US promises end to landmines

The US delegation at a conference focused on landmines in Maputo, Mozambique, said on Friday that the country was looking for ways to join the 15-year-old international treaty banning anti-personnel mine usage.

"Our delegation in Maputo made clear that we are diligently pursuing solutions that would be compliant with and ultimately allow the United States to accede to the Ottawa Convention," National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said.

In total 161 countries have signed up to the Ottawa Treaty; only 36 UN members are not party to the accord, but permanent Security Council members the US, China and Russia are among their ranks.

Steve Goose, the head of the delegation in Maputo for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, said the US announcement was only minimal progress. Goose called for a more precise schedule on the issue and voiced concern that the US might seek to continue using stockpiled landmines even if production were to stop. Goose estimated that the US had around 9 million land mines in storage around the world.

"While they are saying they are working toward banning them in the future, they are leaving open the option of continuing to use them in the meantime, which is kind of a contradictory way to approach things," Goose told the Associated Press by phone. "They're bad enough to ban them, but we still want to use them."

Domestic criticism

The US government faced resistance at home, as well, but on different grounds as some politicians argued against the phasing-out of landmine usage. The Republican leader of the House Armed Services Committee in Congress, Howard "Buck" McKeon, said Obama was ignoring recent military advice. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently told Congress that landmines remained an "important tool in the arsenal of the armed forces of the United States." McKeon accused the White House of seeking a positive headline against the military's better judgement.

"Irrseponsible land mine use by other countries has come at a high humanitarian price, but America isn't part of the problem. Indeed, we do more than any other country to clean up those irresponsible weapons," McKeon said in a statement. "The president owes our military an explanation for ignoring their advice and putting them at risk, all for a Friday morning press release."

The stated goal of the conference in Maputo is to set foundations so that by 2025, no military in the world uses landmines to target people. In 2012, a UN report said that 4,000 people were killed or maimed around the world by landmines, many of them laid during conflicts that ceased long ago.

msh/jm (AFP, AP, Reuters)