Three years ago the international community joined forces to ban landmines. While the majority of the countries of the world worked to reach an agreement, several countries remained opposed to the effort. Nonetheless, today the 1997 Ottawa Treaty banning the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel mines has been signed by 137 countries and ratified by 95. The Treaty entered into force in March 1999, becoming binding international law more quickly than any treaty in history.

Although the international community has made great progress on the landmines issue, some of the countries that have not signed are the most deeply involved in the continued use of landmines. Among this group are the United States, North Korea, and South Korea – three countries whose position on landmines is linked by political and military conditions arising out of the Korean War. These three countries maintain that landmines are a crucial component of their military strategy. All sides used landmines in the Korean War, and mines are still called a key and “legitimate” weapon in maintaining the precarious division between North and South.

Initially, the United States was one of the leaders in promoting a landmine ban. But as the Ottawa Treaty took shape, so did U.S. objections. These centered on the prohibition of mixed-system mines – mines with both anti-tank and anti-personnel components – and the international community's refusal to allow a "Korea exception" that would permit the U.S. and South Korea to continue to use mines along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in South Korea.

A “Crucial Weapon”

The United States claimed at the time of the Ottawa Treaty negotiations, and maintains today, that landmines are a crucial component of the U.S. military strategy in Korea and that the one million mines along the DMZ help maintain the delicate peace by deterring a North Korean attack. Critics of the U.S. position argue that the DMZ minefields cannot and would not deter an invasion by either side.

According to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), the United States has an enormous stockpile of landmines in Korea, including 40,000 Air Force Gator Mines, 10,000 Army Volcano mines, a small number of man-portable Modular Pack Mine Systems (MOPMS), and 1.2 million M16 and M14 dumb mines. The ICBL reports that "U.S. war plans call for the laying of approximately one million new dumb mines in Korea within a few days at the onset of conflict. These mines will be laid not in the existing DMZ but throughout the 20-mile area between the DMZ and Seoul. Smart mines would presumably be scattered by air, artillery, and vehicles in both South Korea and North Korea."

In March, 2000 U.S. State Department Official Bob Beecroft reiterated the U.S. position on landmines in Korea. "The North Koreans have more than a million soldiers poised only 35 kilometers north of Seoul. The U.S. and the Republic of Korea bear the responsibility for holding that line. Therefore, we deploy anti-tank mines that are not compliant with the Ottawa Convention, in spite of the fact that they self-destruct in a matter of weeks. There are prices to pay for being the 800 pound gorilla. But no one else can take over our responsibility, and we will maintain it for the time being."

U.S. Policy

The Clinton Administration says that the U.S. will sign the Ottawa Treaty by 2006 if suitable alternatives to the mines used in Korea and in mixed-mine systems are developed. However, progress on developing those alternatives has been slow, in part because the Pentagon’s focus and money are elsewhere. The military has asked for funding for the RADM mine system, an artillery-fired anti-tank mine that includes anti-personnel landmines. This mix makes RADM illegal under the Ottawa Treaty, but the Administration still maintains its commitment to President Clinton's earlier pledge to develop alternatives. Beecroft stated that the United States is "now conducting research on technologies that could replace the mines in Korea by 2006. If we meet that goal – and I am optimistic that we will – then we will sign the Treaty."

The Numbers

North and South Korea rely on mines in their “peacetime” military and security policies to stop border crossings. An estimated 1.2 million landmines litter South Korea today. The South Korean Defense Ministry reportedly confirmed that 1.05 million anti-tank and anti-personnel mines are laid in "major defense areas north around the civilian control line and the demilitarized zone. In the rear areas, about 75,000 anti-personnel mines [are] installed for security." North Korea has also placed approximately 1 million "dumb" mines along their side of the DMZ. Experts do not believe that North Korea has laid mines in any other areas.

The two Koreas have a history of landmine production. The ICBL reports that South Korea has produced two copies of the U.S. Claymore mine. Both versions – the K440 and KM18A1 – are directional fragmentation mines. The ICBL claims that North Korea's production is "neither extensive nor sophisticated." North Korea is believed to have produced versions of the Soviet POMZ-2 and POMZ-2M fragmentation stake mines. Human Rights Watch reports that North Korea may also have produced wooden blast antipersonnel mines.

Neither North nor South Korea has been classified as a mine exporter, but both have imported mines. Between 1969 and 1992 South Korea imported 40,324 mines from the United States. North Korea's primary mine sources were the former Soviet Union and China. Human Rights Watch and the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation believe that North Korea's greatest source of mines during the Korean War was captured U.S. mines.

The size of the stockpiles of landmines maintained by the two countries is uncertain. South Korea's stockpile is believed to be approximately 2 million, almost twice the number of mines it has already laid. North Korea also maintains a stockpile of landmines, but the stockpile's size is unknown.

The Casualties

While civilians are not allowed in or along the DMZ, landmines have taken a toll. According to the South Korean Defense Ministry, at least 38 South Koreans, the majority of them soldiers, have died and 40 have been injured because of landmines placed along the DMZ. In addition, the Korean Campaign to Ban Landmines (KCBL) has reported that at least 1,000 civilians have been killed or injured by landmines that washed out of the DMZ during seasonal flooding. The effects of flooding on mines have become so severe that the South Korean Air Force initiated a program in 1999 to remove 2,700 landmines from four defense bases outside of Seoul. The project is anticipated to take 4 years.

Mines from the Korean War still present a problem in South Korea. Some war-era mines remain buried throughout the countryside, posing a more random, if limited, threat than the mines planted along the DMZ. On the North Korean side, injuries and deaths also occur along the DMZ, as they do in the South, but the extent of the problem is unreported.

The landmine problems facing North and South Korea differ from those encountered in other countries afflicted with large numbers of mines. For the most part, mines in Korea are concentrated in well-designated “fields” along the DMZ and surrounding areas and do not affect farming, industry, or other segments of "normal" life. Removing mines planted on the Korean Peninsula potentially is a less laborious process than mine-clearing operations elsewhere since, for the most part, both sides know exactly where the mines are located. While the costs of demining will always remain high – the technology and manpower is still specialized and time-consuming – the enduring danger from landmines in Korea, once the known fields are removed, ought to be much less than in countries such as Cambodia and Vietnam.

The Prognosis

Landmines will continue to be a major component of the military and political strategy on the Korean Peninsula for the foreseeable future, as no shift in the position of the three countries is likely. South Korea has announced that it will “retain mines until there is no longer a threat from North Korea, or until an effective alternative to anti-personnel mines is found." North Korea has said that it is "impossible for it to join the Mine Ban Treaty owing to the complicated security situation of the Korean Peninsula."

Although the situation in North and South Korea for the time being remains under control, the impact of landmines around the world is real. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, landmines claim 26,000 new victims each year. In some of the countries most affected by this scourge, landmines kill and injure civilians, render farm land useless, and devastate local communities and economies. Every twenty-five minutes someone around the world steps on a landmine.

If the U.S. lived up to its pledge to develop a real alternative to landmines, a “Korean exception” would not be necessary. In fact, both the U.S. and South Korea could end their reliance on mines in their military strategies, thereby contributing to a lessening of tensions on the peninsula. A number of U.S. military officials, including retired General James Hollingsworth, the former commander of U.S. troops in Korea, believe that landmines in Korea are no longer necessary and have called upon the U.S. to rethink its position.

North and South Korea have thus far been fortunate that, for all the mutual hostility over the last 47 years, the DMZ has not become a killing field. But “fortune” is notoriously fickle, and to tempt it unnecessarily is foolhardy when the promise of a different, better course is so near at hand.

Call outs

"The United States, North Korea, and South Korea ... maintain that landmines are a crucial component of their military strategy."

"While civilians are not allowed in or along the DMZ, landmines have taken a toll."

"Landmines will continue to be a major component of...strategy on the Korean Peninsula for the foreseeable future."

For more details and analysis, visit CDI's Landmines  page.
 

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