Making
the World Safe
Preferred State:
Landmine-free world for 100% of humanity
Problem State:
110 million landmines in 64 countries killing or maiming about
26,000 people per year
Strategy 15:
Stopping Further Use/Manufacture; Removal of Existing Landmines
More than one
million children, women and men have been killed or maimed for life
by exploding landmines since 1975; 80% are civilians. Twenty-six
thousand people are maimed each year. Afghanistan has 10 million
anti-personnel mines; Angola 9 million; Cambodia 4 million; Mozambique,
Somalia and the Sudan each 2 million; Ethiopia and Eritrea 1 million.
An additional 2 million mines are produced each year, mostly in
Europe, the US and the CIS, and then shipped to and planted in Asia,
Africa and the Mid-East. The losses to human life, quality of life
and economic productivity (due to victims' being unable to work
and formally arable lands not being farmed for fear of setting off
mines) are tremendous, especially considering that affected areas
are already coping with their recent status as a war zone.
A comprehensive
international treaty outlawing the production, stockpiling, export,
sale and use of anti-personnel landmines, along with an international
organization to monitor compliance, accompanied by severe and swift
global economic sanctions by governments and the private sector
would be a low-cost means of stopping the further use, manufacture
and trade in landmines. Boycotts of any corporation dealing in landmines
would also bring the pressure of the global market place to bear
on the economics of landmine profitability. Only outlaw regimes
or a global pariah would dare use these anti-civilian weapons. With
effective sanctions and boycotts such regimes would be short-lived.
With universal accord on the evil of landmines such effectiveness
would be possible.
Part of the
international treaty will be a section that deals with existing,
already planted mines. Many militaries keep accurate records of
minefield locations, in some cases down to the detail of where individual
mines are laid. The treaty would ensure that this information were
made immediately available.
A reward or
bounty on landmines currently stockpiled and already deployed in
the countries of the world would be offered. Cottage industries
would be set up in all 64 countries where there are landmines in
the ground. Local residents would be intensively trained by US or
UN experts in how to locate mines using sophisticated detection
equipment and then how to remove and defuse the mines. These local
cadres would be provided with all necessary materials as well as
training. A Global Landmine Reclamation Corporation would establish
a buying office in each country and would purchase the mines from
the local trained and certified landmine removal entrepreneurs.
Each mine turned in would be worth more then an average day's wages
in the specific country.
Cost/Benefit
The cost of
stopping the manufacture and continuing use, and the removal of
existing landmines from the world would be $2 billion per year for
ten years -- a little less than the cost of a B-2 bomber, less than
half what the US spends on perfume,[119]
8% of arms sales to developing countries, and 0.25% of annual military
expenditures, or less than half the cost of surgery and care for
the amputation victims resulting from landmines.
Benefits would
include the halt to the loss of life and limb, arable land restored
to its former productive uses, and higher food output as a result
of bringing more land into cultivation. Employment and income for
mine-clearing personnel will provide an economic boost for the local
and national economy. Furthermore, the physical and psychological
safety provided through the removal of the mines will be unmeasurable
but of great importance.
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