Land Mines in Cambodia
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* I read Peter Eng’s “A Democracy That Can’t Make It on Its Own,” on Cambodia (Opinion, June 1), and was deeply saddened that he missed the larger issue.
Whether Hun Sen or Prince Norodom Ranariddh manages to control the government, one fact remains. Cambodia, once a major rice exporter, is now starving to death. Cambodia’s biggest problem is the 10 million land mines scattered throughout the country. One in every 230 Cambodians has already stepped on a land mine and there are 1.75 land mines remaining for every man woman and child. Those land mines will remain in the ground rendering fertile land useless and terrorizing the civilian population.
The U.S. has the opportunity and obligation to not only help Cambodia but all other nations seeded with land mines. We should be aggressively working to develop technology to find these mines and neutralize them, not developing a new generation of mines that are more sophisticated at doing their job--maiming and killing. The U.S. should participate and sign the “Ottawa Ban” in December 1997, which calls for a complete ban on the manufacturing, stockpiling, transfer and use of all anti-personnel land mines.
The political climate in Cambodia is not driven by rival factions. It is driven by the desperate economic situation created by land mines. I cannot think of one country that is politically unstable where most of the population has enough to eat.
PAUL PIATTI
Los Angeles
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