TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has defended the use of landmines by weak countries countering aggression by stronger adversaries, and said the Ottawa treaty banning anti-personnel mines should be amended or scrapped

Eighty percent of states have signed the 1997 convention banning antipersonnel mines. Libya, along with 37 other nations including the United States, China and Russia, has not signed the treaty, the first global accord against antipersonnel mines

I am sure our clueless leaders would have signed this accord! The shallow thinking miscrant of rulers.

But he said the weapons could also have a legitimate role.

"There are other elements in the convention that cannot be accepted: 1. The complete prohibition of the manufacture and use of landmines. 2. The destruction of the stockpiles of landmines," the October 17 statement on Gaddafi's website said.

"If this simple defensive weapon is banned, how could the victims of aggression, who possess no effective offensive or defensive weapons, defend themselves against a stronger enemy capable of crossing their borders and occupying their land?"

"The prohibition of landmines, the last and weakest means to defend one's land, means condemning the weak peoples to capitulation. It means that they have no way to defend themselves except with cudgels, axes and knives."

He said the convention "confused the necessary and the unnecessary, the harmful and the beneficial" and should either be reformulated or abandoned. If the world really wanted to protect humanity, it should ban the manufacture and possession of weapons of mass destruction, he said.

They should not ban landmines O! In fact they should develop more types of mines including airmines.


There are landmine clearing armoured vehicles. Why did the UN reject the use of these vehicles in Angola, yet they had no objections to the USA used the same type of mine clearing tanks in the invasion of Basra.


What we need to do is to ensure that there are enough landmine clearing devices so that when the mines need to be removed, they can be easily cleared.

What needs to be banned is the clearing of landmines by hand. The UN has been advocating this for years but it is dangerous and expensive.

agreed.

It's not about the hand clearing. It's about the innocent civillians that inevitably get hurt years after the conflict times end. it's about the innocent shepherds and farmers that stray onto long-forgotten mine fields.
People lose limbs and lives before a mine-clearing campaign is started off.
besides, minefields don't slow down armies too much anyway. Sappers can usually clear a path through a minefield in days.

During the Iraq/Iran war, children were sent running through minefields so that by their martyrdom, they'd go straight to heaven while clearing a path for their armies to pass through.

That is why I said we need cheaper landmine clearing vehicles abundantly available so that people will not need children. Signs too are usually posted in land mine areas.

texazzpete:

During the Iraq/Iran war, children were sent running through minefields so that by their martyrdom, they'd go straight to heaven while clearing a path for their armies to pass through.

allahu akbar!

denex:

That is why I said we need cheaper landmine clearing vehicles abundantly available so that people will not need children. Signs too are usually posted in land mine areas.

What planet are you on? Decent armies dont use the lives of innocent children to clear minefields, only demons masquerading as islamists do so.

During the Iraq/Iran war, children were sent running through minefields so that by their martyrdom, they'd go straight to heaven while clearing a path for their armies to pass through.

where is link to this? and not a US link pls; as we know the story about the 'weapon of mass destruction' which was never found till today

babasin:

where is link to this? and not a US link please; as we know the story about the 'weapon of mass destruction' which was never found till today

Babasin na wa for you o. All you need to do is google . . . that information is correct. all these muslims and their musical chair games of denial. allahu akbar

@davidylan


please what is the name of the argument you want to draw me into now?


I don't know about any kids being used to clear landmines anywhere in the world and I honestly do not care because there is so much going on in the world right now. I'm trying to limit my circle of concern to my circle of influence.


More deployment of landmine clearing armoured vehicles. End of story!

@babasin

babasin:

where is link to this? and not a US link please; as we know the story about the 'weapon of mass destruction' which was never found till today

“In the past,” wrote the semi-official Iranian daily Ettelaat as the war raged on, “we had child-volunteers: 14-, 15-, and 16-year-olds. They went into the minefields. Their eyes saw nothing. Their ears heard nothing. And then, a few moments later, one saw clouds of dust. When the dust had settled again, there was nothing more to be seen of them. Somewhere, widely scattered in the landscape, there lay scraps of burnt flesh and pieces of bone.” Such scenes would henceforth be avoided, Ettelaat assured its readers. “Before entering the minefields, the children [now] wrap themselves in blankets and they roll on the ground, so that their body parts stay together after the explosion of the mines and one can carry them to the graves.”

These children who rolled to their deaths were part of the Basiji, a mass movement created by Khomeini in 1979 and militarized after the war started in order to supplement his beleaguered army.The Basij Mostazafan–or “mobilization of the oppressed”–was essentially a volunteer militia, most of whose members were not yet 18. They went enthusiastically, and by the thousands, to their own destruction. “The young men cleared the mines with their own bodies,” one veteran of the Iran-Iraq War recalled in 2002 to the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine. “It was sometimes like a race. Even without the commander’s orders, everyone wanted to be first.”

The sacrifice of the Basiji was ghastly. And yet, today, it is a source not of national shame, but of growing pride. Since the end of hostilities against Iraq in 1988, the Basiji have grown both in numbers and influence. They have been deployed, above all, as a vice squad to enforce religious law in Iran, and their elite “special units” have been used as shock troops against anti-government forces. In both 1999 and 2003, for instance, the Basiji were used to suppress student unrest. And, last year, they formed the potent core of the political base that propelled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad–a man who reportedly served as a Basij instructor during the Iran-Iraq War–to the presidency.
http://www.dinocrat.com/archives/2006/06/03/submission-and-child-abuse/



Iran-Iraq War
During the later stages of the Iran-Iraq War, both sides were accused of using teenaged children to fill out the ranks of soldiers depleted by years of warfare. During that war, Iran was accused of using children to clear minefields by having them run or bicycle through the fields.[citation needed][/color][color=#990000]
http://www.answers.com/topic/military-use-of-children



Children may begin participating in conflict from as young as seven. Some serve as porters (carrying food or ammunition) or messengers, others as spies. In Myanmar, for instance civilians, including children as young as 10, are forced to porter for the military and even used as human shields and minesweepers: the International Labour Organisation reported in 1999 that children had been forced to sweep roads with tree branches or brooms to detect or detonate mines.

http://www.worldrevolution.org/Projects/Webguide/GuideArticle.asp?ID=8



I actually read about this so many years ago while i was reading up old magazines on the Iran-Iraq war. Land mines last for many, many years and can kill and maim for tens of years to come. That's why they must be abolished!

I'm somewhat dissapointed that the US refused to sign this document. It's a shame, if you ask me, because i truly feel that weapons whose effects are felt many years after the war is over should not be used.

babasin:

where is link to this? and not a US link please; as we know the story about the 'weapon of mass destruction' which was never found till today

I'm talking about saving lives of innocents and all you can do is bring up the US argument? Can't you discuss on other issues, or is your mind set on only one track? Grow up.

denex:

I don't know about any kids being used to clear landmines anywhere in the world and I honestly do not care because there is so much going on in the world right now. I'm trying to limit my circle of concern to my circle of influence.

How will you know? No one knows anything as long as the US or Isreal is not there to blame.