U.S. May Endorse Ban On Land Mines

With the daily threat of land mines to U.S. soldiers in Bosnia having brought the issue home, Gen. John Shalikashvili, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has ordered a review of the military’s longstanding opposition to banning the use of land mines, which kill or maim more than 20,000 people a year, primarily civilians.

In asking for the review last week during a meeting with the chiefs of the military services, Shalikashvili said he was “inclined to eliminate all anti-personnel land mines,” a senior Pentagon official said.

The Pentagon was prompted to review its policy in part by a strong bipartisan anti-mine sentiment in Congress, led by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., as well as by a growing international campaign to ban anti-personnel mines, Pentagon officials said.

These separate congressional and international campaigns against mines gained new momentum after U.S. soldiers began arriving in December in Bosnia, where an estimated 3 million land mines have been planted. Three U.S. soldiers have since been wounded by the weapons.

Nearly a dozen countries have banned the use of land mines. Leahy and other advocates of a ban argue that if the United States renounced their manufacture, sale and use, many other countries would follow.

While they concede that there would still be outlaw states, they counter that an international ban backed by sanctions would result in a substantial overall reduction in the use of land mines.