Among the champions of an international landmine ban attending a major conference in Nairobi this week was a group of former generals from several countries who said on Wednesday that the deadly devices offered a false sense of security and were of little military value.
Currently, Russia, Nepal, Georgia and Myanmar are the only governments known to have used landmines since May 2003, according to the 2004 edition of the Landmine Monitor, published by International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL).
”We urge those governments to reconsider using landmines because of the horrific humanitarian disaster,” retired United States General Robert Gard, 76, a veteran of the wars his country fought in Korea and Vietnam, told reporters.
While much of US military policy is in keeping with the spirit of an international treaty banning the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of landmines, the US is not among the 144 state parties to the so-called Ottawa Convention.
The Nairobi meeting was convened to review progress made since the convention came into force in 1999 and to chart the road ahead.
”They no longer serve any military purpose, but also offer a false sense of security,” Gard said shortly after addressing a press conference.
Gard explained that during the Korean war (1950-1953), landmines left behind by US troops near what is now a buffer zone between North and South Korea killed 50 Australian soldiers.
In late 1960s, Vietcong guerrillas cleared landmines planted by US marines in Vietnam and used them as booby-traps against American troops.
”We lost several men because of our mines,” said Gard, pointing out: ”In the past, mines planned by US troops around its naval base in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba claimed 23 lives — 18 US marines and five Cuban civilians,” he said.
”An anti-personnel carrier (APC) landmine is a constantly loaded weapon that can kill anybody at anytime. It is an indiscriminate and hidden killer,” former Ukrainian army artillery commander Lieutenant General Tereshenko Volodimyr said at a news conference.
”Basic improvements in military weapons and equipment, ranging from more and better automatic weapons and greater use of protected vehicles to basic sensor suites, have rendered anti-personnel mines redundant,” said a statement jointly issued by retired generals from Canada, Argentina, Kenya, Jordan, the Ukraine and the United States. – Sapa-AFP