MULLER: It's indiscriminate between the good guys and the bad guys, every bit as much as it's indiscriminate between the military and the civilian population.

NARRATOR: An international treaty banning landmines went into effect March 1, 1999. The United States is not among the signers.

GOOSE: The U.S. continues to insist on the right to produce anti-personnel landmines and to use anti-personnel landmines. That's not much of leadership on this issue

STEINBERG: Well there are no quick fixes when it comes to the landmine issue.

NARRATOR: Despite the treaty, 100 million landmines continue to pollute a third of the countries on earth. Where do we go from here?

[ADM INTRO]

NARRATOR: A single blast has the power to kill or maim its victim, but it can also disable entire communities.

These small weapons, called anti-personnel landmines, are not a new phenomenon. They have been used in all the major wars of this century and in regional conflicts around the world.

Even today, new landmines are laid, waiting for a victim, rendering farm land useless, and devastating local communities and economies.

GOOSE: Well, the landmine crisis has been with us for decades now. It intensified greatly during the nineteen sixties and seventies and people finally tried to start dealing with the crisis in the nineteen eighties.

NARRATOR: Steve Goose, a leading authority on landmines, is the Program Director at Human Rights Watch Arms Division.

GOOSE: 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.

NARRATOR: Landmines present us with one of the greatest humanitarian crises of this century and the next. Over 400 million landmines have been laid since the beginning of World War II. Today, the actual number of landmines in the ground is unknown. Experts estimate that between 80-120 million mines lie in wait in some 70 countries world wide and equally troubling, over 100 million landmines remain in stockpiles.

GOOSE: 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.

NARRATOR: The number of people killed or maimed illuminates the magnitude of the crisis. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, landmines claim 26,000 new victims each year.

In Cambodia, landmines cause the amputation of 300 limbs each month. In Angola, 5000 new artificial limbs are needed each year. By the mid 1990s in Afghanistan, 60,000 Afghan children needed prosthetic limbs.

STEINBERG: They are on an everyday basis affecting the lives of individuals around the world.

NARRATOR: Donald Steinberg, former U.S. Ambassador to Angola, is now the Special Representative of the President and the Secretary of State for Global Humanitarian Demining.

STEINBERG: Every twenty-five minutes, someone around the world steps on a landmine and has his or her life fundamentally changed because of one misstep.

NARRATOR: War-ravaged Angola is one of the nations which has suffered most from landmines. As U.S. Ambassador, Donald Steinberg witnessed first hand the devastating effects of 9 million landmines on the Angolan people.

STEINBERG: ...We visited a small clinic and, as we walked around the corner, we saw a woman on the operating table who was giving birth and having her leg treated for a landmine accident at the same time. It turned out that what had happened was that she was seventh months pregnant, she was starving, and she went into a mango grove to pick some fruit, and that grove had been purposely mined. And, the doctor told us that it was unlikely either the mother or the child would survive.

NARRATOR: Today, Angola has approximately 80 thousand amputees caused by landmine accidents. Hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from their homes and their fields by landmines. Millions more suffer daily disruptions of business, agriculture, and social life caused by the presence of landmines.

In the early 1990's, the dire situation in Angola and in other landmine affected countries gave rise to the creation of organizations committed to ridding the world of anti-personnel landmines. This network of non-governmental organizations joined forces to form the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

As momentum built within the international community to ban landmines, celebrities such as Princess Diana drew more attention to the issue.  The International Campaign was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997.

WILLIAMS: When we travel now, we meet with the foreign minister or the president.

NARRATOR: Jody Williams was the Campaign Co-ordinator and co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.

WILLIAMS: Before, we used to meet with second secretary twice removed on my ex-cousin. You know, that kind of thing. And, now, people want to meet with us. So, it's helped a lot.

MULLER: I was really impressed at how powerful the Nobel Peace Prize has been in this movement on landmines.

NARRATOR: Bobby Muller is the President of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation and co-founder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

MULLER: But, it's also been a little bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, we got an awful lot of recognition and, frankly, instant credibility to the issue, which has really helped us as we've gone after additional support to continue the work of the campaign. But, the other side of it is that, because we did get an international treaty signed by 122 countries in Ottawa at the same time that the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded, a lot of people sort of think, well, okay, that's it. And, we're really finding that it's a challenge to re-energize, you know, a broad constituency in America about the continuing concerns that landmines represent.

NARRATOR: By late 1997, the International Campaign had generated enough public and government support to produce an international treaty banning landmines.

In December of 1997 representatives from 159 countries met in Ottawa Canada to consider a new international treaty banning the use, stockpiling, and transfer of anti-personnel landmines. The Treaty was actually signed by 122 countries at the Ottawa meeting, although major world powers such as Russia, China, and the United States refused to sign the Treaty.

The Ottawa Treaty, as it is known, became binding international law more quickly than any treaty in history. On hundred thirty three nations have now signed the Treaty and 64 have actually ratified it. As a result, the Treaty went into effect on March 1, 1999.

The treaty has already produced results.

WILLIAMS: ...The U.S. military, for example, notes that there has been no significant trafficking of landmines in the last four and a half years now. That's a huge accomplishment. That means that even countries like China, Russia, that haven't signed, are not exporting landmines. That obviously is going to have a huge impact on the ground because there will be less landmines put in the ground.

MULLER: The ultimate sanction of this treaty is the stigmatizing of the weapon. So that anybody who uses it pays the price in public opinion. For that to be achieved, you really need to universalize the condemnation of the weapon.

NARRATOR: With the Ottawa Treaty an international standard, the International

Campaign is focusing on long term goals such as treaty compliance, victim assistance, and continued public awareness. One example is the Landmine Monitor.

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.

NARRATOR: Addressing the needs of those injured by landmines is also crucial.

STEINBERG: There are, around the world, perhaps a quarter of a million people who are survivors of landmine accidents. And, we need to look to assistance to them, not only to give them prosthetic devices and artificial limbs, but also to re-integrate them into society.

RUTHERFORD: And, on December sixteenth, nineteen ninety-three, we drove out to look at a loan applicant's project site, when we hit a mine and the vehicle I was in blew up.

NARRATOR: Ken Rutherford served as a relief worker in Somalia in 1993.

RUTHERFORD: I can say, I'm sitting before you as a landmine survivor who's extremely lucky. After I was injured by a mine, I had a radio to call for help. Most landmine survivors are not so lucky. Over half die in their own blood after they get hurt. I had radio to call for help, vehicles to come out and rescue me, brought me to a local hospital, stabilized me, flew to a third country to get help, Switzerland, that's after going though another country, Kenya, to amputate one of my legs, and sending me on to a fourth country. [cut] So, I'm extremely lucky and blessed to be here and to be an American.

NARRATOR: Ken's experiences led him to co-found the Landmines Survivors Network, an organization dedicated to helping landmine survivors. The Network helps landmine victims within developing countries like Cambodia and Afghanistan reintegrate into society by working on landmine related issues, such as training landmine awareness instructors and de-miners.

Highlighting the plight of victims helps increase public awareness of the landmines issue.

VOLK: It is remarkable to me the degree to which the U.S. public has been so compassionate on this issue. And, that compassion will then compel the government to do the right thing.

NARRATOR: As co-chairman of the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines, Joe Volk is working to mobilize support for the U.S. government to sign the Ottawa Treaty.

VOLK: When you look at the biggest disappointment that the U.S. campaign to ban landmines has experienced in these few years of work, it's the fact that the United States government has not signed or ratified the mine ban treaty.

NARRATOR: With mounting public opinion in favor of the landmine ban, the United States remains outside the Treaty for reasons it says have to do with national defense.

STEINBERG: The United States did not sign the Ottawa Convention for very specific reasons related to the defense of Korea and the use of anti-personnel landmines within systems that we now use to address attacks from tanks, as occurred in Desert Storm.

MULLER: Every objective study that has been done, including by senior military think-tanks, has said the same thing. U.S. soldiers would be better off if they didn't encounter anti-personnel landmines on any of the fields that they wind up getting deployed on. Remember, in Vietnam, the single leading cause of U.S. casualties in that war was landmines. And, the irony is in that ninety percent of the cases that U.S. soldiers got blown up, they were either our own landmines or landmines that had our own componetry. You know, our peace keeping operations, through the UN and NATO, the number one cause of casualties are landmines.

NARRATOR: Critics assert the opportunity to change U.S. landmine policy lies with President Clinton.

VOLK: The civilian Commander in Chief is the one that has to say to the military, ah, but that's one you can't use because humanitarian law, humanitarian needs, are more important.

VOLK: I think our strategy is to remind policy makers, and particularly President Clinton and the people in his administration, that this is a humanitarian issue, not a military utility question. And, the way we're going to do that is to work to open their eyes, soften their hearts, unplug their ears, so they can hear from the people, the landmine survivors, the communities that have to deal with this problem day after day, that it's very important for the U.S. to take an initiative to get rid of these indiscriminate weapons.

LEAHY: Well, the United States is not creating the problems that some in Cambodia and parts of Central America and other places have. But the United States carries the greatest moral force, really, of any country. Without us signing it allows a lot of other countries not to sign, countries we really want to sign.

NARRATOR: Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont has been the most vocal advocate in the U.S. Congress for banning landmines.

LEAHY: With us signing the treaty, we help in the enforcement and we help in the ability to get countries together to not only ban the use of land mines but to start removing the land mines that are in the ground. I think it's extremely important the United States gets involved.

NARRATOR: Pressure from Senator Leahy and the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines have helped shape U.S. landmine policy. In 1998 President Clinton said that the U.S. will sign the Ottawa Treaty by 2006 if alternatives to anti-personnel landmines are found, and additional funds will go to demining programs. But the Pentagon insists that it be allowed to keep landmines as a part of its weapons arsenal.

LEAHY: The, the President's position does reflect that of the Department of Defense and those who are in the, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It flies in the face of most of the retired four-star generals. There are, general after general after general upon retiring have said we ought to ban land mines, that they look at it, they don't have to follow the official line, and they say let's get rid of the land mines.

WILLIAMS: If all of our NATO allies except Turkey can give up this weapon and we have the most advanced Army in the world, why can't we? That's absurd. And, that's something that we're trying to push here in the U.S..

NARRATOR: Critics say the Pentagon's refusal to give up landmines does not mean landmines have military value.

LEAHY: Back at the time of the Geneva Convention in the early part of the century, the Pentagon didn't want to give up poison gas because they said, well, there are some instances where we might use it. And they say today we don't want to give up land mines because there are some instances where we can use them. Well, of course there are. There are instances where we can use chemical weapons. There is instances where we can use tactical nuclear weapons. But we have certain types of weapons that we agree we ought to give up.

NARRATOR: Instead of signing the Ottawa Treaty, the Clinton administration prefers to direct attention to its global humanitarian de-mining efforts, removing landmines from the ground and disabling them.

STEINBERG: The principle of the de-mining two thousand and ten initiative is that we need a goal, a concrete fixed goal, to focus our attention. And, that goal, as defined by President Clinton about sixteen months ago, is that, by the year two thousand and ten, we will eliminate the threat to civilians around the world of anti-personnel landmines.

NARRATOR: So far, the U.S. has spent 250 million dollars on de-mining the world's most dangerous minefields, training local de-miners, and providing mine awareness materials to children. The U.S. 1999 de-mining budget is over $100 million.

Beyond demining, the United States has destroyed over 3 million landmines. In addition, the U.S. is aggressively pursuing alternatives to landmines and has committed to not using landmines outside of Korea by 2003.

But critics say the United States could do more to end the use of landmines worldwide.

GOOSE: Nonetheless, the U.S. has continued to claim the mantle of leadership and it is had done that by focusing on mine clearance, which is a noble thing to do. [cut] And, this is to be commended. But, it is not true leadership. In some ways, the U.S. is trying to treat the effect without going after the cause. The cause of the landmine crisis is continued use of anti-personnel landmines.

QUINN: I understand where the Administration's reluctance is coming from, but, on a common sense, humanitarian basis, we've just got to stop the use of these landmines, and I have pledged to work with Pat Lahey and anybody else in this Congress who's willing to do that.

Congressman Jack Quinn of New York has been instrumental in pushing an anti-landmine agenda in the House of Representatives.

QUINN: ...if this situation ever existed in the United States, if a single landmine exploded in some Congressional district over the weekend, in the United States, the politicians couldn't run back to Washington quick enough to file a law and to pass a bill, because it affected them directly. I don't think, just because this situation exists outside our country, we can turn our back on it.

NARRATOR: In past sessions, Congressional legislation has been targeted at the Administration, encouraging the military to give up its use of anti-personnel landmines.

New legislation will be introduced later this year to push the U.S. to sign the Ottawa Treaty, perhaps including a fixed date for signature.

QUINN: ...the purpose of the mines were never necessarily to wipe out or to kill anybody. It's more to maim people and to slow down troops as they move and then people have to take care of the ones who are injured. So, it does deadly damage to people, losing limbs and __ and those kinds of things. So, it's pretty dreadful and we've got our work cut out for us, but, I tell you, it's become a labor of love for a lot of us in the House and the Senate to try to get it done.

NARRATOR: Congressional support of the issue goes beyond the Capitol dome. Senator Leahy was instrumental in the creation of the Agency for International Development's War Victims fund which will provide 10 to 12 million dollars to assist victims of landmines and other victims of war around the world in 1999. Ironically, in the beginning the U.S. was a leader on the landmines issue. A bill introduced by Senator Leahy in 1992 made the U.S. the first government to enact a moratorium on the export of anti-personnel landmines. At the United Nations in 1994, President Clinton was the first world leader to call for the eventual elimination of anti-personnel landmines. However, since then the U.S. has lagged behind the rest of the world on the landmines issue. No longer on the same side as the majority of its allies, the U.S. remains outside the Ottawa Treaty with rogue states such as Iraq, Libya, and North Korea.

Meanwhile, landmines go on killing and maiming.

WILLIAMS: The most important countries were Bosnia, Croatia, Angola, which is a serious problem, Cambodia, Afghanistan. Countries that are already living with contamination. Countries where, they might go, sink into war, again, as Angola has. We want those countries to sign and destroy their stocks first. There's not a lot of fear that the United States is going to mine Massachusetts Avenue.

NARRATOR: Although American soil remains safe from the danger of landmines, the fight to rid the rest of the world from these indiscriminate weapons is not over.

Public awareness is the key ingredient to the eventual ban on landmines. Public awareness aided in the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize and created the momentum for an international treaty.  Now, public awareness can be the driving force in changing the U.S. government's position.

GOOSE: 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 U.S. Congress to take meaningful action.

MULLER: Landmines, as an issue of public consciousness, you know, was really out there, particularly in the second half of '97. The public perception, I think, generally is, well, I think they sort of solved that problem. It doesn't take much to go back and engage the public and point out, hey, no, the United States never did sign that treaty. By the way, really, nothing's being done on cleaning up all those countries with landmine problems and all those victims out there, and we're still continuing to realize tens of thousands a year, nobody's doing a whole lot for them. Come on, let's finish the job.