by Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Nov 26 (IPS) - One day after the State Department announced that the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama will not sign the 10-year-old treaty banning anti-personnel landmines, it insisted that Washington's policy on the issue was still being reviewed.
Human rights and disarmament activists had reacted with outrage Wednesday to Tuesday's announcement by State Department spokesman Ian Kelly that the review had concluded and that Washington ”would not be able to meet our national defence needs, nor our security commitments to our friends and allies if we sign the
convention”.
”The administration is committed to a comprehensive review of its landmine policy,” Kelly said in a written statement issued by the State Department press office Wednesday afternoon. ”That review is still ongoing.”
The statement did not make clear whether Tuesday's announcement had been made in error or whether the anger provoked by it had persuaded the administration to reconsider. The fact that Kelly was reading from guidance prepared in advance and presumably cleared at higher levels, however, suggested that the latter explanation was more likely.
The U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines (USCBL), a coalition of scores of activist groups, had called the Tuesday's announcement ”shocking”, while Human Rights Watch (HRW) described it as ”reprehensible”.
”President Obama's decision to cling to anti-personnel mines keeps the U.S. on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of humanity,” said Steve Goose, the director of HRW's Arms Division, who also noted that Washington stood alone among its NATO allies in refusing to sign the treaty.
read more: http://www.australia.to/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=16821:us-state-department-backpedals-on-landmine-treaty&catid=116:breaking-news&Itemid=298
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