Washington -- Afghanistan remains one of "the great tragedies in the world with respect to landmines," according to Karl Inderfurth, assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs.

Speaking during a WorldNet Dialogue with Peshawar October 29, Inderfurth recalled a recent incident in Afghanistan in which more than 40 people died when a bus carrying a wedding party hit an anti-tank mine.

"So the tragedy of landmines in Afghanistan continues. It is one of the most heavily affected landmine countries in the world, and it's one that we in the United States have been doing a great deal to address," he said.

Despite such incidents in Afghanistan and elsewhere, Inderfurth said there is "some good news" to report. He said efforts by the international community to reduce the risks posed by the worldwide landmine crisis and other "success stories" have been catalogued in a new State Department report entitled "Hidden Killers."

Inderfurth was joined on the program by Pat Patierno, director of the State Department's Office of Humanitarian Demining Programs. Patierno said since 1993, the United States has committed more than $19 million to Afghanistan for various demining programs, including mine awareness, mine mapping, marking, surveying work, and mine clearance.

"It is by far the largest program in the world, and it is the largest contribution we have made to any country in the world since we have been active in humanitarian demining," Patierno said.

He said the United States expects that level of support to continue and reported that Congress, in approving a new budget for 1999, allocated $35 million for State Department humanitarian demining assistance around the world.

In addition, Patierno said, "there is another $35 million for humanitarian demining assistance for the Department of Defense, as well as some additional monies in the Department of Defense to offer research and development and in the U.S. Agency for International Development for mine victim assistance.

All together, the U.S. commitment for humanitarian demining assistance will total nearly $100 million, Paterino said. "And Afghanistan will receive its share, equivalent to sort of what it has been receiving in the past from us," he added.

Following is the transcript of the WorldNet program:

(begin transcript)

MR. FOUCHEUX: Hello, and welcome to Worldnet's "Dialogue," I'm Rick Foucheux.

Every year more than 25,000 innocent civilians are killed or hurt by landmines. Millions of these hidden killers still lurk beneath the ground in more than 60 countries. Earlier this year the U.S. hosted a conference to coordinate international demining efforts, and just last month a workshop in Ispra, Italy, continued the work. Today we'll review those efforts and examine the goal of eliminating landmines by the year 2010.

Joining us for the discussion we are pleased to have with us in our Washington studio Assistant Secretary of State Rick Inderfurth. Ambassador Inderfurth is the U.S. Special Representative on Global Humanitarian Demining, and overseas the President's demining 2010 Initiative. We are also joined by Mr. Pat Patierno, director of the Office of Humanitarian Demining Programs at the State Department. Gentlemen, welcome to our program. It's a pleasure to have you with us.

It's a very large and complicated issue that we've chosen for today's discussion, so let me get the ball rolling by asking you each to give us sort of an overview of the situation. Ambassador, can we begin with you?

AMB. INDERFURTH: Rick, thank you very much. I am very pleased to be here today, because this discussion about landmines and Afghanistan combine my two roles at the State Department. One is assistant secretary for South Asia, which includes Afghanistan; and the other the President's and Secretary of State's Special Representative for Global Humanitarian Demining, which encompasses the tragedy that we see in Afghanistan with landmines. So this brings both of my portfolios together, so I am delighted to be here.

The fact is that Afghanistan continues to be one of the great tragedies in the world with respect to landmines. We saw that just recently when a wedding party of over 40 people in a bus hit an anti-tank mine and all of these people died as a result of that. So the tragedy of landmines in Afghanistan continues. It is one of the most heavily affected landmine affected countries in the world, and it's one that we in the United States have been doing a great deal to address -- and Mr. Patierno will talk about that in a moment.

We have recently done a report at the Department of State, entitled "Hidden Killers," which addresses the worldwide landmine crisis, and we'll talk about that today as well, because there is some good news there. Efforts are being made and success stories are being told about the efforts by the international community to reduce the risk.

Now, I'll also say that in terms of my responsibility for Afghanistan as the assistant secretary we want to see the conflict in that country come to an end. That war has gone for far too long. Afghanistan has been the subject of civil conflict, and of course the war against the Soviet occupation -- all of this for over 20 years. It's time for that to come to an end. And in my job as assistant secretary we are working very closely with the United States and Ambassador Brahimi (sp) and others to try to see that conflict come to an end.

The Taliban of course, the movement that has taken now perhaps 90 percent or more of the country is one that is much in the news because of its actions and concerns about its behavior. We were very pleased recently in that regard that the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, recently issued an edict, a directive banning the use of landmines in Afghanistan, saying that the Taliban would no longer use these, that these were killing innocent people, and urging all the combatants in Afghanistan to cease the use, production, stockpiling of landmines. So we were encouraged by that, and we hope that not only will the Taliban fully implement that but that others in Afghanistan will do so as well, because again this country has suffered too long through war and through the use of landmines. So I am hopeful that what we are seeing there is a movement away from the use of landmines. The Afghan Committee to Ban Land Mines has been one of the active on the international front, and they had a great deal to do with bringing about this decision by the Taliban. And I'd like to commend and praise the Afghan committee for that.

So we will be talking about a number of things here, but as I said I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to bring together my two portfolios in this discussion.

MR. FOUCHEUX: And we are glad to have you.

Mr. Patierno?

MR. PATIERNO: Well, thank you for the opportunity to be here. The office that I head up in the State Department is a new organization; it was just set up in June of this year, and I think it reflects the commitment of the United States to the humanitarian demining missions around the world. We differ a little bit in what Ambassador Inderfurth does in the sense that we sort of administer and monitor operational programs at the country level, as well as some cross-coordinating sorts of programs which benefit the entire spectrum as a whole.

With respect to Afghanistan, since 1993 the United States has committed over -- nearly $19 million in funds to a variety of activities -- mine awareness, mine mapping, marking, surveying work, and mine clearance activities. So it is by far the largest program in the world, and it is the largest contribution we have made to any country in the world since we have been active in humanitarian demining. We expect that the level of support will continue in future years. I am pleased to report last week, when the Congress finally got around to passing a budget, within that budget there was $35 million for humanitarian demining assistance around the world this year from the State Department perspective. In addition to that there is another $35 million for humanitarian demining assistance for the Department of Defense, as well as some additional monies in the Department of Defense to offer research and development, as well as monies in the U.S. Agency for International Development for mine victim assistance. So all told we are looking at nearly $100 million this year for humanitarian demining assistance as a commitment from the United States. And Afghanistan will receive its share, equivalent to sort of what it has been receiving in the past from us.

FOUCHEUX: Great, thank you. Again, we are glad to have both of you gentlemen with us today for this very important discussion.

Joining us in our dialogue are representatives of the media, government and non-governmental organizations in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Our discussion panel is gathered in Peshawar, Pakistan. Welcome to all of you. Please go ahead with your first question or comment in Peshawar.

Q: Good morning, gentlemen. My name is Faizel Karem (sp). I am the director of Organization for Mine Clearance and Afghan Rehabilitation, a national organization established in 1990, conducting mine awareness and mine clearance countrywide.

Thank you very much for your assistance to Afghan people. Afghanistan is one of those four countries who suffered a lot since the last 15 years. And still this tragedy continues.

My question is to Ambassador Inderfurth. Based on the great problem of mines exists around the world, what will be the U.S. priority to tackle such a problem? The second part of this question is as you are aware, tens of thousands of people around the world are maimed and killed by mines, and still this tragedy continues. What and how can the U.S. government help mine victims who have now become a big burden on the family, on the community and at the national level? Thank you.

INDERFURTH: These are excellent questions, and I'd like to try to answer them both. I want to begin by saying, by the way, how important the work of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has been for the work in Afghanistan. Without the work of the committed NGOs the progress that has been made in Afghanistan would not have been possible. And I commend them not only for the work that they have done but the courage they have shown. This is a dangerous activity. Senator Pat Leahy, who has been one of our great proponents of dealing with landmines in this country, said that removal of landmines goes at one leg and one arm at a time because of the danger to those people conducting these activities. So I just want to start by saying that. And the NGOs, and Halo Trust, which I have gotten to know very well -- all of these NGOs are terribly important.

In terms of priorities, I think that even though there are up to 70 countries around the world that are affected by landmines, some are more affected by others, and clearly Afghanistan is in the most affected category. So we want to address those that are the most heavily affected, and we want to address those countries where there are the largest number of mine victims, where innocent civilians are paying the price on a daily basis, as I mentioned in that tragic wedding party incident in Kandahar. We want to address that.

We also want to make it clear that as part of what we are doing we also want to see land returned to productive use. It isn't so much how many landmines are there; it is a question of what effect they are having. Are they preventing people from resuming productive economic activity? Are they causing landmines victims on a daily basis? Those are the measures that we want to address.

Now, one thing that we do want to do in terms of priorities is to do what we call U.N. Level One Surveys around the world to -- I mean, this is a strange thing -- even though we've known the landmine crisis has been with us for a long time, we have actually not done comprehensive surveys in all the countries to determine where the landmines are, what are the priority areas within each country. So we want to back what is going to take place with these Level One Surveys.

Mines victims -- 26,000 people a year are killed or maimed by landmines. And what is the greatest tragedy of all is that those who have survived landmines must then rebuild their lives and become productive members of society of at all possible. And we think that too little attention has been given to the victims of landmines. And groups such as the Land Mine Survivors Network, Jerry White, Ken Rutherford, others -- there are a number of groups that are dedicated to this, and we want to do more to support those and have more in the international community providing assistance.

Q: Thank you very much, gentlemen on the panel and ladies listening. My name is Sada Krime (sp), the director of the Mine Clearance Planning Agency. We are responsible for surveys and data management in Afghanistan. And also I am chairing the Afghan Campaign to Ban Land Mines. My question is that as you may be aware, as I am sure you are aware, the Afghan Mine Action Program is one of the most successful and experienced operations of its kind. What measures does your office intend to take to ensure that the experience gained in Afghanistan is shared with other countries in the world? This is to ensure that the wheel is not reinvented and the limited resources are utilized in a most effective manner, and also the Initiative 2010 is achieved quicker.

PATIERNO: Well, that's a very good question. And one of the reasons this office was formed and the 2010 Initiative was announced by the two secretaries in the U.S. administration last year, was to get at the coordination question to make sure that there is as much learning from one another as possible as we tackle this very serious problem.

Within my organization in the State Department we have used the Afghan program as a model to follow around the world, in particularly with respect to the use of mine-detection dogs, which we have been very impressed with, and we are seeing it show up more and more. For instance, just recently in Eritrea and Ethiopia we have awarded some contracts for mine-detection dogs to tackle the problem in those two countries. Unfortunately there is some fighting that is beginning again down there, so we are in a suspended mode right now. But we also awarded a contract for other countries in Latin America -- in Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Guatemala. And that program is just undergoing. Of course we are using mine-detection dogs in Bosnia, and of course in Mozambique as well. And most of those dogs that are in use in the programs that we support through the State Department program have been trained by the same organization using the same sorts of skills and techniques that were developed with the Afghan program in the mid-1990s up to today. So that technology -- and dogs are just one tool in the kit of mine awareness, mine detection, mine clearance tool box, but they're a very good one. And lessons learned in Afghanistan have been tremendously useful for us as we develop programs for countries around the world.

The 2010 Initiative, of course, the ambassador is better to speak to that than I am, but one of the roles that I envision his office to play, and he's been playing very well, is to coordinate the kinds of lessons learned and to coordinate support at the international level to use the best examples where successes have been made, and to emulate those kinds of programs in other countries while using support from international organizations as well as from international countries.

INDERFURTH: Rick, I think it's important to note that we need to build on the lessons that we have learned from successful programs, such as Afghanistan, and also from where we have had failures. We've had both experiences in trying to get at this problem, and again Afghanistan has been a country where we have learned things which can be applied to others. And countries like Mozambique, which went through a very long period of not being able to organize itself properly to attack this problem, we have learned not to emulate those problems.

Can I mention one other thing that Mr. Patierno raised with respect to the dogs that we have seen work so successfully in Afghanistan? One thing in the 2010 Initiative, which I am in charge of, is to try to get our private sector in the United States more engaged in helping address this problem around the world. And one of the interesting stories taking place right now is the U.S. private sector getting involved with groups like the United Nations association to do something called "Adopt A Mine field." Around the world they have come up with a catalogue of about 200 mine fields that they will be trying to get those in the United States and elsewhere to adopt through funding, mine fields that could be cleared from $25,000 to $2 million, to try to identify around the world something that people can do, since so many people around the world are concerned about this problem.

And another aspect of that is the K-9 Corps to support through private initiative and through private funding training of more dogs to go out around the world. So one thing that I'm trying to do -- and again building on the great international attention that has come to this issue because of the Nobel Prize being awarded last year to the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines, through the work of Princess Diana before she passed away and the attention that she called to this, as well as now Queen Nor of Jordan who has taken this on as a cause that she is publicizing and speaking about. There is this great international attention. We want to build on that to get our private sector and others around the world to help in this effort. And it will have benefits for all the countries affected, including Afghanistan.

Q: Good morning, gentlemen, ladies. My name is -- (inaudible) -- I am director of Afghan Technical Consultants, a mine clearance non-governmental organization. Afghan Technical Consultants, established in 1989, and it is the largest mine clearance organization in Afghanistan. ATC right now has manual mine clearance activity, mechanical mine clearance activity -- (inaudible) -- area clearance activity and -- (inaudible) -- ordnance disposal activity.

My question is that, as you know that the mine clearance program in Afghanistan is making good progress, because Afghanistan is among the countries where the greatest number of mines are planted, don't you think if greater financial resources are devoted to mine clearance organizations, and accordingly more deminers are included your goal of total mine clearance will be achieved more easily?

PATIERNO: Well, there's a balance that needs to be struck in terms of how you fund demining programs across the board. Absolutely our interest is primarily in getting mines out of the ground so innocent children and innocent victims of whatever age aren't affected by mine accidents.

But in order to meet the 2010 Initiative a number of projects have to continue to be funded in terms of researching new technologies, and that is why a good part of the United States' humanitarian demining program funds are dedicated to research and development through the U.S. Department of Defense. And they are experimenting with a lot of new technologies, including I might add this mine-detection dog mechanical capability, which probably is a year or two away from coming into fruition, but will offer considerable potential in terms of taking the best of what a mine dog can do for us and applying it mechanically for use in a greater number of areas. So research and development in new technologies is a very, very important part of a comprehensive demining program.

That said, however, you have to remember that the most important part is getting the mines out of the ground and funding the operations necessary to do so, the largest part of which of course is the salaries of the individuals who are actually down on their hands and knees and doing the probing, or handling the dogs or blowing up the mines and things like that. And we spend a lot of money in terms of that.

I think if you look at the mine action program plan for Afghanistan for this year, which comes in at roughly $23.5 million if I read the literature correctly, roughly 15 to 16 million dollars of that is dedicated to personnel costs -- a lion's share -- and that's the lion's share of any operation, regardless of the nature of that organization's objective. And we will continue to see that to be a lion's share. But you have to remember the balance that needs to be struck between operational and research and development.

Q: Good morning, gentlemen, I am -- (inaudible) -- coordinator of Pakistan's Campaign to Ban Land Mines, and also I'm working as a manager with the mine clearance planning agency. I am -- (inaudible) -- for Afghanistan.

Before I ask my question, please allow me to give you some facts and figures about landmines quoted from reliable sources. According to a United Nations estimation there are 119 million mines in 71 countries, a total of 5 million left, and 100,000 cleared -- on average every year. The total number of landmines will actually grow to between 127 and 129 million by the year 2000. Similarly, according to the projection of the United Nations, if the use of landmines is stopped immediately, it will take 1,100 years and $33 billion to clear at current rates those already in place.

During my experience of working with the world's most effective and renown mine-action program, that is a ground mine-action program, I am afraid if the Earth is cleared from the landmines by 2010, because it is a complicated, risky and time-consuming task, taking long hours to detect a single mine by using a stick attached to the hand of a deminer. I appreciate this optimistic initiative of the U.S. government, but in the meantime I would like to know however it is possible to get rid of this many in such a short period of time applying the current methods and procedures. Could you please explain the U.S. government's strategy to give a pragmatic shape to your initiative?

INDERFURTH: Well, I am delighted to have that question, because it gives me an opportunity to discuss something that we did in September, which was to release a report entitled, "Hidden Killers," done by the Office of Political Military Affairs at the State Department. "Hidden Killers" was done several years ago. We have had four years since the last publication. And in that intervening time we have been able now to gather more evidence from the field and information from those countries that are involved in getting rid of landmines. How many landmines are actually out there? I heard the questioner refer to 119 million. We are very pleased to be able to report that based on the information that we received from our posts abroad, from international organizations, from NGOs, we believe that the common estimate of between 80 and 110 million landmines is too high. In fact, we believe that based on the information that we have complied that a better estimate of the number of landmines around the world today is between 60 and 70 million. Now, that is still a staggering number, but it is less than the larger estimates, and therefore a more manageable problem.

We also believe that it is possible not to take the 1,100 years that was mentioned as the amount of time required to eliminate this threat. We think that we can shorten that considerably, and that's what the 2010 Initiative is about, that we can take years, not decades, to address this problem, as it relates to civilian populations.

And the way we can do that, we believe, is a combination of greater international attention by governments, by international organizations, by the non-governmental organizations, through what Mr. Patierno just mentioned -- accelerated research and development into new mine clearance, mine detection, mine destruction techniques. And we think that we are going to see progress in that regard, as well as the Level One Surveys that I mentioned, greater coordination to determine comprehensively what is the extent and scope of the problem and how do we address it where it is needed most -- namely those areas of a country that do need to be returned to productive use and that could be classified as ""victim-free."

We are seeing progress. In Central America there is a good opportunity to see that part of the world designated as mine-free by the year 2000. This is something that the secretary general of the OAS believes is a real possibility. In the meantime, all of the mine awareness activities being done in Afghanistan and other countries are leading people to have a greater understanding of what to avoid and how to avoid becoming victims of landmines.

So what I would say is that we recognize that this is a daunting task, and it is probably easier for us in Washington to say we can get this job done than if we were out in the field everyday digging and probing and trying to get the landmines out of the ground. But we believe that the international community is mobilized, and we believe therefore it can be done.

I urge my friend and colleague Brad Hanson (sp) in Peshawar to circulate among those listening the book on "Hidden Killers" I think we have dispatched from State Department to Mr. Hanson (sp), our principal officer in Peshawar. So I hope that that will give -- that book will give some encouragement to those who see this task as extending well beyond the timeframe which we would like to see, which is the year 2010.

Q: Good morning. My name is -- (inaudible) -- director for mine detection and dog center in Afghanistan. As you mentioned, the dog program now is recognized technically around the world, and we are expecting to export our experiences to other mine-affected countries.

My question is as the United States government's 2010 Initiative has attracted the international community's attention toward the United States and the people of the United States, and everybody appreciated the U.S. plan to eradicate the mines. The question is: What about the possibility of another initiative for the rehabilitation of land cleared of mines, like agricultural land, residential areas, grazing lands, the roads and others in mine-affected countries by your government?

INDERFURTH: I think that the land clearance and rehabilitation and reconstruction -- I think that we already see in two international organizations, the U.N. Development Program, UNDP, headed by Mr. Gus Speth in New York, which is very much taking an approach that it is not just sufficient to clear landmines but also to return land to productive use. And I think UNDP has that as a primary focus. And I can also tell you that the World Bank, of which the United States is a major contributors, and Mr. Jim Wolfensohn, the president of the World Bank, they are also looking at what assistance the World Bank can provide to the eradication, the elimination of landmines -- not on the basis just of getting rid of landmines, but since their organizations' charter is development assistance in the developing world, to translate the clearance of landmines into the use and reconstruction of countries and the land that would be used to get economies moving again. So I think that this is something that we see as a very high priority, and it's something that, as I said, the international community is looking at through these international organizations. So I think that that issue is being addressed.

Q: Good morning again. My question is since some of the countries around the world have not signed onto a treaty now, in which will the U.S. support by more effective -- financially, providing more funds, or to support a global ban? And the other part of my question is, as you are aware, as you mentioned earlier, that the U.S. support to mine clearance will increase -- in this connection I would like to mention that in Afghanistan the program has been internationally recognized that the Afghan NGOs as capacity-building wouldn't be more effective that the funds provided to mine clearance, mine action in Afghanistan, is directly involved with the Afghan national organization.

PATIERNO: Mine clearance is as I say one of our highest priorities. In terms of the funding there are a great number of things that we fund in the U.S. program, mine clearance probably being the lion's share. We do mine awareness, we do mine mapping, marking and surveying. And I think the Afghan program has proven that all of those things can be done very successfully.

We are looking at additional funds this year, as I said earlier. We are asking for every greater funding levels in FY 2000, and we anticipate that the 2010 Initiative has put on demining around the world, coupled with the legacy of Princess Diana, and the mantel that has now been picked by Queen Nor of Jordan, is going to keep attention on this program, which is a very, very important factor in making sure that we continue to get the kind of funding and the level of funding that we need to support mine clearance programs around the world.

Directly funding organizations within particular countries is sometimes difficult because of the nature and instability within those respective nations. And I think if you look at the history of U.S. support to Afghanistan you will see that for the most part we have provided our support through UNOCHA, the U.N. organization, and that has worked fairly well in our minds. And I would be interested in exploring the possibility of other funding routes to take to get the money to the mine clearance organizations within Afghanistan, and would welcome an opportunity to discuss those possibilities perhaps when someone from your organization comes to visit us or when one of us comes to visit you. But it is something -- one of the things that happened in the last two years as in the United States structure for humanitarian demining programs is the creation of a new appropriation by the Congress called "the Non-proliferation, Anti-terrorism, Demining and Related Account." And within that account we have the demining program with respect to the State Department's portion of it. That appropriation offers us a great deal more flexibility in terms of how we provide our funds, in comparison to the way funds were provided prior to fiscal year 1997. So there are opportunities to look together with you and with other nations and organizations on how best to provide those funds. And, as I said, I'd welcome the opportunity to discuss those.

INDERFURTH: May I address the issue of the mine clearance and humanitarian assistance and the question of the ban of landmines? I said at the beginning of the program -- I mentioned the edict that has been issued by the Taliban with respect to landmine use. Now, we have many differences with the Taliban, and we are trying to communicate those through discussions that we have with Taliban representatives.

But again, one things that we are in agreement is the recent statement by the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban movement, on landmine use. I have read the statement that Mullah Omar has issued, and I want to read one portion of that. It says, "The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan believes that unless the existing mines in the ground are cleared, and unless a total ban is imposed on production, trade, stockpiling and use of landmines, this tragedy will continue not only in Afghanistan but in the whole world." We agree with that statement. We have to both clear the landmines, we have to help the victims of landmines.

But we also have to see a move toward a ban on landmines, which is something that President Clinton has called for at the United Nations. In fact, he was the first world leader in 1994 to call for the elimination of anti-personnel landmines around the world. So we are committed to moving in that direction.

We applaud the fact that the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines and the government of Canada and that whole movement resulted -- culminated in the signing of the Ottawa Convention. Now, we are not a part of that convention at this stage. We still have certain security-military requirements that we are working through within our own government. But the president has said that the United States will sign the Ottawa Convention by the year 2006 if we are able to find alternatives for our situation in Korea and with our mixed munitions that go along with our anti-tank weapons. So we are working very hard to be a part of that. But the United States, even though we are not a signatory of the Ottawa Convention, we feel that we are part of the Ottawa process, which is the international effort to deal with the landmine crisis. And this is something that we are doing both in our national programs and through the 2010 Initiative.

So I think that we are all working in this together, and quite frankly wherever we can find support for this, most recently through this statement by Mullah Omar -- or anywhere in the world -- we will welcome that and hope that that moves us toward our common objective of eliminating landmines that threaten civilians around the world.

Q: Thank you, Ambassador Inderfurth. My name is Sayed Akar (sp), the director of -- (inaudible) -- Planning Agency. I want -- I think we have an agreement on working in clearing landmines, and we also have agreements and disagreements on bans, which I will not discuss here.

But I am coming back to the earlier number games as we say -- the number of mines -- 100 million, 120 million, 1,100 years. We strongly believe -- we are doing a national survey in Afghanistan -- we have done -- and we have all the figures and the data is available, that it is possible and achievable within the time period if we put our action behind our words. And I think the number of mines is not important, and it has been recognized that it is -- what is important is the number of square meters of area affected by landmines. So that has to be considered. Having said that, the other question to the speed up the operation was on R&D versus -- (inaudible) -- funding continuous manual demining operations.

If you look at the Afghanistan experience, we have placed the mine action program in Afghanistan about 35 percent of the high priority areas in Afghanistan so far. So all 35 percent has been cleared with the current method. And if there are more funds available, the program can double its size in three months. So don't you think that providing more money to the existing technology, which of course does not deny the use of technology, but appropriate technology, to the existing methods of dogs, simple machines and manual clearance instead of investing on technologies which may or may not work? Because I was in Ispra, and it seems that it is -- we are talking about five or more years to have something this effective on the ground.

PATIERNO: I share your concern about spending time -- too much time perhaps on research and development. On the other hand, if we have a realistic chance of clearing the world of landmines by the 2010 timeframe, we are going to have to develop additional technologies in order to do so.

I also agree with you that more monies put into mine clearance operation is going to go a long way toward solving the problem by 2010, and certainly be able to clear and declare some countries as mine-free. I guess the correct terminology might be declare countries "mine-safe" by a specific timeframe.

With respect to Afghanistan, we have received a proposal from Halo Trust, whom I am sure you are very familiar with, a British NGO which has been very successful around the world in manual mine clearance operations, that we are looking at very seriously in terms of supporting the 1999 demining initiative in Afghanistan with respect to U.S. funds. And I expect that we'll be able to do something about that proposal and make a decision on it within the next couple of months, particularly the Halo Trust proposal is focusing on the Wardock (sp) Province, and as you know there have been some reports of some fighting there recently, and we need to confirm those before we go ahead and introduce any mine clearance operations into an area where fighting may have resumed.

The way the country program works within the U.S. State Department's humanitarian demining program -- and I shouldn't just say the Department of State, because this really is an interagency effort on the part of the United States -- we have formed since 1993 an interagency working group on humanitarian demining, and any proposal or any request for assistance that comes to the United States is reviewed by this interagency committee. And it is -- and that committee determines whether or not the proposal merits funding or whether it merits some additional work before funding can be achieved. And it's up to the individual nation, along with the U.S. Embassy that might be supporting that particular nation, to tell us what it is that they would like us to provide -- whether they want additional equipment. And, as you know, just yesterday or within the last couple of days the United States provided 60 additional vehicles to replace the aging fleet that had been used in Afghanistan for the last 10 years, and we are very pleased to do that. But that request came from the community, from the local area out there in Afghanistan, and with our U.S. Embassy and consul in Peshawar, because they are very much active in the Afghan problem, given the nature of the refugee problem that Afghanistan has posed for Pakistan. It is up to the country, as I say, to tell us what it is they would like, and to the extent possible we will try to meet those countries' needs in a manner that they describe.

Q: Again my name is -- (inaudible) -- director of -- Afghan Technical Consultants. As the director of de-mining mentioned that some of the organizations like -- (inaudible) -- have done a tremendous job. What I propose is that all the organizations, especially the organizations which are active in Afghanistan, those NGOs -- all their effort is that to do this tremendous job, and they have done. And what is the real problem is that because the world or the media they do not know much about this, about how active we are in this field and the way we are proceeding, it is successful, and the work. Do you think that providing international status to mine clearance organizations in Afghanistan would result in more effective mine clearance globally?

PATIERNO: You hit on a subject that is near and dear to my heart, and that is the media and the use of media to broadcast demining success stories. My involvement in humanitarian demining is only a couple of years. I got involved in Bosnia in late 1995, and I certainly don't have as much experience as Ambassador Inderfurth. But one of the things that struck me very early on is the slant of the media towards demining, which tends to look more at the failures rather than the successes. So I agree with the theme of your question -- that we need to publish the success stories like Afghanistan, and I think broadcast situations such as we are in here today, are just the first step in doing so.

So important do I believe this point to be that I have named a member of my staff, a Mr. Matt Murphy, to sort of deal with outreach activities to make sure that the world knows that there are a lot of success stories out there in humanitarian demining. The main reason you want to do that, of course, is that more success breeds more success. And I think if we can publicize and get the media to cooperate in publicizing the success stories we are likely to see greater contributions made, regardless of where those contributions might come and regardless of what those contributions might be dedicated to in terms of whether they're UNOCHA or whether they're directed to an Afghan NGO or whether to the United Nations or any other international organization. So, yes, I believe publicizing this is a very, very important piece of an overall demining initiative, and I think that's something that we need to do across the board -- not just from the United States' perspective, but every organization in the world in demining has got to try to get the media to try to assist in publicizing successes as well as failures.

Q: Thank you. And this is Faiz (sp) from -- the coordinator of the Pakistan Campaign to Ban Land Mines again. My question is on technology. According to my personal observation, deminers painstakingly hold a prober in his hand, lying on his stomach to detect a mine. And according to a United Nations report, on average one deminer loses his precious life and two sustain injuries just trying to find those mines.

I have learned from the fact sheet issued by the State Department on 20th May 1998 that the U.S.-sponsored demining research and development and of course they are spending a lot on this, and the Defense Department has projected $21 million for this purpose for the year 1998. Could you please tell me what developments have been made in the matters of demining, and what innovations have taken place in the mine clearance technologies so far to expedite the demining process and minimize the ratio of the current mine incidents leading to the death and maiming of deminers?

INDERFURTH: Let me ask Mr. Patierno to address that. But could I just, from the standpoint of the international effort, at the beginning of the program we mentioned briefly the Washington Conference on Global Humanitarian Demining that was held in May, where we gathered the major donors, the 20 or so countries around the world that are putting more money and resources and effort into this, along with the major international organizations, including the United Nations and its Mine Action Service, as well as NGOs, to talk about what we as the major contributors could do. One element of that was to talk about technology and to talk about how we could better coordinate with other countries and companies, since this is also a private sector effort, our activities so that we would not be going down the same road that others have already gone and found is not working. So we have been working to see greater international cooperation on research and technology. We are working particularly closely with some of our European Union colleagues, and that international dimension is important here.

But in terms of our national program and what progress we're making, maybe Mr. Patierno could address that.

PATIERNO: Well, I will try, sir. This is normally the Department of Defense's bailiwick, and I don't pretend to be a scientist or a technician. But what I do know is happening at the Department of Defense is experimentation with a number of new technologies, some of which I am sure you are familiar with and may have seen in Ispra last month.

Mini flails seem to be sort of the minds of the immediate horizon. Remote-control mini flails are proving, at least in the experimental stages, to be very, very successful in detecting particularly anti-personnel landmines. They don't do well with anti-tank mines because of the damage that might be inflicted. But there are a number of various kinds of mini flails that are being tested by our Department of Defense, as well as by other organizations around the world, and there is some promise there, and we are looking to those to be a major contributor to more massive mine clearing activities in the future.

We also are looking at this air spade, which uses air blasts to basically clear soil around a mine once it's detected. Of course the air spade doesn't detect the mine. But it is probably a slightly safer tool to use rather than the probing technique. That also has promise, although that is still in very experimental stages. I saw one of these exhibited a few weeks ago at the James Madison University's Conference on Humanitarian Demining, and that looks to be something that might be useful again in the not-too-distant future.

I mentioned earlier the artificial dog-sniffing capability that is being looked at not only by the Department of Defense but our labs, our U.S. government labs in New Mexico. And they believe they are two to three years away from having that capability deployed. We have developed special processing units, particularly one in Namibia comes to mind, which has a unique sort of problem with berms where they cleared all the landmines around power lines and just put them into piles, and this special processor has been successful with some modifications to develop locally I might add in clearing the landmines out of these berms along a 168-kilometer route in the northern part of Namibia.

And I am told from the literature I have read that in Afghanistan that you folks have made some adjustments to some of the technologies as well to make them fit your needs there. So I think it's this individual creativity on the part of the users of the technology as well as the scientists and technologists who are working from the base level over the course of the next couple of years are going to expand this tool kit we referred to earlier in terms of the kind of support we can provide.

There are of course times when all this technology doesn't work, and we have to sit down on our hands and knees with a prober and identify the mine manually, which poses of course great risk to the individuals involved. We are trying to protect those individuals through the introduction of technologies which would keep them further back from the mines.

Q: Again my name is -- (inaudible). I should tell you that my question is not political -- it is a personal question. The question is the government of the United States, China, India and a few other countries did not sign the Ottawa treaty last year. What do you think that by not signing this treaty the United States has placed itself against the international community well?

INDERFURTH: Well, I think I answered a moment ago related to the international treaty. We do have certain requirements, and quite frankly China and India say they have certain requirements as well. We are hoping that all of these countries that have not signed the treaty can be taking steps to move toward becoming a party to the International Convention signed in Ottawa. We are also hoping that even while countries are not signatories of the treaty that they will take steps like the United States has done to increase the resources and commitments to dealing with the most urgent problem of all, and that is detecting and destroying the landmines that are already in the ground that are threatening civilian populations.

Quite frankly, we believe that through mine awareness activities, through training activities, we have a program that has been mentioned that is in more than 20 countries around the world today -- we would like to see all countries -- and part of our 2010 Initiative is not only to address itself to the major donors which I mentioned had been convened at the Washington Conference on Humanitarian Demining in May; we are now going to approach what we call the second-tier countries, those countries around the world that have something to offer -- it may be mine awareness activities, it may be training, it may be demining personnel themselves, it may be financial resources, it may be research and technology for new ways of addressing the problem. We want to go out to every country in the world and say, "What more can you be doing?" And we will be making that effort, quite frankly, with the other two countries that you mentioned in your question, China and India.

Q: Thank you. Sayed Akar (sp) from Mine Clearance Planning Agency. I think two of our questions maybe we could not transmit properly because of maybe language problems. I think -- (inaudible) -- and myself are also trying to say the experience in Afghanistan gained will be extremely useful to -- shall we say export to other countries -- get Afghanistan involved to help other programs. I think if we request if the United States could focus on that angle as well -- for instance, in surveys which are very important in mine clearance and dogs, a lot could be done.

And also I have -- going back to technologies, I think my question was that if we have already cleared 35 percent of high priority mined areas and then why we need to spend millions of dollars on something which may or may not work? And also we don't know the reliability of clearance, whether they will meet 99.6 or 100 (percentage) points or not, while this current technology is ensuring 100 percent clearance and we have proven that.

I have a brief question to Mr. Inderfurth as well. Could you please inform us of how much has been raised this year for your target of $1 billion dollar for this 2010 Initiative?

INDERFURTH: Well, the $1 billion target was announced by Secretary Albright and Secretary Cohen when they unveiled the President's 2010 Initiative last October, a year ago. Actually we have an anniversary of October 31st rapidly approaching for the 2010 Initiative.

We have seen I think a substantial increase in the funding for addressing the landmine issue in the last year. We, in the United States government, have put more money into this. We have seen increases in the countries that I had mentioned had been invited to the Washington Conference -- Canada, other countries around the world have put more money into this -- private sectors. The Princess Diana Fund, which has been at work raising funds for those projects that she was so committed to has also put money into landmine issues. Ted Turner, who last year at this time made a $1 billion contribution to the United Nations, has opened up his U.N. Foundation, headed by former U.S. Senator Tim Wirth -- they have also made a substantial contribution to landmine awareness and clearance through the work of the U.N. Foundation.

So we do not have a figure of how close we are to that $1 billion mark. I think we are still short of it. But I do know that in the last year there has been a substantial increase in funding in support for landmine activities around the world. So we believe we are moving in that direction, and we think that again with the kind of international attention we have to this issue that each year we will have even greater support for this effort.

Q: Thank you, gentlemen. My name is Faizal Karem (sp), the director OMOHAR (sp). And on behalf of my colleagues and myself once again, I insist on helping the international organization in building a capacity in Afghanistan, a request for increased support for mine clearance, mine awareness and mine weapons.

FOUCHEUX: Is there another question in Peshawar?

Q: Yes, this is Faiz (sp) again. My question is about those countries that are not recognized governments. According to Mrs. Madeleine Albright in a press briefing on the 1st of October 1997, quoted the goal of the President, Mr. Bill Clinton, people everywhere will be able to walk safely on the Earth. It is worth mentioning that the U.S. government implemented this program in cooperation with the international agencies and host governments of mine-affected nations. (Once those tragedies have ceased ?) and the invitation of the host governments, the United States supported mine clearance operation and mine awareness programs. I would like to know if those countries which do not have official and established governments are included in the programs of the U.S. government.

INDERFURTH: A case in point is Afghanistan. We do not recognize a government in Afghanistan. We are hoping that the contending factions -- the Taliban and others that represent important ethnic groupings in Afghanistan can come together in some fashion to establish a broad-based multi-ethnic representative government. But at this point the United States does not support any single faction as the government of Afghanistan.

So but at the same time, as we have been discussing here, the United States has been very, very active -- a major supporter of efforts within Afghanistan through the United Nations and through the NGOs to address the problem.

PATIERNO: Another example would be Somalia. We recently engaged in efforts in Somalia for some Level One Surveys up in the northwest part of Somalia, an area known as Somaliland. Here, too, as in Afghanistan there is no government recognized by the United States, but again we work through international organizations, in this case CARE International, to get a mine program started in that particular country. And we are looking forward to providing additional support to Somalia in 1999 once these surveys are over with.

In addition -- as in the case of Afghanistan, we work a lot with international organizations. UNDP is the beneficiary of many of the U.S. funds for humanitarian demining programs, simply because governments might be new or governments are unable for a variety of reasons -- not because of lack of commitment, but because of infrastructure that has been destroyed through years of fighting, are unable to take the task on for themselves. A case here is in Mozambique -- tremendous successes in Mozambique, the government strongly committed to the demining initiative that it wants to engage in, but unable because of infrastructure problems to get fully engaged at a level they'd like to. So we use the United Nations in Mozambique, and that is a success story much like Afghanistan, particularly in use of mine-detection dogs.

Briefly.

INDERFURTH: Very briefly, last year Secretary Albright traveled to Peshawar, in November of last year, and part of her visit there was to highlight our concern about the landmine crisis around the world and what we are doing in Afghanistan. And she had a demonstration by the dogs that we have been talking about here. So even without recognized governments the United States would be involved in this activity.

FOUCHEUX: Ambassador Inderfurth, Mr. Patierno, thank you very much for joining us today. Our thanks to our questioners in Pakistan and our audience around the world. In Washington, I'm Rick Foucheux. Have a good day.

(End transcript)