Global Appeal to President Clinton to sign the treaty, from landmine survivors worldwide

TO: All ICBL members
FROM: Ken Rutherford, Landmine Survivors Network, via Liz Bernstein
RE: Global Appeal to President Clinton to sign the treaty, from landmine survivors worldwide
####
December 1999
Dear fellow ICBL members, survivors and friends, In addition to our work for landmine victim assistance, Landmine Survivors Network is working hard to get the United States to join the Landmine Ban Treaty before the end of the Clinton Presidency.

To this end, LSN is organizing a series of public appeals for a reconsideration of US landmine policy. The most important, and potentially most persuasive, appeal to President Clinton must come from landmine survivors around the world. If we landmine survivors want the United States to sign the Mine Ban Treaty, then we need to ask for this ourselves. Following that we will get other groups to publicly support the survivors appeal.

A draft text of a global landmine survivors' letter is attached below. We can assure the potential signatories that if we can get 500 signatures, this appeal will get a lot of press coverage in the United States and will have a big impact.

I apologize for the short notice, but this appeal to Clinton is very important and URGENTLY NEEDED to build public pressure and awareness in the United States.

Can I ask you to do four things within the next 20 days:
1. Translate text and signature page into your local language.
2. Circulate to as many landmine survivors as you possible can.
3. Thank signatories.
4. Obtain actual signatures.
5. By December 30, email your list of signatories to Damien at lsn-at-landminesurvivors-org
6. By December 30, make a copy for your files and then express air mail or fax actual signature pages to the LSN Office: 1420 K Street, NW, #650, Washington, DC 20005. FAX: 202-464-0011.

Please let us know (via email or fax) about your progress and the estimated number of signatures you think will get by end of December. I know the time on this is short. However, we need to send the appeal to President Clinton and release it to the press on January 10-12.

Thank you for your support and hard work.

Jerry White
Ken Rutherford

**********************
SIGNATURE PAGE

I agree with the landmine survivors' appeal to President Clinton for the United States to review its landmine policy and join the Landmine Ban Treaty.
You may use my name in the letter to the President, in press releases and public statements.

_________________________
(signature)

_________________________
(print name)

_________________________
(city)

_________________________
(country)

_________________________
(date)

****************
Suggested text landmine survivors letter to President Clinton:

Dear President Clinton,
We are landmine explosion survivors from Cambodia. We have experienced firsthand the horrible pain inflicted by these indiscriminate weapons. And we know very well that the sixty to seventy million landmines recently estimated by the United States Department of State to be still buried around the world will continue to kill and maim thousands of new victims each year. These landmines continue to threaten our families and the communities in which we live.

As landmine survivors ourselves, we cannot feel healed and we cannot feel secure until the scourge of landmines is eliminated and our families and neighbors can "walk the earth in safety," as you yourself have said.

We write to you now, on behalf of landmine victims around the world, to urge you to fulfill and complete the leadership you initiated in 1994 when you were the first head of state calling for a ban on anti-personnel landmines. We urge you to review United States landmine policy again before you leave office, and use your power to align America with the Landmine Ban Treaty rather than leaving this to the chance of some future President.

We need your leadership and that of the United States to persuade other important countries to join the Mine Ban Treaty. We are concerned that without the support and participation of the USA, the Treaty will not be strong enough to ban landmine use, destroy stockpiles, demine war torn areas that are already landmine-polluted, and provide assistance to victims.

We know that you are concerned with our well being. And we know that you want no child's future cut short by a landmine. We urge you to take this historic step.

We thank you very much for taking our request into consideration.

Respectfully yours,

Survivors