wfn.org | Diverse group takes landmine issue to Capitol

[NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG]

March 8, 2001      News media contact: Joretta Purdue ·(202)
546-8722·Washington    10-21-71B{118}

By Joretta Purdue*

WASHINGTON (UMNS) - A pile of 2,500 shoes and discarded artificial limbs
seemed out of place on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol building, but most
disconcerting was the chorus of children singing a ditty about losing body
parts, as the bright winter sun warmed demonstrators and spectators alike.

The children's song opened:
       "Someone once told me a landmine might blow me.
        I don't want to lose my head. ..."

And closed with this ironic plea:
       "Hey now, Mr. Bush, sign the ban please,
       We are begging on our knees."

Some of the older participants in the March 8 demonstration were missing one
or both knees. 

More than 500 people from the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, many
of them survivors of landmine blasts, came from 90 countries to participate
in a week of meetings and rallies urging the United States to sign the 1997
Mine Ban Treaty.

Those adding their voices to the request included a United Methodist
minister who heads the staff of the National Council of Churches (NCC), a
U.S. representative who is co-sponsoring a bill to ban the use of landmines
by the United States, a Cambodian girl who lost a leg to a landmine, and a
Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The Rev. Bob Edgar of the NCC cited his previous experience as a congressman
for awakening him to the destructive nature of landmines. While serving on a
committee dealing with veterans' affairs, he said, he learned that one-third
of the U.S. casualties in the Vietnam War and in the Gulf War were victims
of landmines.

"They inflict tremendous damage on our own personnel," he said. But, he
added, more than 80 percent of landmine victims are civilians, most of them
children. "We need to use our moral authority" to have the United States
join the ban, he urged.

"This treaty has slowed the carnage and begun the long process of healing
the earth," he asserted. Edgar announced the launching of an initiative by
the NCC to have every church, mosque and temple and people of every faith
join in a call for the banning of these weapons. He urged the United States
to support the ban on landmines and to increase its support for victims. 

"Each of us can work to change a small portion of events," he said. "Let us
ban landmines forever."

U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern (D-Mass.), who together with Rep. Jack Quinn
(R-N.Y.) is sponsoring a bill to ban landmine use by United States, said
modern military forces of the 21st century do not use landmines. The United
States has more than 11 million landmines, the third-largest stockpile in
the world, he said. 

McGovern called on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to make certain the
United States is not using landmines and to destroy the existing stockpiles.

Song Kosal lost her leg at age 4 in a landmine blast that occurred when she
was playing near her home in Cambodia. Speaking through an interpreter, she
said she wants every child to have the chance to wear shoes. She urged
banning landmines for the sake of the children and encouraged people to work
for peace every day. 

1997 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jody Williams said the United States, as
the world's last superpower, needs to join the landmine ban treaty. Williams
served as coordinator for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines from
1991 to 1997, and she is now an ambassador for it. In every country she
visits, she is asked why the United States has not joined the ban, she said.
Some countries would be more likely to join if the United States did, she
said.

Jerry White, chairman of the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines and a landmine
survivor, noted that the United States and Cuba are the only countries in
the Western Hemisphere that have not signed the treaty to ban landmines. 

In the last century, he said 100,000 people from the United States became
landmine casualties. Every 20 to 22 minutes someone loses a limb or a life
to landmines, which are buried in about 80 countries, he said. He lost his
leg when, as a college junior, he was traveling and unknowingly camped in a
minefield in Israel.

He cited President Bush's inaugural address, in which citizens were urged to
"not pass by on the other side" when they see the wounded traveler beside
the road to Jericho. White called on Bush to aid the wounded traveler by
banning landmines so people in many parts of the world could walk without
fear.

The U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines is a coalition of more than 500
U.S.-based groups. The international campaign includes more than 1,300
groups in 75 countries.

The United Methodist Church's highest legislative body approved a resolution
last year calling for the United States to sign the Mine Ban Treaty.
# # #
*Purdue is news director of United Methodist News Service's Washington
office.

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United Methodist News Service
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