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December 2, 1997
The Honorable William Jefferson Clinton
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear President Clinton:
As you know, the Catholic Bishops and many American Catholics share your stated commitment to seek a global ban on anti-personnel landmines and welcome the useful steps that your administration has taken toward this end, including your new initiative on demining.
The Catholic Bishops, like many others, were deeply disappointed, however, with your decision not to sign the Ottawa treaty that bans these insidious weapons. Even if the United States is not responsible for the indiscriminate use of landmines in Angola or elsewhere, their terrible moral and human costs should compel us to help ban them, not resist or delay work toward this urgent moral imperative. The Ottawa treaty offers the world the best opportunity it now has to make progress in stopping the killing and maiming of civilians around the globe. That is why, like so many others, Pope John Paul II recently called on all nations to adhere to it, so that "there be no delay in freeing huge numbers of men, women and children from these destructive instruments insidiously placed under their feet." Without the United States, this noble effort to achieve an effective global ban will be seriously undermined.
We understand that you have serious concerns about the implications of the treaty for Korea and U.S. anti-tank mines. We do not underestimate the challenge of developing alternatives to anti-personnel landmines that will resolve these concerns, but if alternatives exist, and many experts say they do, the United States has a moral responsibility to pursue them -- not in the distant future but now.
At minimum, we would urge you to support the legislation that has been introduced in the House and Senate that would end new U.S. deployments of anti-personnel landmines, beginning in 2000, except in Korea. Passage of this legislation could help the United States regain its moral leadership on this issue, and further the process of stigmatizing these indiscriminate weapons, which is an essential part of making a global ban effective.
We hope you will find ways to heed the call of so many Americans who want the United States to be a moral leader by ending its use of these weapons and signing the treaty that will ban them.
Thank you for your consideration of this matter.
Sincerely,
Most Reverend Joseph A. Fiorenza
Bishop of Galveston-Houston
Vice-President, NCCB/USCC