Conference Names Coordinator to Seek Ban on Land Mines

The West won a victory Thursday when the Conference on Disarmament decided to appoint a special coordinator to try to launch negotiations for a global ban on land mines, which are blamed for killing 25,000 people a year.

In agreeing to the Western-backed move, nonaligned states cleared the way for the humanitarian question of land mines to be tackled separately from deadlocked nuclear issues, diplomats said.

India, a threshold nuclear power, and its Third World allies had not wanted to talk about nonproliferation or land mines until the recognized nuclear states agreed to set themselves a timetable for total nuclear disarmament.

The conference quickly named Australian Ambassador John Campbell to the coordinator’s post, an encouraging choice for those campaigning for a quick, total ban.

The decision was made possible when Syria’s delegate left the conference room, thereby avoiding registering a veto and tacitly permitting a consensus the day before the 61-member body ends its second session of 1997. The final seven-week round starts July 28.