“Today’s decision to leave the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention is a retrograde move that will only further weaken the global consensus aimed at minimising civilian harm during armed conflict,” said Esther Major, Amnesty International’s deputy director for research in Europe.
“We call on the Lithuanian government to reverse this decision that could put civilian lives at risk,” she said, adding that anti-personnel mines have devastating effects on civilians.
I’m a big fan of Amesty, but their point is stupid. Look how much Ukrainians have suffered at the hands of Russia. Russia is literally comitting genocide right fucking now, kidnapping children and forcefully displacing adults and moving Russians into the occupied territory.
Now, landmines are bad, true. But genocide is a whole lot fucking worse. You can remove landmines, and the ones you miss will not kill tens of thousands of people every year.
Why make up this false dichotomy of “either landmines or genocide”?
Its not a total dichotomy, but one absolutely contributes to not having the other.
I’m still not really sure about how I feel about this, but one thing that is obvious is that landmines aren’t the only way to prevent Russia from crossing into Lithuania. We shouldn’t act as if they have no choice at all. If Russia never ends up invading Lithuania then this will only harm Lithuanians, either people who step on it by accident or while trying to remove them. It has been proven far and wide these things kill long after a conflict has been resolved.
Wait, I think there’s a big disconnect here. Nobody is suggesting they scatter a million landmines around Vilnius, or even emplacing them along the border right now. You can have landmines ready, but not place them until you notice troop buildups. You can even pre-place basic fences to keep civilians out of the zones you plan to use, it still works.
The time to place landmines is when you’re (about to be) at war. Not just for humanitarian reasons, landmines don’t actually work reliably forever.
And, very harshly, you can weigh those deaths against immediate deaths when you’re at war. Against an enemy that has repeatedly demonstrated that losing a war will mean you stop existing as a people, the equation becomes a lot less complex.
Fair point, nukes also deter if you don’t use them. But the point that still stands is that if you spend your money on mines you can’t spend it on other things. I don’t know enough about warfare to know how to spend money wisely, but I do hope Lithuanian government takes the downsides of mines into consideration enough.