MR. GOOSE:The human costs of landmines are appalling. The Red Cross estimates that probably some 15,000 people a year are either killed or injured by landmines around the world. That means that while your viewers are watching this program, probably one or two people are going to be killed or maimed by landmines.

SEN. LEAHY: Time after time, when I've talked with landmine victims in Africa, in Central America, in every other part of the world where I've talked to them, and I've said, "What side were you on in the conflict?" Time and time again, they say, "I'm just trying to raise food for my family. I didn't have a side."

NARRATOR: They are known as "hidden killers" and "weapons of mass destruction in slow motion." They have killed or maimed more people than have been killed by nuclear, biological and chemical weapons combined. They have been called the perfect soldier, never sleeping and never missing. Unlike other weapons, many of them are designed to maim, but not kill. They are landmines.

ADM. CARROLL: One-hundred and thirty years ago, General Sherman said that "war is hell." Today, in some respects, war is even worse. For example, there are modern weapons which go on wrecking havoc, destroying lives, maiming innocent children, killing farmers in their fields long after the battles are over. This program will show you graphic evidence of this in images which are grim and disturbing, but you will see firsthand evidence of the deadly legacy of landmines.

MR. RUTHERFORD: About ten minutes into our excursion, the Land Rover filled up with dust and lurched forward. I looked at my Somali colleague. His face was covered with dust, and then down to my legs. My right foot was gone. At first, I wondered if the bone that I saw was mine or Duali, my IRC colleague. It was mine.

Several times I tried to put my right foot back on. It was hanging by stretched skin towards my knee. I would attempt to do a partial sit-up so I could reach up and touch my foot, and the foot kept on falling off.

NARRATOR: The International Committee of the Red Cross says landmines kill or injure more than 1200 people per month world-wide, most of them unarmed civilians.

GEN. BLAGDEN: Every 15 minutes of the daylight hours of every day, of every week, of every month, of every year, I hit my desk and I say, "That's another one gone."

MS. WILLIAMS: A report by the US State Department released last year estimates 100 million uncleared landmines in the world today.

NARRATOR: Jody Williams is coordinator of the Landmines Campaign of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, which is part of an international effort to ban the production, stock-piling, sale and use of landmines.

MS. WILLIAMS:There are also estimated to be an additional 100 million in stockpiles around the world.

NARRATOR: Many landmines are designed specifically to maim rather than kill, in order to make the victims an ongoing burden.

MR. GOOSE:Landmine injuries are particularly gruesome.

NARRATOR: Steve Goose is the Washington Director of the Human Rights Watch Arms Project, which co-authored the authoritative report, Landmines: A Deadly Legacy.

MR. GOOSE:Doctors who have to deal with these things in the field say that they are amongst the worst things to try and treat. The blast blows up bits of shoe, and plastic, and metal far up into a leg. Almost always it results in either traumatic amputation by the mine itself or by surgical amputation later.

General BLAGDEN: Many people won't even make it out of the minefield; they'll die in agony where they are. Over half will be women and children. And those that survive will be physically, mentally, socially and economically crippled for life.

NARRATOR: The loss of a limb is just the beginning of a landmine victim's problems. A victim will typically have to undergo as many as six to eight operations. He or she might have to have a prosthesis fitted and then learn to walk again. Prosthetic techniques struggle to keep up with the gruesome effects of landmine technology and the cost of rehabili-tation is hundreds the times the cost of the mine itself.

And yet deaths and maimings are only part of the legacy of landmines.

MS. WILLIAMS:Think of a national territory with 10 million landmines in it. What does that mean to returning refugee popu-lations when they come back into areas where they used to live which are now mined? How do they know where to resettle? Where do they plant their crops? Where do they graze their animals? Where do they build their huts? It obviously has to have a long term impact on the rebuilding of a society in a post-conflict setting.

MR. GOOSE:There are more than 60 countries that have reported landmine incidents. There are probably about two dozen countries that have very serious landmine problems, where it's affecting the way that the country can operate.

NARRATOR: The State Department estimates there are more than 10 million landmines in Afghanistan, nine million in Angola, three million in Iraqi Kurdistan, and two million each in Somalia, Mozambique and the former Yugoslavia, to name just a few countries.

MS. WILLIAMS:The only parts of the world today that are not infested with landmines are North America, Antarctica, New Zealand and Australia. Practically every other region of the world has a serious landmine problem. It has to be addressed.

NARRATOR: Cambodia has four to seven million mines on its territory. Most were laid between 1979 and 1991. According to the Pentagon, 600,000 US-produced antipersonnel mines were shipped to Cambodia between 1971 and 1975.

Landmine explosions since then have resulted in more than 30,000 amputees. Between 300 to 700 Cambodians still lose limbs each month. It is thought that for every mine victim who makes it to a hospital, another dies in the field. The Cambodian conflict may be the first war in history in which mines claimed more victims, both combatant and civilian, than any other weapon.

Since the end of the Gulf War, landmines laid by Iraq have killed more than 1700 Kuwaiti civilians. Eighty-three mine clearers have died while clearing the Kuwaiti desert of mines.

It is not only recently laid mines that are a problem.

MR. GOOSE:There are certainly still plenty of landmines our there from World War II. Some people would say that there are explosive devices that work like landmines that are still left from World War I. But there are still people who are being injured from landmines in Libya, and Poland, and France every year from World War II vintage mines.

NARRATOR: The tragic cost in life and limb is matched by the cost of defusing the danger. The UN estimates that the average cost for removing a landmine can range up to $1000. The average yearly per capita income in Cambodia is about $280. To completely demine Cambodia would require every one of Cambodia's 10 million people devoting every single penny earned to demining for the next three-and-a-half years. While this is clearly impossible, it highlights the fact that landmines cripple economic development long after the fighting stops.

The huge number of mines scattered around the world is testimony to the wide variety of producers and exporters. The Arms Project has identified more than 340 types of antipersonnel mines alone.

MR. GOOSE:We've identified at least 56 nations that have produced landmines. Some of those have stopped producing now; maybe about a half-a-dozen or so have stopped producing. There are probably other nations that we've not yet identified that do make landmines. About 36 countries are exporters or have been exporters.

NARRATOR: In recent years, China, Italy and the former Soviet Union have been the world's biggest exporters of landmines.

It is estimated that five to ten million landmines are produced annually. It is difficult to track where a landmine is manufactured. Some are the product of multiple manufacturers, often in different countries. And the most destructive, such as the US Claymore mine, are regularly copied and produced by other nations.

SEN. LEAHY: A landmine can be very inexpensive or very sophisticated.

NARRATOR: Senator Patrick Leahy is the senior senator from Vermont and the originator, along with Representative Lane Evans of Illinois in the House, of a landmine moratorium, banning the export of US antipersonnel landmines. Originally enacted in 1992, the moratorium was recently extended for another three years.

SEN. LEAHY: Whether inexpensive or sophisticated, they can tear your limbs off or kill you. Even the simplest ones can maim a person for life. And I'm talking about landmines that only cost three or four dollars to make and to deploy.

COL. JOHNSON: I am convinced though that a ban on antipersonnel mines is not a way to solve the problem.

NARRATOR: Before his recent retirement, Colonel Richard Johnson was project manager for Mines, CounterMine and Demoli-tions at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, where landmines for the US military are developed.

COL. JOHNSON: If manufactured antipersonnel mines are banned, an insurgent who wants to still do that same job will find the assets to manufacture his own. He'll either do it from dud-fired ordinance or make his own. It's not that hard to do.

NARRATOR: Many other countries, however, now support Senator Leahy's view. Since the United States decided to stop exporting landmines in 1992, others have done the same.

SEN. LEAHY: The Netherlands banned it. France, Greece, South Africa. Cambodia said that they -- announced that they will not use them. Others are going to follow suit.

NARRATOR: Landmine opponents point to the weapon's inability to discriminate between combatants and civilians.

MS. WILLIAMS:What makes the landmine different from the rifle, for example, is the soldier. The soldier can point the rifle, he shoots the rifle; when the battle's over, he takes it home. That is not the case with the landmine. He puts it in the ground, he walks away; the landmine is there, it remains there for literally decades.

COL. JOHNSON: First of all, I don't think mines are indis-criminate if used responsibly and controlled responsibly.

SEN. LEAHY: Time and time again, I asked them of the two sides, or three sides that might have been fighting in your country, who put the landmine there that tore off your leg, or killed your children, or killed your spouse. And time and time again, the answer's the same: "I don't know. All I know is my life has changed forever as a result of it."

MR. GOOSE:We believe that landmines have been used indis-criminately by most people who have, in fact, deployed landmines over the course of the past several decades. But we further believe that landmines are inherently indiscriminate because of their time-delay function. And we think that because of that, they should already be considered as illegal and inhumane weapons of war under customary international humanitarian law.

COL. CARNAHAN:The same criticism can be made of virtually any weapon. Any weapon can be used in an indiscriminate manner.

NARRATOR: Burrus Carnahan is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel. He was a United States delegate to an international working group which drafted a Landmine Protocol to regulate their use. The protocol prohibits direct use of mines against civilians. It also calls for recording and publishing minefield locations.

COL. CARNAHAN:Certainly the protocol on landmines that was drafted in '79 and '80 has not been as successful as we had hoped.

NARRATOR: Unfortunately, the United States is in the embarrassing position of having signed, but not yet ratified the 1980 UN Convention and accompanying protocols. To this day, both languish in "ratification limbo."

Another problem with the protocol is that it did not really take into account the changes in the way landmines are being used.

COL. JOHNSON: You can use mines to interdict or interrupt his resupply forces coming forward. But essentially what you're trying to do with mines is at a minimum expense to yourself, in terms of commitment of people -- what can be referred to as "economy of force." You're trying to mould the battlefield, shape the terrain, make the enemy do something you want him to do, so you can fight on your terms at least cost to yourself.

MS. WILLIAMS:When one thinks of landmines, one generally has heroic visions of World War II. When I talk to people today about landmines, that is what they think of. They think of barrier defense. They think of huge fields of antitank mines blocking the invasion forces of the evil enemy, correct? Unfortunately, since World War II, mines have not been used that way.

MR. GOOSE:What we have seen increasingly over the past several decades is that landmines have changed from being primarily a defensive, limited theater weapon to a weapon that is used offensively in a strategic sense, where it's used to create refugee flows, or to empty vast stretches of territory, or to deny a population its food supply. These offensive uses that are directed primarily against civilians are, of course, outlawed under the laws of war.

NARRATOR: Landmine technology has also been changing. Landmines have come a long way from the relatively large plate-shaped devices that were buried by hand. Today, many mines are so-called plastic mines, making detection extraordinarily difficult.

COL. CARNAHAN:The minimum metal content mines are -- I think most experts recognize now, are going to create even more humanitarian problems. These mines have such a small metal content that it is very, very difficult to detect them with any type of mine-clearing -- mine-detecting technology.

NARRATOR: Mines are also becoming increasingly difficult to disarm.

MS. WILLIAMS:They have now been fitted with anti-handling devices, which are little micro chips, and they can detect even a five degree tilt in the mine. And if you tilt it that much, it'll blow up in your face.

NARRATOR: Even more deadly is the way in which massive numbers of landmines can be delivered in extremely short periods of time.

MS. WILLIAMS:You have airborne systems that can scatter thousands of mines within a minute. There's an Italian system that can scatter upwards to 2000 mines in a minute. How can you possibly map where those mines have gone, so that in the post-conflict situation, you can go and find those mines and remove them, so the civilian population can go back and use the soil.

MR. GOOSE:You can't accurately mark and record a scatter-able minefield. You may have some general notion of the peri-meters of the minefield, but there's no way you can accurately indicate where mines are or even really what the borders of the minefield are.

NARRATOR: Some, however, think technology is the solution rather than the problem. In their view, smart mines are better than no mines.

COL. JOHNSON: The scatterable mines used by the United States I think can best be categorized as a responsible use of explosive ordinance. They are all -- The ones produced today are all electronic refused. They all have a reserve cell or a battery inside them which is activated when the mine is dispensed. The mine has a time set to self-destroy or self-destruct anywhere from four hours to 15 days after the mine has been employed. If during that time, the power in the reserve cell reaches a lower limit, the mine will also self-destruct.

NARRATOR: There is, however, disagreement about the reliability of such mines. But even with the very low failure rate, humanitarian issues arise.

SEN. LEAHY: Let's say those were the only ones, and let's say they work perfectly, or as perfectly as most such things would work, and so you scatter 2000 of them and 90 percent work. Do you want to take a chance where those other 200 are that didn't work? Because they're going to kill you, or they're going to tear your legs off, or your arms off, or blind you.

NARRATOR: The advances in mine-making technology have far outstripped those of mine clearance. Contrary to the systems used by the military to clear a path through a minefield, the ability to disarm all the mines in a field is distinctly low-tech.

MS. WILLIAMS:I spent several weeks in Cambodia in November with the demining teams of CMAC, Cambodian Mine Action Center. They're literally on their hands and knees with something that looks like a large, fat knitting needle, a prod, and they literally prod the ground centimeter by centimeter.

Now can you imagine -- Even take a state the size of Massachusetts, which is relatively small. Can you imagine having to start at one end of Massachusetts and prodding the ground of Massachusetts centimeter by centimeter to find 10 million landmines? Figure it out. How long's it going to take? Multiply that by Cambodia, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Mozambique, Somalia, Rwanda, Angola, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Peru, Colombia. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out it's going to take a long time to clean up the mess.

NARRATOR: Because of the horrific consequences of a mistake, if deminers are not absolutely sure that an area is completely clear, they must treat it as a live area and demine it again. The United Nations standard for successful mine clearance is 99.9 percent.

Jody Williams believes that part of the problem is that military forces do not take the long term view.

MS. WILLIAMS:When they talk about the landmine, they talk about it only in the context of the engagement, of the battle. They do not feel any responsibility toward cleanup after the battle. They think they have the right to go in and do whatever is necessary to get the job done, and then walk away and leave it for the civilians to deal with.

NARRATOR: But landmines are not just a problem for civilians.

SEN. LEAHY: More and more, I've talked with those who've been in combat who tell me they wish there were no such things. General Gray, the former commandant of the US Marine Corps, a combat veteran, said he's seen more Americans killed by American landmines than the American landmines being used to destroy any enemy.

NARRATOR: The UN estimates that 105 million mines, or more, may be deployed in 62 nations. That's one mine in the ground for every 50 people on earth. Disarming them all would cost from $200 to $300 billion.

In some respects, the position of those supporting the use of landmines is analogous to the position of the National Rifle Association on guns. In other words, mines don't kill people, people kill people.

COL. CARNAHAN:If landmines are used responsibly, if they are laid on an area of land that is itself a military objective, if there are military forces around that know where those mines are and can warn civilians away, if the location of that minefield is marked so that they can be cleared later after the conflict is over, then I don't think the use of landmines violates any existing rule of war.

NARRATOR: While even those who support banning landmines acknowledge they have a military benefit, they question the long term cost.

MR. GOOSE:You have to balance off the military utility versus the humanitarian disaster that landmines are causing around the world. And it's our strong belief that, in fact, the humanitarian and economic and social consequences of the use of landmines far outweigh the military utility.

The only way to really come to grips with the landmines disaster on a global scale is to have a comprehensive ban: No production, no possession, no stockpiling, no use and no transfer.

NARRATOR: Following his call to ban mine exports, Senator Leahy recently announced a new piece of legislation calling for a one-year moratorium on the procurement and production of anti-personnel landmines by the United States. The legislation also urges the president to encourage other major producers of anti-personnel landmines to adopt similar moratoriums.

The landmine issue raises a compelling question: Should short term considerations of military expedience override long term humanitarian and economic costs?

One thing is certain: As long as landmines are seen as an acceptable weapon of war, the world will continue to pay the consequences -- an arm, a leg, and a life at a time.

RED CROSS WORKER: These improvised buggies and trolleys the children behind me have are made out of mines, parts of a VS-2.2 Italian mine. We have also the integral parts of the V-69. The mines are collected from the minefield by the children. Are then taken apart, having done the dangerous bit retrieving the mines from the minefield. They're then dismantled and used as components for the go-carts or buggies.