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Saturday Morning News

U.S. Refuses to Sign Land Mine Ban

Aired March 10, 2001 - 9:17 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: More than 100 countries have now signed an international treaty to ban land mines. The U.S. is not among those countries. And our next guest is very much aware of this and seeks U.S. participation.

Jody Williams is the ambassador of the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines. She and her organization were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for their efforts. And she joins us now from Washington.

Good morning, Jody.

JODY WILLIAMS, INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO BAN LAND MINES: Good morning.

PHILLIPS: Why do some governments feel that land mines are still a military necessity?

WILLIAMS: Well, it varies from government to government. My own -- our own, the United States, says that they need them for the problem in Korea. Unfortunately, every country likes to see itself as unique, and every country thinks that it needs an exception for its military needs.

But 139 countries have signed this treaty, including all of our NATO allies, except for Turkey and the United States, the entire Western hemisphere except the United States and Cuba. Certainly the sole remaining superpower can give up this weapon if all our NATO allies can.

PHILLIPS: Why do you think the effects of land mines outweigh the need to use them?

WILLIAMS: That's a very good question. We in the campaign have never said that there aren't circumstances where they could be useful. But so could poison gas, and when it was outlawed in 1925, our military defended it and wanted to keep it.

The problem with land mines, like gas, is that they're indiscriminate. They can kill a soldier, they can kill a child. And they last for years and years and years after the end of a war.

I was in El Alamein (ph) in Egypt, which was a huge battlefield from World War II, and there are still weapons all over that desert, making it unusable 50 years after the end of the war.

PHILLIPS: Let's talk about how powerful the effects are. I was reading that every 25 minutes someone steps on a land mine somewhere in the world?

WILLIAMS: This is true. We have many land mine survivors here in Washington this week, adding their voices to the call of U.S. citizens who are here from 46 different states to ask this administration, in its review of military needs for the 21st century, to please recognize that this weapon is a weapon of the past, not a weapon of the future.

PHILLIPS: Well, for the military personnel that think land mines are a necessity, what's an alternative?

WILLIAMS: There are many alternatives already in existence that can protect our troops. I think you might be aware that way back in April of 1997, 15 former high-ranking military, including Norman Schwarzkopf, wrote an open letter to the president calling upon him to ban this weapon as both a militarily responsible and humane act.

This was again echoed by two of those people in an op-ed this week, General Hollingsworth and General Emerson said the same thing to the new administration. It's militarily responsible and humane. Please join the rest of the world and ban them now.

PHILLIPS: Tell me about this 1997 mine ban treaty kind of quickly here, and why you think the U.S. is not signing it.

WILLIAMS: Well, the treaty -- they need to get over the phobia of the word "ban," the phobia of the treaty. This mine ban treaty, which, as I mentioned earlier, has been signed by some 139 countries in the world, provides the framework for getting rid of this weapon. It helps the victims, it takes the mines out of the ground.

When we first started the movement in 1992, there were some 50 countries around the world that produced the weapon. We're now down to about 16. There used to be massive exports of the weapon. There have been no exports of antipersonnel land mines in the last five years.

There are less victims. There's more money for mine clearance. So you can see that it provides the framework to make sure that someday there will be a world without land mines.

PHILLIPS: Jody Williams, ambassador of the International Campaign to Ban Land mines, thanks for being with us this morning. Good insight.

WILLIAMS: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: All right.

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