Antipersonnel landmines are still being laid today. These - and mines from previous conflicts - continue to claim victims in every corner of the globe each day. The situation has improved in recent years, but a global mine crisis remains and there is still a lot to be done before we live in a mine-free world.

The recent coverage of President Bush's new US landmine policy sugar-coats a major policy rollback.   The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty has made a tremendous, life-saving impact throughout the world.  More than 52 million mines have been destroyed from global stockpiles, trade of the stigmatized weapon has slowed to a trickle, hundreds of thousands of mines have been removed from the ground, most countries have given up use of the weapon, and casualty rates have declined dramatically.  US refusal to join this treaty gives political cover to countries such as Russia, India, and Pakistan, which have laid hundreds of thousands of mines in recent years with devastating consequences for innocent victims.

Though President Clinton failed to sign the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, he did create a policy that would put the US on track to join the treaty by 2006.  The new Bush policy rejects any notion that the US will join the treaty, puts off the destruction of "persistent" landmines until 2010, and asserts that our military may use self-deactivating "smart" mines indefinitely.  These so-called "smart" mines cannot discriminate between the foot of a soldier and that of a child, tend to be scattered by air and are thus difficult to mark and map, pose tremendous challenges and costs for demining teams, and threaten the lives and limbs of innocent civilians and US troops who step on the weapons soon after they've been planted.

Meanwhile, reportedly, the US military hasn't used antipersonnel landmines since 1991.  Let's join the majority of the world in giving up this cruel, outmoded, and indiscriminate weapon!