The United States and Antipersonnel Mines - 2001

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February 28, 2001 7:00PM EST | News Release

The United States and Antipersonnel Mines - 2001

Human Rights Watch Fact Sheet

The United States:

keeps company with Russia, China, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Burma, Syria,and Cuba by refusing to join the Mine Ban Treaty;

is one of just two of NATO's nineteen partners that have not banned antipersonnel mines and it continues to insist on the right to use antipersonnel mines in joint military operations with NATO and other allies who are party to the Mine Ban Treaty;

is one of just sixteen antipersonnel mine producing countries left in the world;

possesses the third largest stockpile of antipersonnel mines in the world, totaling more than 11 million, including 1.2 million of the long-lasting "dumb" mines;

stockpiles 1.7 million antipersonnel mines in twelve foreign countries, five of which are party to the Mine Ban Treaty;

exported over 5.6 million antipersonnel mines to thirty-eight countries between 1969 and 1992;

manufactured antipersonnel mines that have been found in twenty-eight mine-affected countries or regions.

The United States spends more money on humanitarian mine action programs (mine clearance, mine awareness, and victim assistance programs) than any other country. However:

next fiscal year (FY 2002), funding for the research, development, and procurement of alternatives to antipersonnel mines will surpass funding for humanitarian mine action programs;

the U.S. ranks eleventh among seventeen major donor countries when mine action funding is considered on a per capita basis and thirteenth when that funding is taken as a percentage of GDP;

each U.S. citizen contributed just twenty-three cents for humanitarian mine action in 1999;

nineteen percent of total U.S. mine action funding goes to Pentagon demining technology research and development programs;

nearly eighty percent of the Pentagon's $25 million appropriation for humanitarian demining is used for travel costs, allowances for U.S. military personnel, and other logistical aspects of moving personnel and equipment around the world;

the percentage of U.S. mine action funding that actually reaches the field to clear mines has never been quantified.