Anti-personnel Mines: Controlling the Plague of "Butterflies"

by Paul Cornish

Small, often undetectable, lethal for decades and used by the anti-personnel mines wreck agriculture and infrastructure and cause hundreds of deaths and injuries each week in Afganistan, Angola, Cambodia, Mozambique and many other affected areas. The victims are often children and other civilians, maimed and killed by weapons laid decades before, for reasons long since forgotten. This paper examines the extent and effect of anti-personnel mine use and the technical, military and ethical/legal dimensions of a problem which has provoked an international campaign, capturing the attention of humanitarian, aid and relief organizations, the media, governments and the United Nations. What should, or can be done? Are these mines to be classified, like chemical and nuclear weapons, as "weapons of mass destruction"? Should efforts be directed at clearing up exisitng possible minefields or at preventing the creation of new ones? Will it ever be possible to ban the manufacture, stockpiling, transfer and use of anti-personnel mines?

52 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1994