
access to land, taking away their only real means of subsistence. Until
removed, landmines leave resource-poor farmers with virtually no livelihoods
and rural communities with diminished hope."

The Board of Global Ministries supports "The Convention on the Prohibition
of the Use, Stockpiling, Production, and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines
and Their Destruction," which was adopted by 135 countries last March and
also is known as the Ottawa Treaty. The United States is among the nations
that have not signed on to the treaty.

"The Ottawa Treaty has increased public perception of the real impact of
landmines and the devastating impact that they have on the global human
community," the board's task force noted. "Treaties take a long time to
achieve their intended effects. However, it is clear that U.S. leadership
will be essential to achieving a mine-free world."

One of the nine task force members is the Rev. Ronald Woodfin, a Baptist
minister and systems engineer with a distinguished career at the Naval
Weapons Center and Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M.

Woodfin told the board directors he already had an interest in demining as a
ministry for churches. "You're going in a direction that I'm convinced God
is leading you all to consider," he said.

Other members of the task force are Brooke Conklin, a board director from
Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; Harry "Hap" Hambric, a United Methodist and retired
U.S. Army major who was senior project leader in the U.S. Defense
Department's Humanitarian Demining Technology Development Program from
1994-98; and Jennifer Logan, grassroots action coordinator of the Campaign
to Ban Landmines at Physicians for Human Rights.

Also, Joe Lokey, a United Methodist and retired U.S. Air Force major who
serves as deputy director of the James Madison University's Mine Action
Information Center; Jack Reeves, a board consultant on the landmines project
who has worked in antipoverty and civil rights programs; the Rev. Duane
Sarazin, a board director from Minneapolis, and Colonel Kasin Tanalinov, a
national security advisor for the Republic of Kazakhstan.
# # #

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://www.umc.org/umns