The Ottawa Citizen from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • 3

THE OTTAWA CITIZEN TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1997 A3 Activists celebrate -mines ban Delegates gather in Ottawa for treaty signing land ftWVAAo A 1 MICHAEL MCCAUGHERTY, REUTER Surrounded by activists from Europe, Australia and Canada, Ms. Williams oozed glee and pride. "It's breathtaking," she said, referring to the speed with which the treaty went from being a dream to being a reality. "I think those of us who have put blood, sweat and tears into this campaign should take a day or two to feel damn proud of what we've done." Ms. Williams also said nothing about the land-mines campaign not even winning the Nobel peace prize was as stunning as the treaty.

"The real surprise of this campaign is this damn treaty," she told reporters. The conference has attracted at least 155 government delegations, more than a dozen led by foreign ministers, and about 300 representatives from non-government humanitarian, medical and human rights groups from more than 60 countries. The treaty banning the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of land-mines is open for signing beginning tomorrow following speeches by Prime Minister Jean Chretien and United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan. An estimated 110 million land-mines are buried in about 70 countries around the world, exploding at the rate of about one every 22 minutes. More than 25,000 people, mostly civilians, are killed or maimed each year by the mines.

Mr. Axworthy said the treaty was still winning converts on the eve of the conference. Venezuela announced yesterday it will sign. By Norma greenaway The Ottawa Citizen A tiny, tattered Canadian flag. Popping champagne corks.

And seven "Raging Grannies" singing about the evils of land-mines. It was all part of the warmup event yesterday before the serious business begins with the opening today of a three-day international conference to sign a new treaty banning anti-personnel mines. In a party atmosphere, activists converged on the government conference centre to celebrate the arrival of a team that had spent the last five weeks travelling across the United States in a minivan campaigning against landmines. A handful of weary campaigners rolled out of the van after their odyssey. They were welcomed by Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy, Erik Derycke, Belgium's foreign minister, and Jody Williams, co-ordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and 1997 winner of the Nobel peace prize.

In the background, the seven Raging Grannies belted out anti-land-mines tunes. The travellers sprinkled the welcoming committee with champagne, shared a toast with Ms. Williams and presented Mr. Axworthy with the tattered Canadian flag. It had flown from the van's aerial since the group left Berkeley, California, on Oct.

23. "You've all done one hell of a job," a beaming Mr. Axworthy declared. Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy welcomes Nobel Prize winner Jody Williams yesterday on her arrival in Ottawa for the international land-mines conference. Officials expect at least 100 countries to sign a treaty banning anti-personnel mines.

Mr. Axworthy has been a major force behind the drive for a treaty. Foreign Affairs officials say they expect as least 110 countries to sign, a number the grassroots campaign sees as too pessimistic. Ms. Williams repeatedly predicted up to 121 countries would sign.

At the same time Ms. Williams played down the import of such countries as the United States, China, Russia, Indian and Pakistan not signing. She argued the treaty has stigmatized land-mines as unacceptable weapons. Mr. Axworthy has adopted a similar line.

The minister said in an interview he no longer considers getting the U.S. signature on the treaty as important as he once did. The tables have turned, he says, and Washington now is on the defensive. "As a result I think they're bending over backwards to find money, to get involved in the post-Ottawa process." U.S. officials have been promoting an initiative to raise the annual level of global spending on de-mining to $1 billion by the year 2010.

Mr. Axworthy also said he considered it a major step that such mine-using countries as Israel, Jordan and Syria are attending as observers. He argued involving them in joint de-mining programs could "draw" them into eventually signing the treaty. One of the issues at the conference is co-ordinating government and nongovernment fund-raising and spending in the coming months and years. Another big topic is who will be charged with setting priorities for spending on mine clearance and victim rehabilitation.

"The key issue is to make sure not everyone rushes to Angola or Cambodia and leaves Egypt alone," said Mr. Axworthy. He noted Egypt is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world with 23 million mines planted in its deserts. A XAA" V. A '-Av 1 7 r.

wm XT -in 1 -rn1 WAYNE HIEBERT, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN JIM YOUNG, REUTER Romeo LeBlanc, left, welcomed Kofi Annan, UN secretary general. Mr. Annan will speak at the conference tomorrow. Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams gets a laugh from the protest group Raging Grannies on her arrival in Ottawa. Ms.

Williams is co-ordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Land-mines. Mine treaty 'small step' toward disarmament jmm. 11 urn mm il A A I A Peace activist says Canada must stop exporting weapons By Randy Boswell The Ottawa Citizen As the world community gathers to sign and celebrate the Canadian-led treaty banning land-mines, Ottawa's leading opponent of the arms trade says it's a small victory for peace activists in their long-running and mostly losing battle to get weapons of war permanently shelved. Richard Sanders, co-ordinator of the Ottawa-based Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade, applauds the campaign that has yielded this week's historic signing but says Canada doesn't deserve to be cast in a saintly light when it comes to the manufacture and export of munitions. "I don't want to be a spoiler, but let's get this in perspective," said Mr.

Sanders. "We're exporting just about everything but land-mines. Maybe there should be a Nobel prize for hypocrisy." Such words landed with a bit of a thud as advocates of the land-mine ban arrived in Ottawa to the sound of cheers and popping champagne corks. what is still an imperfect and fragile consensus on banning land-mines shows the complexity of the cause. Ms.

Tuttle said that even the ban-the-landmine movement was forced to narrow its target to anti-personnel mines which don't know the difference between civilians or soldiers and exclude the anti-tank variety. "I think what really distinguishes anti-personnel land-mines from other weapons is that they are totally indis-criminating," said Ms. Tuttle. "And we could also demonstrate the (military) ineffectiveness of these weapons. But the main difference is that land-mines don't discriminate.

A machine gun has a user." She said the impact of landmines "touched a broad spectrum of organizations legal, ethical, disarmament and development groups who realized that their work in many places was being hampered, injured and impaired by anti-personnel mines." But Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy's forceful crusade against land-mines has, in fact, already given peace activists such as Mr. Sanders ammunition for other campaigns. At a speech in Scotland in October, Mr. Axworthy mused openly about tackling the illegal portion of trade in handguns and automatic weapons: "If we can pull (land-mines) together by But Mr. Sanders isn't known to couch his views in the diplomatic language that will float through the federal Conference Centre during this week's gathering of officials from more than 155 countries, about 50 of which are "observers" rather than signatories.

"Land-mines are a good example of a horrible weapon," he said, "but is it more horrible than selling military helicopters or aircraft used to fly over and bomb people?" In the late 1980s, Mr. Sanders led a high-profile and, ultimately, successful fight against the use of city-owned venues such as Lansdowne Park for the ARMX weapons trade show. And he remains a thorn in the side of the military-industrial marketplace he says profits from a business that feeds machine guns and other weapons to "dozens of countries that are human rights violators." The Canadian government recently came under fire from Amnesty International for approving gun sales to the Thai police and the Chinese army. Celina Tuttle, one of the leaders of the Mines Action Canada coalition that helped push for the global ban on anti-personnel landmines, said Mr. Sanders has a valid point.

But she stresses that "we still haven't finished with this (landmine) issue" and that the enormous effort required to build December, well, who knows? Why not take on small arms next?" he asked a meeting of Commonwealth non-governmental organizations. Mr. Sanders said the illegal and legal trade of small arms are inextricably linked, with guns exported for military use often falling into criminal hands and "destabilizing" countries around the world. He argued that selling guns and other weapons even legally is often as indiscriminating as placing land-mines because "the innocents" in many countries are at the mercy of gun-toting soldiers. And he said Canada's leadership against the use of landmines has been made easier because "our military says it hasn't used any since the Korean War and we haven't exported any since 1987.

It's a lot easier to ban something you're not using or Ms. Tuttle agrees that the success of the international treaty to ban landmines might provide a model for other anti-military campaigns. Several roundtable discussions at this week's gathering are designed to provide an anatomy of how global political change was achieved so quickly against such significant odds. "I think it's important to learn from our experiences," she said. "And I think there are a lot of people here giving thought to exactly that." I THtOtlAWACItltN Richard Sanders says the landmine treaty has to be put Into perspective.

'We're exporting Just about everything but.