Yale conference to fight for landmine ban

This weekend, Yale will take center stage in the global crusade to ban landmines. On Sat., Oct. 18, the Connecticut Coalition of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which won the Noble Peace Prize just last week, will hold a conference on campus to expose the destruction landmines--which kill 68 people each day--cause throughout the world.

The selection of Yale as the site for the conference is not a coincidence. New Haven became the first city in the U.S. to call for a treaty banning landmines on Sept. 22, 1993. The city's Board of Aldermen passed a resolution demanding the treaty after a New Haven delegation attended a peace messenger cities convention in Geneva, where the Board presente their findings.

"New Haven is a pioneering community in the campaign to end landmines," Yale history professor and Connecticut Coalition to Abolish Landmines chair Robert Forbes said. The Yale community has also established its own ties to the campaign. Forbes, the conference's organizer, has been involved with the cause since the Connecticut Coalition was formed last December under the auspices of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

According to Forbes, the most impressive aspect of the campaign is its grassroots origins. "[The International Campaign to Ban Landmines] is a wholly new type of citizen diplomacy, which goes over the heads of governments and the UN and works directly to enact peaceful internal policy," he commented. "Governments are going to have to adjust to the fact that people are tired of being powerless victims of military policy and are taking diplomacy into their own hands in a very positive way."

Rabbi James Ponet, director of Yale Hillel, is also a strong advocate of the ban due to his past experiences with landmines. As a soldier in the Israeli army he guarded a landmine depot. Ponet became a firm opponent of the weapons, however, after a friend of his was involved in an accident. "It affected me when a friend of mine lost his hand while he was climbing the hills around Israel," he said. "It was truly horrible."

The conference's student organizer, Rita Pin, ES '99, whose family fled Cambodia to the United States in 1981, also has personal reasons for endorsing the ban. There is one landmine for every Cambodian--a total of nine million landmines--and a fifth of all Cambodians have lost a limb to landmine accidents.

Courtesy CT Coalition to Abolish Landmines The Venerable Samdech Preah Maha Ghosananda hopes that abolishing landmines will save the children of Cambodia from further bodily injury and emotional pain.

The day after the conference, Sun., Oct. 19, a three hour Silent Walk for the Abolition of Landmines is scheduled from Battell Chapel at 1 p.m. The walk will be led by the Venerable Samdech Preah Maha Ghosananda, Supreme Patriarch of Cambodia. Maha Ghosananda is a Cambodian monk who has received world-wide recognition and honors, including five Nobel Peace Prize nominations for his efforts towards peace in Cambodia, environmental awareness, and an international landmine treaty.

While Maha Ghosananda visited Yale last December and spoke at an Ezra Stiles Master's Tea and at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, this visit is even more anticipated due to its activist nature. "He's an extraordinarily courageous and gifted leader who is dedicated to alerting the world to the damage landmines do, especially in Cambodia," Forbes said.

"The Silent Walk is an open and simple way of showing compassion for [landmine victims] and sending a message to our government to join the world [in banning landmines]," Dushko Petrovich, DC'97, said. Petrovich is the housemaster of the New Haven Zen Center, which is hosting Maha Ghosananda during his stay in New Haven.

With the U.S. refusal to sign the Ottawa Treaty to ban landmines, organizers are especially excited about the International Campaign to Ban Landmines' recent Noble Prize win. They are anxious to see whether the prize's publicity, the conference, and walk will provide just enough pressure to force President Bill Clinton, LAW '73, to sign the treaty. "The public attention [due to the the Noble Peace Prize] will help to dramatize the case [of landmines victims] and will get thoughtful people to reconsider," Ponet predicted.

The conference itself will be held in the Yale Art Gallery and is divided into a morning and an afternoon session. A speech by Mary Wareham, the U.S. coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, on the politics of the campaign will highlight the morning session. The morning will also feature speeches by retired Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Sorley and Vietnam landmine victim Paul Springer, and will conclude with the film "Small Targets," which is about the impact of landmines on the safety of children in Mozambique.

The afternoon session, which will be held in William L. Harkness Hall, will consist of four simultaneous workshops. Mark Presslan, the Asia project manager for the American Red Cross, will speak about the rehabilitation of landmine victims. John Flanagan of the U.N. Department for Peacekeeping, will examine demining issues. Wareham will discuss the politics of the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines. The Yale Social Justice Network rounds out the program with a discussion about campus activism.

Organizers hope the conference will rally Yalies to the campaign. "Yalies in particular should be concerned about these [landmine] issues because these are the types of issues we should strive for. Economics and money aren't important...humanitarian issues are the highest ideal," Pin said.

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