GOOSE: Well, the landmine crisis has been with us for decades now. It intensified greatly during the 1960S and '70s and people finally tried to start dealing with the crisis in the 1980s. It has commonly been cited that there are about a hundred million anti-personnel and anti-tank landmines that are in the ground, and about another hundred million that are in stockpiles. There are perhaps some seventy countries that have been affected by landmines, most notably countries like Cambodia, Angola, Mozambique, Bosnia, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia. A few in this hemisphere, Nicaragua, El Salvador, from the wars of the 1980's.

Many of those numbers are now coming into question of whether or not there are a hundred million mines that have gone into the ground, whether or not there are seventy countries that are severely affected. As more attention has come to this issue, people are trying to develop better numbers, but no one still knows. It's still a matter of speculation by both governments and non-governmental sources as to how many are truly out there. What we do know is that there are millions of people that are affected by landmines on a daily basis. We do know that some twenty-six thousand civilians a year are either injured or killed by anti-personnel landmines, and we do know they have a tremendous negative socio-economic impact in many countries around the world.

STOHL: Is this still the biggest humanitarian crisis of the time?

GOOSE: Probably depend on what your definition of a humanitarian crisis is, whether or not this qualifies as the biggest humanitarian crisis. At one point in time, the US State Department claimed that the anti-, that anti-personnel landmines were the most toxic pollutant in the world. So there's some rhetoric that floats around it. I think you can make the case that it is the biggest and most sustained humanitarian crisis. Most crises tend to spring up and then go away. This one, unfortunately, is with us for a long period of time.

STOHL: What are the biggest challenges that you're facing today in the work on landmines?

GOOSE: Well, we've had tremendous successes in the movement to ban anti-personnel landmines, but there's an awful lot of work that is left to do. We have a treaty that completely bans that weapon, that has been signed by over a 130 countries. But, there are still some very significant holdouts. Big countries like the United States and Russia and China and Indian. Smaller countries that may, in some ways, be even more important than the big ones because they're still using landmines. A country like Sri Lanka. So, a major challenge is getting these countries to adhere to what we think is clearly a new emerging, international norm, international standard against any possession or use of this weapon.

We have challenges on the ground, too. There are still tens of millions of mines in the ground, and we need to find way to get them out as quickly as possible. And, then there's the very long-term challenge of trying to help the landmine victims. There are hundreds of thousands of victims that are already out there. They need new prostheses on a regular basis. They need to be integrated back into the society and economies of their countries. These are very long-term challenges.

STOHL: All right, what are your plans for the following, the next coming years. I mean, I know there's, in five years, there's the review conference, but what is in the next year, so what are the big pushes that you're going to be working on?

GOOSE: Well, in the international campaign to ban landmines, the top priorities for the next year and probably the next several years are largely treaty related, related to the Mine Ban treaty. We need to get additional signatures on the treaty. That's usually referred to as universalizing the treaty, trying to make sure that the holdout states, like the United States and Russia and China, do become part of this new international norm. We have a high priority put on getting countries that have signed to ratify the treaty. Only by ratification, which is usually done through domestic legislation, does a country become legally bound to the provisions. You can sign and then not ratify and you're not legally bound. So, we're trying to put a high priority on that.

We did manage, in this campaign, to get the necessary forty ratifications for the treaty to enter into force more quickly than any treaty in history. But, we need to get all the countries, forty's not enough, you can't stop there. You need to get all the rest who have signed the treaty. And, then we've engaged in a major new initiative to monitor the treaty, to monitor the implementation of and compliance with the treaty. We're doing this through the ICBL, the international campaign to ban landmines, in cooperation with other elements of civil society, academic institutions, the media, to try and ensure that governments are held accountable to what they have pledged to do by signing and ratifying this treaty. Something that hasn't been done before. Civil society has never come together in a sustained, coordinated, systematic effort to monitor a treaty that has disarmament or humanitarian law provisions.

STOHL: I know you were just talking about the landmines monitor, but if we could get a little focus question on kind of what is the landmines monitor, how is it going to push the landmines agenda, what is the schedule for events, what kinds of things are you going to be doing with that?

GOOSE: The Landmine Monitor is a new, unprecedented initiative of the international campaign to ban landmines that's being driven by a smaller core group of five organizations, including Human Rights Watch, which is attempting for the first time to establish a systematic, coordinated effort to monitor and report on the degree to which countries, governments are, or are not, effectively implementing the Mine Ban treaty and complying with its provision, and it goes beyond that to look at the efforts of those who haven't signed the treaty as well and the steps that they're taking to help deal with the landmine crisis.

The major elements of the system will be a global reporting network. We have already pulled together more than seventy researchers in about that many countries around the world to feed information back into what will become a central database, housed at Mines Action Canada, a non-governmental coalition based on Ottawa. We'll have the global reporting network, we'll have the database, we're going to have the major output be an annual report that we're going to time to, time the release to each annual meeting of the state's parties of the mine ban treaty, that is the countries who are part of the treaty are required to meet once a year. And, we will release this report just before each of their meetings in order to bring attention to both the successes and probably, more particularly, to the failures of various governments to live up to their obligations. We think that this will be the key way in which the campaign will be able to hold governments accountable to what they've pledged to do under this treaty.

We think it also builds upon one of the more exciting aspects of the campaign, which is to increase the degree to which elements of civil society are major players in a wide range of aspects of international relations. This is something that hasn't been done before. It's a bit of an experiment. But, we think this is one way to build on what we see as a model of non-governmental organizations and civil society speaking out and having a true impact on national security issues and humanitarian issues.

STOHL: I want you to talk a little bit about the novelty of the model of those kind of campaign. Jody had talked a about earlier today that it's almost like the landmines campaign is being held to a higher standard. This is a very new model. Can you talk a little bit about how it developed, how it came about, and what the successes of that model have been, how it can be applied to other kinds of campaigns.

GOOSE: Sure. This is a good question for her. I hope you asked, asked, asked her. This is usually what she speaks about for about an hour or so every time she goes out and talks --

STOHL: Well, that's why she said, that's why she said, no, no ask Steve.

GOOSE: Uh, when the International Campaign to Ban Landmines was awarded the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, the Nobel committee indicated that it was being given not just for the campaign's contributions on landmines. Not just because the campaign was the driving engine behind the Mine Ban treaty, a huge accomplishment. But, it was also being awarded because they felt that this international campaign to ban landmines could be a model for other non-governmental civil society efforts on a wide range of issues, that the kinds of activities, the type of organization that the ICBL engaged in could, in some respects, be transferred to other issues of humanitarian concern.

The notion that you could bring together a huge number, in case of the ICBL, more than a thousand groups in dozens of countries, in the case of the ICBL, more than seventy countries, bring this very diverse coalition together of groups who work on arms control and who work on development and who work on women's issues and veteran's issues and human right's issues, humanitarian care providers. A very, very broad coalition could come together and not only work together in a systematic and coordinated way, but could also work with similar minded governments and international organizations, like the International Committee of the Red Cross. That this coalition and this method of operating could be a model for other issues.

And, indeed, we're seeing that happen in issues ranging from the emerging campaign to limit light weapons and small arms to the campaign to stop the use of child soldiers. To the campaign to create an international criminal court. All of these efforts, and more, have tried to draw from the model that the ICBL represents. Now, it's a model that's still taking the shape. This campaign to ban landmines is by no means over. It's evolving, it's had major successes, but it's quite clear that the goal of the campaign is to truly eradicate the weapon. A treaty and the successes we've had so far are major steps toward that goal, but it's not over. So, we're trying to make sure both that this model succeeds as well as to see it applied to other emerging issues.

STOHL: You mentioned the IC -- the international criminal court, the light weapons issue, the child soldiers issue, the mines issue. All of these things have in common that the US has really not been supportive from the get-go, or at least maybe has pretended to be supportive but then not really followed through with the initiatives that need to be taken. What do you see as the role of the United States in the landmines process? Is it important that we include them in pushing agenda forward? Or, do we wait for them to catch up. Do we have grassroots pressure, do we pressure them by using other governments? What would your opinion on that that be?

GOOSE: The US, in the beginning, was a leader on the landmines issue. The US, at the initiative of Senator Patrick Lahey, was the first government to enact, for example, a moratorium on the export, the sale of anti-personnel landmines. President Clinton was the first world leader to call for the eventual elimination of anti-personnel landmines in 1994, before the UN general Assembly. But, many nations passed the US by years ago during the development of the Ottawa process that led to the signing of the ban treaty. And, the US, unfortunately now, is in pretty bad company on this issue. It is not on the side of the angels. It is not on the side of most of its military allies. Every NATO partner, except for Turkey, has signed this treaty, so the US is instead finding itself in bed with Cuba and Iraq and China and Libya and countries like that who refuse to join this treaty.

Nonetheless, the US has continued to claim the mantle of leadership and it is had done that by focusing on mind clearance, which is a noble thing to do. The US has spent more money -- there are some questions about how effectively it's being spent, but the US has spent more money on getting mines out of the ground, helping to get minds out of the ground, than any other country. And, this is to be commended. But, it is not true leadership. In some ways, the US is trying to treat the effect without going after the cause. The cause of the landmine crisis is continued use of anti-personnel landmines. The US continues to insist on the right to produce anti-personnel landmines, and to stockpile anti-personnel landmines, and to use anti-personnel landmines. That's not much of leadership on this issue.

How do we change US policy? Well, we've been struggling with that one for years now. We have made some progress. Last year, the Clinton administration announced that, for the first time, that, indeed it did support the mine ban treaty and that it would like to sign the treaty by the year two thousand and six if a search for military alternatives is successful. Now, for those of us in the campaign, that's eight years too late, and it's hooked to a major caveat which may or may not come to be. So, it, in some ways, is too little, too late. But, all the same, at least they've set a deadline and they have indicated overall support for the treaty.

Our push, here in the US, will be to get the Clinton administration to sign the treaty now, to sign the treaty before the year 2000, to sign the treaty before the new millennium, to sign the treaty before Clinton leaves office, so that he will have a legacy on this issue that he can be proud of. We'll have to do that through a variety of different ways, through trying to build up grassroots pressure, trying to continue to educate and motivate the American public on this issue. We'll have to do it by continuing to get the US Congress to take meaningful action. And, we may have to do it through smaller steps, as well. I think there are a number of organizations in the US campaign to ban landmines that are disturbed that the US hasn't taken steps that it could take short of signing the ban treaty that would be very positive.

Now, one in particular that we would like to see the US do is to abandon its plans to produce new mine systems that contain anti-personnel mines. This is something of a complicated issue, but the US, at the same time that it pledged to sign this treat by the year two thousand and six also made the decision to build new mine systems that are outlawed by the treaty. It's a system that's known by the acronym of RADAM, R-A-D-A-M, that combines an existing anti-tank mine with existing anti-personnel mines in a single canister. These systems are not allowed under the treaty and yet the US is talking about spending over two hundred million dollars to produce these systems which, if they stick to their pledge, they'd have to destroy in the year two thousand and six. This makes little sense. So, we would like to see the coffin nailed shut on these RADAM systems.

There are many other steps the US could take as well, starting with an attempt to truly promote the mine ban treaty, even though it has argued that it is not able to sign now, it has also argued that it has unique responsibilities in a unique situation on the Korean peninsula that doesn't allow it to sign, that do not apply to other countries. And, yet, the US is not going out and making a diplomatic effort to convince other countries to sign the mine ban treaty. In fact, they are promoting other diplomatic efforts short of a comprehensive ban through the conference on disarmament or through the landmines protocol to the convention on conventional weapons. The US should put its emphasis, diplomatically, on promoting signature, ratification, and compliance with the mine ban treaty.

Just as the US is helping out with getting mines out of the ground, the US could also start taking action on helping other nations to destroy their existing stockpiles of mines. We call this preventive mine action. There are potentially hundreds of millions of mines in stockpiles. It is, the more we know we know about nation stockpiles, the more it's clear that, in fact, earlier estimates were probably understate and the real problem for the future is probably going to be destroying these mines that are in warehouses now but will eventually go into the ground. The US could help out here, both financially and technically. Starting a program to help destroy stocks. So, there are whole range of issues on which the US could move between now and when they sign the treaty. The emphasis should be on getting them to sign it now, but there are many other steps they could take.

STOHL: You mentioned that there's discrepancies of the numbers of landmines in stockpiles and also in the ground, and the folks that are screaming and yelling that the number of landmines in the ground are grossly over-estimated have been getting a lot of media lately. That's not the kind of media attention really helpful for any kind of campaign. That, because that's getting attention, the person on the street might think, this issue, they've got this treat. What more do they really want? Why should I still care about the landmines issue? What would your answer to that be?

GOOSE: Well, you've asked two questions. Do you want me to deal with the issue of changing numbers or the issue of why people should still care about landmines?

STOHL: Both. Let's do both.

GOOSE: Okay. All right. Let's do the numbers one first. There is an increasing amount of attention being paid to the veracity of the commonly used numbers that are applied to the landmine crisis. In particular to the number of one hundred million anti-personnel landmines in the ground. And, the specific numbers that have been cited for some countries -- eight million in Cambodia, ten million in Angola, ten million plus in Afghanistan. Those numbers are being called into question by many people, some of whom are alleging that the numbers were made up by the international campaign to ban landmines and were used in a devious manner to try and fool the world about the nature of the landmine crisis.

Well, this is hogwash. Those numbers were first used and developed by two sources, the United Nations and the United States government. Those are the sources for the most basic numbers that have been used. The campaign took them as the only official numbers that were out there. Nobody had alternative numbers to propose, and so the campaign simply used what were considered the best estimates by those who were considered the experts.

Now, no one ever had confidence in those numbers, including the people in the UN and the US State Department who put them together. When the US State Department first said there are a hundred million landmines in the ground, the person who did that said, you know, I could be off, you know, it could be twice that many, it could be half that many. But, it's our best estimate. And, to it was the one that was commonly used. It may well be an overestimate. The State Department has since reduced its overall estimate to perhaps sixty to seventy million. There are some who say the number may be considerably lower. We still don't know. It's impossible to know with a great deal of accuracy how many small, sometimes undetectable devices, are planted in the ground. The people who planted them in the ground aren't telling you. So, it's very difficult to get accurate estimates.

But, it doesn't really matter whether it's a hundred million, or seventy million, or fifty million, or thirty million. The crisis itself remains the same. Doesn't matter whether there's one mine in a minefield or a hundred mines in a minefield. You still have to treat it as a contaminated area. The same amount of land is denied to farmers. The same number of kilometers of road is denied to the population. Whether it's a hundred million or thirty million, so that the humanitarian impact and the socio-economic impact are undeniable. What the precise number of mines is doesn't really matter.

One of the numbers that we do believe is accurate and which hasn't been called into question are the number of casualties that are caused by anti-personnel landmines. This was a number developed by the international committee of the Red Cross, based on all of its field hospital and other work. 26,000 civilians a year killed or maimed by anti-personnel landmines. The ICRC still claims they think that's an underestimate. That's a better gauge of the scope and severity of the anti-personnel landmine crisis.

The other number that should be called into question is that of the number of stockpiles of mines. That is, not the number in the ground, but those that are in warehouses waiting to be used. It was commonly said in the past that there are a hundred million mines in the ground and a hundred million more in stockpiles waiting to be used. Well, just as we've found out new information, better information about the number of mines in the ground, we're getting better information about stockpiles and the stockpile number seems to be an significant underestimate. It may be two or more times the one hundred million number. So, there's still plenty to worry about when it comes to anti-personnel landmines and plenty of work to do in alleviating the crisis without getting too hung up in a debate over the precise numbers.

STOHL: Let's now talk about why should I as an average American on the street, why should I care about the landmines issue? What does it mean to me as an American?

GOOSE: Why should Americans care about anti-personnel landmines? I have always enjoyed the comment of Senator Patrick Lahey when he has chided US officials for not joining the ban movement. He has said that, if the US Capital or the White House was ringed with anti-personnel landmines, we'd be on board that ban right away. Americans tend to think that this is a distant issue that doesn't affect them. Well, it doesn't affect their daily lives like it does an Cambodian or an Angolan or a Bosnian, but, nonetheless, we have a responsibility on this issue.

We have a responsibility in part because we caused it. The United States was one of the major exporters of anti-personnel landmines in the past. The US has shipped over four million anti-personnel landmines to more than thirty countries. Every major country that is affected by anti-personnel landmines, whether it's Cambodia or Angola or Mozambique, or Nicaragua, has landmines that were provided, one way or another, by the United States. So, we have a responsiblity.

We also have a responsibility in that much of landmine warfare was conducted as part of the Cold War dynamic, where we provided arms to one side and the Soviet Union and its allies provided arms to another side, which usually were topped off with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of anti-personnel landmines. So, the US has a responsibility here that is very direct. We would also hope that the American public would feel that this -- would recognize that this is a humanitarian disaster in some ways of unparalled proportions, that affects more people on this planet than most other crises, and that the humanitarian impulses that do run strong through the American public should cause them to want to do something about this issue.