Leftover Land Mines Pose Huge Risk : Emerging nations: World leaders call for ban on production and use. The U.N. continues its formidable cleanup task.

WASHINGTON —  About 100 million unexploded land mines--deadly reminders of past and present wars--threaten economic growth in developing countries as well as the lives of innocent civilians, according to testimony Friday at a Senate hearing.

Former President Jimmy Carter, U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and world leaders sent written statements calling for a ban on production and use of the devices while the United Nations continues the slow, dangerous task of clearing mine fields in more than 60 nations.

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), presiding at the first congressional hearing on the topic, said at least 1,200 people every month are killed or maimed by mines that he said “lie patiently in ambush for years upon years.”

Only U.S. leadership and international cooperation, Leahy contended, can deal with a global crisis created by widespread use of mines as a weapon to terrorize civilians, as well as inflict casualties on enemy troops.

Thomas E. McNamara, principal deputy assistant secretary of state, said the existence of tens of millions of mines will remain a major threat to civilians for years to come. “In addition to these tragic human costs, uncleared land mines hinder the repatriation of refugees and economic development and pose a continuing threat to political stability,” he said.

The United States is helping to clear mines in Cambodia, Afghanistan, Nicaragua and Mozambique, as well as providing aid to Eritrea, Ethiopia, Honduras and Costa Rica, he said. While there are major problems with mines in Angola, Somalia, Rwanda and Liberia, he said, continuing conflict in those nations has prevented clearance of mine fields.

Boutros-Ghali said the presence of mines in many countries is a great obstacle to postwar development.

“Vast tracts of potentially productive land have been literally turned into no-man’s lands, abandoned as the result of extensive mining,” he said. “Most of the nearly 20 million refugees in the world today want to return home, but U.N. assistance for repatriation and the repopulating of former war zones is being drastically impeded because of uncleared mines.”

An international convention is urgently needed to reach agreement on a total ban on production, stockpiling, trade and use of mines, Boutros-Ghali said.

Carter agreed, saying, “My preference, precipitated by the devastating results of land mine use, is that they ultimately will be banned.”

Cyrus R. Vance, secretary of state under Carter, also supported a ban.

“Land mines have and continue to cause a human and economic catastrophe of monumental proportions,” he said in a statement sent to the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations.

“In fact, while reducing the threat of nuclear war must remain the first priority of international arms control efforts, it is these small lethal weapons that are killing and wounding far more people every day.”

Nothing less than a total ban on production or use of anti-personnel mines, Vance said, will move the world closer to the goal of eliminating this “horrible scourge.”

Leahy said he would introduce legislation next month to impose a one-year moratorium on U.S. production of anti-personnel land mines and urge the President to seek similar moratoriums by other nations that are leading producers of the devices.