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Landmine Mania
America’s Love Affair with Anti-Personnel Mines
by John Stanton
Dissident Voice
November 1, 2003
A landmine is the most excellent of soldiers, for it is
ever courageous, never sleeps, never misses.
-- Khmer Rouge General
The
United States is 1 of 45 countries that refuses to sign the 1997 Ottawa Convention
on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel
Mines (APM’s) and on their Destruction. 137 countries have bound themselves to
the rigorous provisions of that treaty.
But the Pentagon, never seeing a weapon system it didn’t like, and the
Bush Administration, never having seen a treaty it liked, remain unmoved by the
suffering caused by APM’s. Article 1 of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty demands that “each
State Party undertakes never under any circumstances to use anti-personnel
mines.” Article 4 of the Mine Ban Treaty requires that all States Parties
destroy their stockpiles of APM’s. The Pentagon is skittish about signing the
Treaty as it fears such a precedent will trigger similar campaigns against
other US weapons systems most notably those dependent on depleted uranium.
Even
though the US is the largest contributor to demining and mine awareness
programs ($80 million in FY 2002), it has reduced funding by close to $24 million
less over the last two year period. But that’s not a great surprise given that
private industry is stepping into what is a lucrative and eternal mine-clearing
business. With an estimated 40-50 million APM’s below ground around the globe, for-profit
demining companies stand to make a killing.
Terrified Pentagon
The
Pentagon, and its allies in the US Congress, has traditionally been averse to
signing any piece of international legislation that, in their view, limits the
use of military capability and that may place American commanders under the
spotlight of an International Tribunal. Indeed, APM’s remain an active part of
US military doctrine as the US retains a stockpile of 10.4 million APM’s. US military
forces in Afghanistan are making use of minefields sown by the former Soviet
military for perimeter defense, refusing to de-mine them. And the US military
pre-positioned, but did apparently did not use, 90,000 APM’s in and around the
2003 Iraq theater of operations. That, even though al least 31 US military
personnel have been killed or injured by APM’s in Iraq and Afghanistan since
the start of 2003.
More
significantly, according to 1997 Nobel Laureate Jody Williams of the
International Committee to Ban Landmines (ICBL), and driving force behind the
Mine Ban Treaty, “The military is terrified to give into society’s wishes.”
Williams is one of only three American women to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She indicated
that the Pentagon understands that the Mine Ban Treaty “has been one of the few
examples of successful multilateralism in today’s world”. According to Williams,
the Pentagon under Bush has recommended abandoning the US policy goal of
joining the Mine Ban Treaty by 2006 as it has virtually all other international
agreements.
The
ICBL is composed of 1,400 citizen groups in over 90 countries that brought
pressure to bear on their governments through grass-roots campaigning
ultimately bringing world attention to APM’s. Remarkably, just eight full-time
staff members oversee the ICBL. According to Williams, The Pentagon recognizes
that other favored weapons systems may find themselves subjected to citizen-based
campaigns similar to the ICBL which
shattered
accepted arms control negotiations standards by working around governmental
institutions in the United States and the rest of the world. “If you ban US
landmines, then maybe other weapons may be the subject of further campaigns.”
“The
United States has not renounced APM production and they are keeping their
options open,” said Stephen Goose of Human Rights Watch at a recent press conference
publicizing the 2003 edition of the Landmine Monitor Report: Toward a Mine Free
World. The United States is not alone. “Lack of adherence is notable among
major antipersonnel mine stockpilers
particularly
China, Russia, the United States, Ukraine, India and Pakistan. These six are
estimated to hold more than 185 million stockpiled antipersonnel landmines,
roughly 90 percent of the world’s total.”
The
Pentagon has deflected domestic and international pressure to sign the Mine Ban
Treaty first and foremost because it views APM’s as an “essential capability”
that must be maintained and be readily available for use in military
operations. To deploy or not to deploy depends on the best judgment of US battlefield
commanders. “Should an operational commander determine that the use of APM’s
are required to support operations or to protect U.S. men and women in uniform,
he can request authority to use them in accordance with pre-established rules,”
said a DOD Official.
The
Pentagon maintains that the Mine Ban Treaty does not adequately consider
legitimate US national security requirements, nor does it fully address humanitarian
concerns raised by the use of APM’s and anti-tank mines. The Pentagon endorses
the Amended Mines Protocol II--enacted in May 1996--which it believes will
establish reasonable standards on the use of landmines in order to minimize risks
to noncombatants. The Protocol is part of the larger United Nations Convention
on Conventional Weapons, to which the United States has acceded and has been a state
party since 1980. “Unlike the Mine Ban Treaty, the Protocol includes
restrictions on anti-tank mines as well as anti-personnel landmines. It also restricts the use of booby-traps and
other devices that the Ottawa Convention [Mine Ban Treaty] does not address. In addition to many states that are parties to
the Mine Ban Treaty, state parties to the Protocol include key landmine
producers and users, such as China, South Korea, India and Pakistan that are
not parties to the Mine Ban Treaty,” said a DOD Official.
The
Pentagon supports the United States’ effort to press for other international
measures to reduce further the risks to civilians worldwide. “We are working with other state parties to
the United Nations Convention on Conventional Weapons to adopt tighter restrictions
on the use of anti-tank landmines, similar to those applicable to
anti-personnel landmines. The Ottawa
Convention does not address anti-tank mines. We are also working with state parties on an instrument to deal
with explosive remnants of war. This
instrument would deal with the humanitarian problems posed by all types of munitions,”
said a DOD Official.
But
according to Goose of the ICBL, the value of the Protocol is limited almost
exclusively to curbing the use of anti-tank mines. In his view, the Mine Ban Treaty
has far more extensive obligations while the Protocol is full of loopholes. “The reality is that at the end of the negotiations,
state’s parties to that Protocol realized that the agreement being finalized
was wholly insufficient to meet the need to ban APM’s. In other words, the
parties recognized before the ink was dry that the Protocol was not the answer.
And in some ways, the Protocol contains justifications for producing more
APM’s. India, Pakistan and Russia increased production in 2001 and 2002. The US
just hasn’t learned.“
Bad Company
The
United States keeps the company of Cuba, Libya, Iran and Syria, among others (www.icbl.org), who want to retain the right to
use APM’s. The US has ignored the entreaties of NGO’s like the ICBL and trusted
allies such as the United Kingdom (State Party since 1998) and Spain (State
Party since 1999). It has also deflected the views of its own military
commanders. On March 19, 2001, Lieutenant General Hal Moore, USA (Ret.), and
seven other senior US military officers sent a letter to President Bush urging
his administration to sign on to the Mine Ban Treaty.
“We
feel strongly that it is in the best interests of the American soldier and our
country that you "fast-track" US accession to the Mine Ban Treaty. APM
are outmoded weapons that have, time and again, proved to be a liability to our
own troops. We believe that the military, diplomatic, and humanitarian
advantages of speedy US accession far outweigh the minimal military utility of
these weapons.” They went on to rebut the oft-cited Korea Argument which states
that APM’s are critical to the defense of Korea. “Several of us are former
commanders of elements of I-Corps
(USA/ROK
group), and believe that APM are not in any way critical or decisive in
maintaining the peninsula's security. In fact, freshly scattered mixed systems
would slow a US and ROK counter-invasion by inhibiting the operational tempo of
friendly armor and dismounted infantry units.”
According
to Goose, “The United States has been in compliance with some provisions of the
Mine Ban Treaty for years. They are doing the right thing but can’t seem to
make the leap to sign the treaty. That’s interesting because if they did they
could bring China, Russia and other non-signatories on board. The United States
could exercise some real leadership if they did,” said Goose, “We wait with
baited breath”
No Loopholes
The
Bush Administration was scheduled to release new directives on APM’s in the
latter part of 2003 that would halt any effort to develop alternatives to APM’s.
“I’ve heard some discouraging things from the Pentagon and it may be that the
US will roll back its current policies,” Goose.
The
current APM policy is outlined in Presidential Decision Directive 64 issued by
Former President Bill Clinton in 1998. In that Directive, the United States committed
itself to signing the Mine Ban Treaty by 2006 if suitable alternatives could be
found. But in May of 2002, the Pentagon stated that it could not meet the 2006
deadline since it has been unable to design and field a satisfactory
self-destructing alternative to the “dumb” APM’s currently in stock. Additionally,
the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty States Parties have taken a skeptical view of
next-generation APM’s promoted by the United States and there’s little wiggle
room for its negotiators. On a positive note, the United States extended the
legislative moratorium on the export of landmines until October 2008 although it
is sullied with the brand producer and stockpiler of APM’s.
According
to Human Rights Watch, Mine Ban Treaty participants rejected U.S. demands that
“smart” APM’s like the CBU-89 Gator Mine System-- a 1,000-pound cluster
munition containing 22 antipersonnel mines and 72 antitank mines—be exempted
from the Mine Ban Treaty. The use of self-destructing and self-neutralizing
APM’s, said Human Rights Watch officials, will not prevent new mine victims and
the clearance task will be just as time-consuming and costly, perhaps even more
so. Their rationale follows.
Self-destruct
mechanisms are not 100 percent reliable. The Landmine Protocol of the 1980
Convention on Conventional Weapons (to which the United States is a State
Party) allows a 10 percent failure rate. The mines are scattered (or remotely-delivered) from the air with
little precision, there is no way to accurately mark or map or fence the mined
areas to keep civilians out. Civilians
in the mined areas face the danger not only of accidentally detonating mines
that have failed to self-destruct, but of coming upon hundreds of those mines
randomly self-destructing at unknown times. The mines still deny land to civilians. Because they are remotely
delivered, they are found on the surface of the ground, not buried. If they are
aware the area is mined, civilians will not enter it, knowing that the visible
mines may still be dangerous and fearing the presence, in many places, of mines
that have been overgrown or otherwise obscured. Mines that have failed to self-destruct but have self-deactivated
will have to be treated by deminers as live mines that may potentially explode.
Thus, an area that has unexploded mines in it will have to be cleared with the
same care as any other minefield. The time and cost will be similar. The clearance job may be made more difficult
by the large numbers of mines present (given the propensity to use thousands at
a time in remote-delivery systems). U.S. Gator mines were still being cleared from
Kuwait several years after Operation Desert Storm.
Alternative APM’s
The
Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA)--along with team leaders SAIC,
Alliant-Technologies and Sandia National Labs -- continue to push forward with
the Self Healing Minefield System (SHMS). It consists of surface scattered and
networked antitank mines that can detect an enemy attack of the minefield and
respond autonomously, by having a fraction of the mines airlift themselves -- through
the use of microrockets -- into the breach. SHMS uses a man-in-the-loop concept
allowing remote control detonation of the ordnance. DARPA claims that after 30 days,
the SHMS will self-destruct and not pose any danger to US troops or civilians.
Such a system may meet the provisions of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty but it is far
from being field-ready.
Novel
technologies such as the Taser Anti-Personnel Munition (TAPM) are being
developed jointly by industry participants General Dynamics, Ordnance and Tactical
Systems and TASER International. Rick Smith, CEO of TASER indicated that TAPM
is a hand emplaced remote control activated device that fires two tethered
darts up to 21 feet. Military personnel place the devices in an array and
remotely activate them. When infrared sensors located within the devices are self-activated,
they release darts with up to 50,000 volts of electricity. “It’s like shooting
a pair of jumper cables at a person.” Temporary and painful paralysis ensues,
evidently with no loss of life. Smith mentioned that US Marines he spoke with returning
from the war in Iraq indicated that they lost a lot of sleep patrolling
perimeters. “While TAPM would not obviate the need for personnel to do that, it
may let them make better use of their time. Further, TAPM meets the political
requirements of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty will providing area of denial capabilities
that the US military needs.”
Technology Overwhelmed
Eradication
of APM’s in the field is a painstaking process from both a cost and time
perspective. A United Nations report titled The Impact of Armed Conflict on
Children indicated that it costs as little as $3 each to manufacture an APM but
can cost up to $1,000 to remove just one. APM’s can be spread at rates of over
1,000 per minute, but it may take a skilled expert an entire day just to clear
by hand 20-50 square meters of mine-contaminated land. A RAND report titled
Alternatives for Landmine Detection (www.rand.org),
indicated there are approximately 40-50 million APM’s still lying in wait for
new victims. A mere 100,000 per year are removed from minefields the world
over. According to the RAND study, “at that rate clearing 45-50 million APM’s
will require 450-500 years assuming no new APM’s are laid.”
Unfortunately,
there is no reliable or suitable replacement for bomb sniffing canines and
their human handlers, or those brave souls on bended knees probing underground
with 15th Century tools for 21st Century weapons. And there is no substitute for the Mine Ban Treaty of 1997 which
attempts to rid the world of APM’s. The
US continues to give the middle finger to the rest of the world.
John
Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in
political and security matters. He is the author (with Wayne Madsen) of America’s
Nightmare: The Presidency of George Bush II. Contact him at cioran123@yahoo.com.
Other Articles by John Stanton
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