Banmines, the Internet Petition Online to Ban Landmines Worldwide, debuted 3 September 1997. Today marks its 10th anniversary. Banmines is a decade old. Created in and dedicated to the memory of Diana, Princess of Wales, herself an exemplary tribute to noblesse oblige, Banmines perseveres to preserve the goal of a life cut tragically short, the global abolition of anti-personnel mines. Forty days following her death, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and an anti-landmine activist shared the Nobel Prize for Peace.
What good is there in something intended solely to kill or to maim? To us at Banmines, the answer is obvious: none. Aggravating this are the indeterminate longevity and the indiscriminate nature of the landmine’s destructiveness. Add ludicrous to obvious.
The past ten years have seen much if not most of the world engaged in, on the brink of or poised for violent conflict or outright war. Although substantially eclipsing the landmine issue, the issue remains. Millions upon countless millions of landmines deployed across the world have failed, as miserably as they are miserable, to make one single soldier or civilian one iota safer. Quite the opposite, in fact and as expected: long-since buried landmines continue taking their gruesome toll, claiming life and causing death. Despite this, major world powers, including the People's Republic of China, India, the Russian Federation and the United States, stubbornly, arrogantly and, worst of all, ignorantly refuse to accept and to adopt the Ottawa, or Mine Ban, Treaty. Formally the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, signatory countries agree and pledge not to manufacture, stockpile or use anti-personnel mines.
Positively and productively, Banmines provides a coherent, tolerant forum for thousands of voices from all corners of the world, and furnishes a veritable library of relevant, useful information and knowledge, much from individual contributors. Banmines has been the subject of many classroom projects in diverse nations. If societies ever enduringly change for the better, it will be today’s young students who initiate those changes tomorrow.
In her short yet full 36 years, Diana left a powerful and passionate, yet gentle and compassionate, legacy. It is our hope that Banmines serves, however humbly or modestly, to keep that legacy alive and to perpetuate the good it embodies. As we enter our second decade, we wish peace and prosperity, and health and happiness, to one and all.
