It’s Time to Ban the Use of Landmines :: Argumentative Persuasive Essays

Its Time to Ban the Use of Landmines El Salvador, 6 April 1992--Three siblings died near the Guazapa volcano last pass when they stepped on a mine planted during the period of civil warfare. Ironically, their parents had returned to the area only a few days earlier. The children were four, six and eight years old. separate from the three childrens bodies were found as far as 30 metres from the explosion site. (qtd. in Grant 25) Antipersonnel landmines kill thousands of people every year. Antipersonnel landmines do non recognize a cease-fire they continue killing or maiming for many years after the conflict is over. Antipersonnel landmines do not split between soldiers or civilians. On the contrary, more and more they are being employ in an indiscriminate way, terrorizing civilians and transforming agricultural fields into killing fields. In addition, de-mining is a very slow and very expensive process, and after a war most countries are not prepared to cope with t he constant health make do demands imposed by the number of injured by landmines. Finally, landmines make it very difficult for refugees to go back to their cities and villages. As response to the landmine problem, the international community has suffice up with a treaty to ban landmines. On March 1, 1999, the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty came into effect so far 134 countries have signed the treaty. Unfortunately, the U. S. is not one of them. The Encarta Encyclopedia defines a landmine as an encased explosive device that is concealed below the surface of the ground. It can be made of metal, plastic, glass, or woodwind (n. p.). Probably the concept of landmines is almost as old as the existence of organized armies. Philip C. Winslow, in his book Sowing the Dragons Teeth, describes how Roman soldiers, before the beginning of the first millennium, used a plant with spikes as a landmine in order to delay pursuers (126). The Chinese, according to Delbruck, used ground mines made out of explosives in the year 1232 (qtd. in Winslow 126). Six hundred years later, in 1840, the use of landmines was introduced in the United States they were used in large quantities during the Civil War (Winslow 126, 127).