11-year-old shifts minds on mines

[The Straight Story]

11-year-old shifts minds on mines

Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Daniel Yuval is 11, an Israeli sixth grader who is in Geneva to make one thing perfectly clear to the world: it should get rid of its landmines and not another single child should be hurt by one. He appears to be getting the message across, both at home in Israel and further afield.

Daniel was enjoying the thrill of his first snow 6 February 2010, playing on a hillside in the Golan Heights with his father, older sister and a younger brothers, when he stepped on a landmine. He lost a leg to it, but gained a power for speaking out against landmines, which is literally moving mountains where adults have been able to achieve far less.

A bill was submitted 10 May 2010 to Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, by 73 members, to establish a national mine action authority to manage the clearance of non-operational minefields. The bill followed Daniel’s address to the Knesset, asking them to take action.

Israel is one of the 20 percent of countries that have not signed the Mine Ban Treaty. The 1997 treaty was implemented in 1999 and 156 States are signatories. Its web pages note: “The Mine Ban Treaty prohibits the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of antipersonnel mines. It is the most comprehensive international instrument for eradicating landmines and deals with everything from mine use, production and trade, to victim assistance, mine clearance and stockpile destruction.”

Israel and landmine groups estimate it has 260,000 mines.



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[GreenPartyVoter]

1. May the world's leaders finally have the wisdom to hear the message. More power

to this strong young man!

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. Another one of that 20% is the US - claims we need them for places

like the DMZ between N & S Korea.

Of course, if the north DID want to cross the DMZ it would take all of 5 minutes shelling of the mined area to clear out virtually all of the mines we placed there.