The situation on the Korean peninsula is the only exception preventing the US from signing the Ottawa Treaty
USA, Russia, China, India, Pakistan… How can the Ottawa Treaty to veto anti-personnel landmines be considered a success without the signature of these giants and some thirty other countries? In practice, the Biden administration announced Tuesday that it will roll back the Trump-era directive that allowed military commanders to use them “in certain situations” when it’s necessary to “regain competitive advantage with more deadly, agile, resilient weapons. “and ready for a range of contingencies and geographic areas.”
More than half of the 7,000 annual victims left behind by these mines are children. That is why it was also Princess Diana’s last major humanitarian undertaking, visiting the survivors of these brutal weapons of war in Bosnia just days before her death, which explode in peacetime. Afghanistan is literally mined.
State Department sources told The Washington Post that the directive seeks to align the president more with his belief that human rights should be a factor to consider “when weapons are used or supplied to other countries.” With this he also sent a message to the government of Volodimir Zelesnky, who feels that Russia has been disadvantaged because Ukraine has signed the Treaty of Ottawa, to which Russia is not a party.
While the president’s decision has been widely praised, activists are stressing the need for the US to ratify the treaty. However, the militarization of the border between the two Koreas, which the US has pledged to defend, stands in the way of that achievement. With the new legislation, the US government commits to destroy the three million anti-personnel mines it has in its stockpiles and any others not needed in South Korea, through a self-disarmament mechanism. It will cease manufacturing, manufacturing or purchasing them and will not supply or transport them “out of the Korean Peninsula” except for destruction.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has expressed the discomfort of his generals who do not share the president’s decision. “They’ve had a chance to let him know that he’s made his decision,” the foreign ministry source said. For the armed forces, it is an essential weapon, the absence of which “will endanger American soldiers”.
Source: La Verdad
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