Press Releases: Clear Land Mines Off the Earth

Earlier this year, a 10-year-old boy was collecting scrap metal in Bosnia when he stepped on a land mine, which killed him instantly. The mine was planted during a war of which the boy had no memory. Days later, a man met a similar fate only a few miles away. He had left home to gather firewood.

Land mines and other unexploded ordnance continue to endanger civilians in more than 60 countries. Decades after soldiers have laid down their weapons and leaders have made peace, these grim legacies of war kill and maim local populations.

For more than two decades, the United States has been at the forefront of international efforts to remove these deadly devices and to address the humanitarian effects that these weapons can have on civilian populations.

Today, I released the annual To Walk the Earth in Safety Report, which powerfully chronicles the progress we have made in clearing land mines from both battlefields and backyards.

Billions in U.S. Aid

Since 1993, the U.S. has provided more than $2.3 billion in assistance in over 90 countries for conventional weapons destruction programs. Thanks to strong bipartisan support in Congress, these funds provide the expertise and equipment to safely clear land mines and other unexploded ordnance. They also provide medication, rehabilitation and vocational training for those injured by these deadly weapons.

For example, we helped clear former minefields so that preschools might be built in Sri Lanka. In Vietnam, onetime battlegrounds have been transformed into busycommercial sectors. Children were once tethered to trees so they would not wander into killing fields in Angola. Today, large areas of the countryside have been made safe. And when flooding unearthed old mines in Serbia this year, the U.S. Quick Reaction Force deployed to contain the threat.

Our efforts to address the humanitarian impacts of land mines extend to our own weapons stockpiles.

In 1994, President Clinton pledged that we would work toward the eventual eliminationof antipersonnel land mines. President George W. Bush restricted the use of land mines to only those with self-destruct or self-deactivation features. In September, President Obama brought us one step closer to the goal of a world free from anti-personnel land mines when he announced that we will no longer use them outside of the unique circumstances of the Korean Peninsula.

U.S. Plans to end Use

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Press Releases: Clear Land Mines Off the Earth