Facing overwhelming opposition from nearly 100 countries, the Clinton administration has embarked on a last-ditch effort to reach a compromise on a land mines treaty.
What was to have been the last session of a two-week conference to negotiate a treaty to ban land mines began Tuesday as Washington sought–and later won–a 24-hour delay to explore a compromise.
The move was a tacit acknowledgment that the Clinton administration is in a weak position internationally and has been unable to win support for proposals it had floated over the weekend to amend the treaty.
Washington’s amendments would have allowed the deployment of anti-personnel mines in connection with anti-tank mines, allowed a country to withdraw from the treaty in time of war and postponed the effective date of the ban for nine years.
The Clinton administration is determined to have a treaty that it can sign, lest it be castigated as a pariah state, along with Russia, China and Libya, which are not part of the treaty process.
“If you ban something because it is inhumane, barbaric, beyond the pale, you cannot then say you can continue to use it,” said Louise Doswald-Beck, who is the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation to the conference.
Sentiment against the postponement was strong, but no nation formally objected, and Tuesday’s session was closed.
Several diplomats held out the possibility that some compromise might be acceptable.
Washington was drafting a new compromise to offer to the conference, and lobbying has increased, with President Clinton calling world leaders seeking support for the American position, administration officials said Tuesday.
Though the newest U.S. position had not been presented to the delegates, diplomats from several countries said they expected the Americans would back off their insistence on two provisions: One that would allow nations the right to withdraw from the treaty during a conflict and another that would allow for the use of anti-personnel mines when they are deployed to deter enemy forces from reaching anti-tank mines to disable them. The treaty does not ban the use of anti-tank mines.
The U.S. is expected to continue pressing for delay in implementation of a treaty. The provision might be included in an annex, which would allow the administration to say it had signed a treaty for a comprehensive ban, but also give it a way out.
