Jody Williams Reflects on Working Toward Peace
The
desire to ban land mines is not new. In the late 1970s,
the International Committee of the Red Cross, along with
a handful of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), pressed
the world to look at weapons that were particularly injurious
and/or indiscriminate. One of the weapons of special concern
was land mines. People often ask why the focus on this one
weapon. How is the land mine different from any other conventional
weapon?
Land mines distinguish themselves because once they have
been sown, once the soldier walks away from the weapon,
the land mine cannot tell the difference between a soldier
or a civilian-a woman, a child, a grandmother going out
to collect firewood to make the family meal. The crux of
the problem is that while the use of the weapon might be
militarily justifiable during the day of the battle, or
even the two weeks of the battle, or maybe even the two
months of the battle, once peace is declared the land mine
does not recognize that peace. The land mine is eternally
prepared to take victims. In common parlance, it is the
perfect soldier, the eternal sentry. The war ends; the land
mine goes on killing.
Since World War II most of the conflicts in the world
have been internal conflicts. The weapon of choice in those
wars has all too often been land mines-to such a degree
that what we find today are tens of millions of land mines
contaminating approximately seventy countries around the
world. The overwhelming majority of those countries are
found in the developing world, primarily in those countries
that do not have the resources to clean up the mess, to
care for the tens of thousands of land mine victims. The
end result is an international community now faced with
a global humanitarian crisis. . . . Estimates range between
one and two hundred million mines in stockpiles around the
world.
When the ICRC pressed in the seventies for the governments
of the world to consider increased restrictions or elimination
of particularly injurious or indiscriminate weapons, there
was little support for a ban of land mines. The end result
of several years of negotiations was the 1980 Convention
on Conventional Weapons (CCW). What that treaty did was
attempt to regulate the use of land mines. While the Convention
tried to tell commanders in the field when it was okay to
use the weapon and when it was not okay to use the weapon,
it also allowed them to make decisions about the applicability
of the law in the midst of battle. Unfortunately, in the
heat of battle, the laws of war do not exactly come to mind.
When you are trying to save your skin you use anything and
everything at your disposal to do so.
Throughout these years the Cold War raged on, and internal
conflicts that often were proxy wars of the superpowers
proliferated. Finally with the collapse of the Soviet Bloc,
people began to look at war and peace differently. Without
the overarching threat of nuclear holocaust, people started
to look at how wars had actually been fought during the
Cold War. What they found was that in the internal conflicts
fought during that time, the most insidious weapon of all
was the antipersonnel land mine-and that it contaminated
the globe in epidemic proportion. . . .
It was the NGOs, the nongovernmental organizations, who
began to seriously think about trying to deal with the root
of the problem. To eliminate the problem, it would be necessary
to eliminate the weapon. The work of NGOs across the board
was affected by the land mines in the developing world.
Children's groups, development organizations, refugee organizations,
medical and humanitarian relief groups-all had to make huge
adjustments in their programs to try to deal with the land
mine crisis and its impact on the people they were trying
to help. It was also in this period that the first NGO humanitarian
demining organizations were born-to try to return contaminated
land to rural communities.
It was a handful of NGOs, with their roots in humanitarian
and human rights work, which began to come together in late
1991 and early 1992 in an organized effort to ban antipersonnel
land mines. In October of 1992, Handicap International,
Human Rights Watch, Medico International, Mines Advisory
Group, Physicians for Human Rights, and Vietnam Veterans
of America Foundation came together to issue a Joint Call
to Ban Antipersonnel Land mines. These organizations, which
became the steering committee of the International Campaign
to Ban Landmines, called for an end to the use, production,
trade, and stockpiling of antipersonnel land mines. The
call also pressed governments to increase resources for
humanitarian mine clearance and for victim assistance.
From this inauspicious beginning, the International Campaign
has become an unprecedented coalition of one thousand organizations
working together in sixty countries to achieve the common
goal of a ban of antipersonnel land mines. And as the Campaign
grew, the steering committee was expanded to represent the
continuing growth and diversity of those who had come together
in this global movement. We added the Afghan and Cambodian
Campaigns and Radda Barnen in 1996, and the South African
Campaign and Kenya Coalition early [in 1997] as we continued
to press toward our goal. And in six years we did it. In
September of [1997], 89 countries came together in Oslo
and finished the negotiations of a ban treaty based on a
draft drawn up by Austria. . . . [In November 1997,] 121
countries came together again to sign that ban treaty. .
. .
The Oslo negotiations gave the world a treaty banning
antipersonnel land mines which is remarkably free of loopholes
and exceptions. It is a treaty which bans the use, production,
trade, and stockpiling of antipersonnel land mines. It is
a treaty which requires states to destroy their stockpiles
within four years of its entering into force. It is a treaty
which requires mine clearance within ten years. It calls
upon states to increase assistance for mine clearance and
for victim assistance. It is not a perfect treaty-the Campaign
has concerns about the provision allowing for antihandling
devices on antivehicle mines; we are concerned about mines
kept for training purposes; we would like to see the treaty
directly apply to nonstate actors and we would like stronger
language regarding victim assistance. But, given the close
cooperation with governments which resulted in the treaty
itself, we are certain that these issues can be addressed
through the annual meetings and review conferences provided
for in the treaty.
As I have already noted . . . 121 countries signed the
treaty. Three ratified it simultaneously-signaling the political
will of the international community to bring this treaty
into force as soon as possible. It is remarkable. Land mines
have been used since the U.S. Civil War, since the Crimean
War, yet we are taking them out of arsenals of the world.
It is amazing. It is historic. It proves that civil society
and governments do not have to see themselves as adversaries.
It demonstrates that small and middle powers can work together
with civil society and address humanitarian concerns with
breathtaking speed. It shows that such a partnership is
a new kind of superpower in the post-Cold War world.
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