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Article: Can we ban land mines? (Column)
- Article from:
- Commonweal
- Article date:
- February 25, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 Commonweal Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Land mines kill people, or maim them, because they're hidden. Most are buried, some are camouflaged. Step on one of them, or brush past its tripwire, and you're dead, or legless. Land mines cannot distinguish between the footfall of a soldier or a child or an old woman gathering firewood. Land mines recognize no cease-fire; a generation after the fighting has stopped, they can destroy the children of the soldiers who laid them.
Land mines are hidden not only physically but metaphorically; few people in this or other developed countries understand either the scope or the frightfulness of the problem they pose. Tens of millions of mines lie in wait in dozens of ...