Canada to Sponsor Global Ban on Land Mines by 2000

Canada said Saturday that it will put forward an international treaty to ban land mines by the year 2000 and invite other nations to sign it here next year.

The initiative was announced by Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy at the end of a three-day conference on land mines attended by representatives of 70 nations in the Canadian capital.

Axworthy acted after the participating governments failed to agree on a date for enforcing a ban. Nearly 50 countries have endorsed banning mines, but there are serious differences over how extensive the prohibition should be and whether there should be any exemptions.

The United States opposed a deadline for enacting a treaty, and U.S. officials reacted cautiously to Axworthy’s initiative.

“We’re not prepared to set a date, but we are prepared to start work immediately on an international agreement to ban land mines. If this can take place within that time frame and if our concerns can be met, we’ll be very supportive,” said Karl F. Inderfurth, the deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a member of the American delegation here.

The Clinton administration has placed a moratorium on the export of mines, has begun destroying 3 million mines in the U.S. stockpile and is sponsoring a U.N. resolution calling for a worldwide ban. But the U.S. wants the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea to be exempt from any ban on the grounds that mines are needed to protect South Korea from attack.

The coalition of relief and medical agencies, humanitarian groups, church organizations and peace activists that is pressing for the ban, and that figured prominently in the conference, has called for a complete prohibition on the use, production and sale of land mines.

There are an estimated 110 million explosive antipersonnel mines planted around the world as a result of wars and civil conflicts, and they kill or injure about 26,000 people a year. Many of the casualties are civilians. Minefields also take farmland out of production and make it difficult to deliver food and medicine to war-ravaged areas.

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Despite the broad support among most nations represented here for an eventual ban on mines, several countries continue to oppose a prohibition, most notably China, which declined to send an observer to the conference.

For Canada, pressing a land-mine treaty carries little political or military risk. Canada has few overseas military commitments, and Canadian soldiers have not fought on the front lines of a conflict since the Korean War.

The Korean War also was the last time Canadians deployed land mines in combat.

In the United States, the issue has divided the State Department, which favors the ban, and the Pentagon, which is unenthusiastic.