'Majority of Mine Victims Are Children': EU Condemns Trump Rollback of Landmine Restrictions
"Their use anywhere, anytime, and by any actor remains completely unacceptable to the European Union."
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U.S. soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment collect land mines, in the northern city of Mosul, Iraq on January 8, 2005. (Photo: Mauricio Lima/AFP via Getty Images)
The European Union on Tuesday condemned U.S. President Donald Trump's decision last week to roll back restrictions on the American military's use of landmines despite the deadly history of the weapons around the world.
Virginie Battu-Henriksson, spokesperson for the E.U.'s diplomatic service, said in a statement that Trump's rescission of an Obama administration order banning landmine use outside of the Korean peninsula "undermines the global norm against anti-personnel mines."
That international norm, said Battu-Henriksson, "has saved tens of thousands of people in the past twenty years."
"The conviction that these weapons are incompatible with International Humanitarian Law has led 164 states to join the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention."
—Virginie Battu-Henriksson, European Union
—Virginie Battu-Henriksson, European Union
"The majority of mine victims are children," Battu-Henriksson added. "The conviction that these weapons are incompatible with International Humanitarian Law has led 164 states to join the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, including all member states of the European Union. Their use anywhere, anytime, and by any actor remains completely unacceptable to the European Union."
The E.U.'s statement came days after the Trump White House announced Friday that it officially canceled the previous administration's policy restricting landmine use by the U.S. military, a move arms control groups and peace activists warned could lead to an increase in civilian deaths and set back the global movement to rid the planet of the dangerous weapons of war.
"Mr. Trump's policy rollback is a step toward the past, like many of his other decisions, and sends exactly the wrong message to those working to rid the world of the scourge of landmines," anti-war activist Jody Williams, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work to ban landmines, told Common Dreams in an email last week.
Leading 2020 Democratic presidential candidates joined the chorus denouncing Trump's decision.
In a tweet on Saturday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called the move "abhorrent" and vowed to "reverse this decision and work with our allies to eliminate landmines."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), in a statement to Vox on Monday, said "Trump's landmine policy reversal is barbaric, weakens America's moral leadership, and is quite simply a giveaway to the military-industrial complex."
If elected, Sanders said his administration would "reinstate the ban on their production and use outside of the Korean peninsula, and also work to achieve a North-South Korean peace agreement that would ultimately result in their being withdrawn from the Korean peninsula as well."
Trump lifts US restrictions on anti personnel landmines
AMERICA IS A ROGUE STATE
The 164 states that signed the Ottawa Convention met last November in Oslo to reaffirm their commitment to limiting the use of landmines, which can cause horrific injuries to civilians, and pledged to phase them out by 2025.
Around 30 countries, including the United States, Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan have so far refused to sign the 1997 Ottawa treaty.
AMERICA RESUMES ITS WAR ON THE WORLDS CHILDREN
AND THEIR CIVILIAN PARENTS
ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF ARMS SALES DRIVE THE US ECONOMY
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US lifts restrictions on 'smart' landmines
(ALL LANDMINES ARE ANTI PERSONNEL BOMBS THAT HARM CHILDREN AND CIVILIANS NONE OF THEM ARE SMART THEY ARE A DUMB WEAPON)
The Trump administration lifted restrictions on the deployment of "smart" anti-personnel landmines. Traditional landmines are notorious for injuring civilians, including children, years after conflicts have ended.
The US military will now again be free to deploy landmines after the Trump administration lifted restrictions, saying new technology made them safer.
Restrictions will be lifted for anti-personnel landmines that can be switched off or destroyed remotely rather than staying active in the ground forever, according to a White House statement.
The new generation "non-persistent" landmines could be deployed anywhere in "exceptional circumstances," said the White House.
The ban is a reversal of US former-President Barack Obama's policy that outlawed all types of anti-personnel landmines, except on the Korean peninsula along the border with North Korea.
"The Department of Defense has determined that restrictions imposed on American forces by the Obama administration's policy could place them at a severe disadvantage during a conflict against our adversaries."
Traditional landmines left in the ground after conflicts continue to maim thousands of civilians, including children, each year. Landmines that cannot be turned off or remotely destroyed will still come under the ban.
Groups speak out against landmines
Many groups reacted strongly to the Trump administration decision. The Arms Control Association, a Washington-based research and advocacy group, said "smart" landmines have failed to work and been rejected by all NATO allies of the United States.
"The world has moved on from the use of landmines. The US should, too," said Jeff Abramson, a senior fellow at the association.
"This shameful move will ultimately be reversed by future US leaders," said Mary Wareham from the group's arms policy division.
How dangerous are landmines?
In 2018, a total of 6,897 people worldwide were killed or injured by mines or leftover explosives from war, according to research by the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor.
Nearly 75% of victims whose identities were known were civilians, and more than half of the civilians were children, said the report.
A total of 164 countries, but not China, the US or Russia, have signed up to the United Nations 1999 Ottawa treaty — an international anti-landmine convention imposing restrictions and controls on the explosives.
President Donald Trump on Friday lifted US restrictions on deployment of landmines
31 JAN 2020
AFP/File / Nhac NGUYEN
Vietnamese landmine victim Nguyen The Nghia in January 2020 shows
his wounds caused by a munitions explosion when he was younger
in Quang Tri province
President Donald Trump on Friday lifted US restrictions on deployment of landmines, saying a new generation of high-tech explosives would improve security for US forces.
In the latest reversal of a policy of his predecessor Barack Obama, Trump gave the green light to so-called "non-persistent" landmines that can be switched off remotely rather than staying in the ground forever.
"The Department of Defense has determined that restrictions imposed on American forces by the Obama administration's policy could place them at a severe disadvantage during a conflict against our adversaries," a White House statement said.
"The president is unwilling to accept this risk to our troops," it said.
"President Trump is rebuilding our military, and it is stronger than ever."
Obama in 2014 banned the use of anti-personnel landmines with the exception, under pressure from military planners, of the Korean peninsula where the explosives dot the last Cold War frontier with North Korea.
Obama also ordered the destruction of anti-personnel stockpiles not designed to defend South Korea and said the United States would not cooperate with other nations in developing landmines.
Trump said the US military will now be free to deploy landmines around the world "in exceptional circumstances."
In rescinding the White House directive, Trump said that policy would now be set by the Pentagon, which is expected still to prohibit traditional landmines that cannot be turned off or destroyed remotely.
Neither Obama's nor Trump's orders affect anti-tank mines, which are not prohibited.
Despite Trump's move, the United States is not expected immediately to deploy anti-personnel mines, which it has not used in a substantial way since the 1991 Gulf War.
More than 160 countries are party to the 1999 Ottawa Convention that aims to eliminate anti-personnel mines, including most of the Western world.
Major outliers include the United States, Russia and China as well as India and Pakistan.
US plans to relax restrictions on landmines
AFP / AHMAD AL-BASHA
Jamila Qassem Mahyoub, a Yemeni woman whose legs
were amputated after stepping on a landmine while herding
her sheep in 2017, holds a prosthetic leg in a house in
Yemen's third city of Taez on March 20, 2019.
The US government plans to relax restrictions on the army's use of anti-personnel mines, reversing an Obama-era commitment that more than 160 countries have signed up to, and which aims to limit injuries to civilians, US media reported Thursday.
According to CNN, President Donald Trump wants to reverse an order issued by his predecessor Barack Obama to bring the US in line with the Ottawa Convention that bans the use, production, stockpiling or transfer of anti-personnel mines, although Obama exempted the use of landmines in the Korean peninsula's de-militarized zone.Trump was expected to rescind the 2014 order and leave it up to the Pentagon to decide on its use of landmines, CNN said, quoting unnamed military officials.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper did not deny the reports.
"There will be a change coming out. I'm not going to comment on it until it is," he told reporters at a news conference.
The Pentagon is expected to only deploy anti-personnel mines if they are fitted with a feature that allow them to automatically self-destruct or deactivate after 30 days, CNN said.
It added that a 2017 review ordered by then defense secretary Jim Mattis found that the prohibition of all anti-personnel mines could put US troops at increased risk.
The US news site Vox quoted an internal State Department cable designed to allow US diplomats to explain the decision.
"The United States will not sacrifice American service members' safety," Vox quoted the cable as saying, "particularly when technologically advanced safeguards are available that can allow landmines to be employed responsibly to ensure our military's warfighting advantage, while also limiting the risk of unintended harm to civilians."
The 164 states that signed the Ottawa Convention met last November in Oslo to reaffirm their commitment to limiting the use of landmines, which can cause horrific injuries to civilians, and pledged to phase them out by 2025.
Around 30 countries, including the United States, Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan have so far refused to sign the 1997 Ottawa treaty.
A report last year by the NGO Landmine Monitor said that 6,897 people were killed or injured by landmines in 2018, with a record 3,789 of those caused by improvised explosive devices. That figure was up from 3,998 victims in 2014.
The US government plans to relax restrictions on the army's use of anti-personnel mines, reversing an Obama-era commitment that more than 160 countries have signed up to, and which aims to limit injuries to civilians, US media reported Thursday.
According to CNN, President Donald Trump wants to reverse an order issued by his predecessor Barack Obama to bring the US in line with the Ottawa Convention that bans the use, production, stockpiling or transfer of anti-personnel mines, although Obama exempted the use of landmines in the Korean peninsula's de-militarized zone.Trump was expected to rescind the 2014 order and leave it up to the Pentagon to decide on its use of landmines, CNN said, quoting unnamed military officials.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper did not deny the reports.
"There will be a change coming out. I'm not going to comment on it until it is," he told reporters at a news conference.
The Pentagon is expected to only deploy anti-personnel mines if they are fitted with a feature that allow them to automatically self-destruct or deactivate after 30 days, CNN said.
It added that a 2017 review ordered by then defense secretary Jim Mattis found that the prohibition of all anti-personnel mines could put US troops at increased risk.
The US news site Vox quoted an internal State Department cable designed to allow US diplomats to explain the decision.
"The United States will not sacrifice American service members' safety," Vox quoted the cable as saying, "particularly when technologically advanced safeguards are available that can allow landmines to be employed responsibly to ensure our military's warfighting advantage, while also limiting the risk of unintended harm to civilians."
The 164 states that signed the Ottawa Convention met last November in Oslo to reaffirm their commitment to limiting the use of landmines, which can cause horrific injuries to civilians, and pledged to phase them out by 2025.
Around 30 countries, including the United States, Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan have so far refused to sign the 1997 Ottawa treaty.
A report last year by the NGO Landmine Monitor said that 6,897 people were killed or injured by landmines in 2018, with a record 3,789 of those caused by improvised explosive devices. That figure was up from 3,998 victims in 2014.
‘Absolutely horrific’: Trump reportedly prepares to roll back restrictions on use of landmines
A CAUSE FOR SUSSEX INC. HARRY AND MEGHAN, MOM; PRINCESS DI FOUGHT AGAINST LAND MINES, NEW HOME CANADA DOES TOO
January 30, 2020 By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
President Donald Trump is reportedly preparing to roll back established constraints on the U.S. military’s ability to use landmines overseas despite the weapons’ long history of killing and maiming civilians around the world.
CNN, citing multiple anonymous Defense Department officials, reported Thursday that the Trump administration is expected to loosen landmine restrictions in the coming days by rescinding a 2014 order by former President Barack Obama that limited U.S. landmine use to the Korean Peninsula.
“President Obama’s policy brought the U.S. policy closely in line with the obligations of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty,” Jody Williams, an anti-war activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work to ban landmines, told Common Dreams in an email. “Mr. Trump’s policy rollback is a step toward the past, like many of his other decisions, and sends exactly the wrong message to those working to rid the world of the scourge of landmines.
More than 160 nations have ratified the Mine Ban Treaty, also known as the Ottawa Treaty, which prohibits the stockpiling, production, and use of landmines. The United States is one of just 32 U.N. member states that have not ratified the treaty.
“The beauty of the treaty is that it has established a new norm and even countries outside the treaty felt the stigma related to landmines and changed policies, even if they didn’t join the treaty,” said Williams. “Mr. Trump’s landmine move would be in line with all of his other moves to undercut arms control and disarmament in a world much in need of them. The landmine ban movement will do what it has always done with governments that still remain outside the Mine Ban Treaty—push back and continue the push to universalize the treaty—including the U.S.”
The Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, a non-governmental research initiative, estimated in a November 2019 report that 130,000 people were killed by landmines between 1999 and 2018. The majority of the deaths were civilians.
According to CNN, the Trump administration’s new policy will place the authority to use landmines in the hands of “commanders of the U.S. military’s combatant commands, usually a four-star general or admiral, such as the commanders of U.S. Africa Command and U.S. Central Command which oversee operations on the African continent and the Middle East respectively.”
“The new policy… is expected to permit the operational use of landmines only if they have a 30-day self-destruction or self-deactivation feature,” CNN reported. “The new policy would also allow for the development, production, and procurement of landmines only if they have these features.”
MATTIS CALLED FOR THIS
The decision to rescind the Obama administration’s 2014 policy was recommended following a Pentagon review launched in 2017 by then-Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis.
“So horrific that after decades of international efforts to rid the world of landmines, Trump is about to ‘make landmines great again’ by loosening restrictions on their use,” Medea Benjamin, co-founder of anti-war group CodePink, told Common Dreams.
Advocacy group Public Citizen echoed that reaction on Twitter.
“Is this what Make America Great Again means? Who in their right mind can justify this?” the group asked. “Landmines have a long history of killing and wounding civilians and are banned by more than 160 countries. Absolutely horrific.”
Pictured:
The harrowing plight of children maimed in Afghanistan by the thousnds of landmines scattered across the country after decades of war
Up to 10 million mines lay in schools, fields and pathways, and dozens of children are maimed and killed every day.
There are nearly 100,000 amputees in Afghanistan and the slow process of demining will take hundreds of years.
Mines from Britain and the U.S. have been found but the vast majority are from a war with Russia that ended in 1989.
Helicopter crews dropped millions of 'butterfly mines', which are made of green plastic and are mistaken for toys.
CNN, citing multiple anonymous Defense Department officials, reported Thursday that the Trump administration is expected to loosen landmine restrictions in the coming days by rescinding a 2014 order by former President Barack Obama that limited U.S. landmine use to the Korean Peninsula.
“President Obama’s policy brought the U.S. policy closely in line with the obligations of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty,” Jody Williams, an anti-war activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work to ban landmines, told Common Dreams in an email. “Mr. Trump’s policy rollback is a step toward the past, like many of his other decisions, and sends exactly the wrong message to those working to rid the world of the scourge of landmines.
“The beauty of the treaty is that it has established a new norm and even countries outside the treaty felt the stigma related to landmines and changed policies, even if they didn’t join the treaty,” said Williams. “Mr. Trump’s landmine move would be in line with all of his other moves to undercut arms control and disarmament in a world much in need of them. The landmine ban movement will do what it has always done with governments that still remain outside the Mine Ban Treaty—push back and continue the push to universalize the treaty—including the U.S.”
The Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, a non-governmental research initiative, estimated in a November 2019 report that 130,000 people were killed by landmines between 1999 and 2018. The majority of the deaths were civilians.
According to CNN, the Trump administration’s new policy will place the authority to use landmines in the hands of “commanders of the U.S. military’s combatant commands, usually a four-star general or admiral, such as the commanders of U.S. Africa Command and U.S. Central Command which oversee operations on the African continent and the Middle East respectively.”
“The new policy… is expected to permit the operational use of landmines only if they have a 30-day self-destruction or self-deactivation feature,” CNN reported. “The new policy would also allow for the development, production, and procurement of landmines only if they have these features.”
MATTIS CALLED FOR THIS
The decision to rescind the Obama administration’s 2014 policy was recommended following a Pentagon review launched in 2017 by then-Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis.
“So horrific that after decades of international efforts to rid the world of landmines, Trump is about to ‘make landmines great again’ by loosening restrictions on their use,” Medea Benjamin, co-founder of anti-war group CodePink, told Common Dreams.
Advocacy group Public Citizen echoed that reaction on Twitter.
“Is this what Make America Great Again means? Who in their right mind can justify this?” the group asked. “Landmines have a long history of killing and wounding civilians and are banned by more than 160 countries. Absolutely horrific.”
Pictured:
The harrowing plight of children maimed in Afghanistan by the thousnds of landmines scattered across the country after decades of war
Up to 10 million mines lay in schools, fields and pathways, and dozens of children are maimed and killed every day.
There are nearly 100,000 amputees in Afghanistan and the slow process of demining will take hundreds of years.
Mines from Britain and the U.S. have been found but the vast majority are from a war with Russia that ended in 1989.
Helicopter crews dropped millions of 'butterfly mines', which are made of green plastic and are mistaken for toys.
