Bishop Pates calls US to join international land mine ban
Washington D.C., 24 February 2014: The head of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on International
Justice and Peace is asking the government to join an international convention banning
the use of land mines.
“Please urge the President to exercise his leadership
on banning landmines by acceding to the Ottawa Convention,” wrote Bishop Richard E.
Pates of Des Moines, Iowa, in a Feb. 12 letter to National Security Advisor Susan
E. Rice.
“Our views are grounded in Church teaching that calls for a ban on
landmines on moral grounds since they are indiscriminate weapons that kill and maim
innocent civilians during and long after hostilities end,” Bishop Pates explained.
His
letter calls the U.S. to ratify the Convention on the Use, Stockpiling, Production
and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and Their Destruction, also known as the Mine
Ban Treaty or the Ottawa Convention.
The international accord calls for signatory
countries to cease the development and production of anti-personnel land mines, destroy
its stockpile of land mines within four years, and clear its mined areas within a
decade of signing the treaty. A small number of mines may be retained for the sake
of training purposes.
Currently, 161 countries have signed the convention,
including member states of the European Union, Canada, Australia, all of the nations
in South America, and most countries in Africa.
In his letter, Bishop Pates
referred to a statement made by Rice in her former role as U.S. Ambassador to the
United Nations. In 2011, the ambassador voiced concern over the dangers that unexploded
mines “cost in terms of security and human potential” and concluded that “we must
resolve to strengthen our efforts to ensure that the earth is sown with the fruits
of opportunity and prosperity, not dangerous remnants of war.”
Bishop Pates
asked that the U.S. ratify the treaty in “keeping with the spirit of your statement”
on land mines.
Echoing the Holy See's concern for “deplorable humanitarian
consequences of anti-personnel mines,” he also noted the danger that unexploded mines
still pose today to civilians in countries around the globe, including in Iraq, Cambodia,
Lebanon and Afghanistan.
The bishop pledged the support of the U.S. Bishops’
Conference, saying that it would “work vigorously for ratification of a treaty that
rids the world of these weapons which cause long-term, irreparable, and indiscriminate
harm.” Source: CAN