CONCERTS FOR A LANDMINE FREE WORLD 

COMPILATION SET FOR AN APRIL 10th, 2002  RELEASE ON VANGUARD RECORDS

-Proceeds to benefit the Campaign for a Landmine Free World-

SANTA MONICA, CA -- Vanguard Records announces the April 10th release of Concerts for a Landmine Free World, a compilation culled from the sold-out concert series featuring artists from folk-rock to country crossover held to educate and raise public awareness about the global landmine tragedy. Picking up where Princess Diana left off, Emmylou Harris spearheaded the roster of artists supporting the Campaign and proposed the singer/songwriter concert series after traveling with Bobby Muller, president of Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF) and co-founder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, on a trip to Cambodia and Vietnam.

Heralded as a "musical event of historical proportions," the first series of concerts were presented in California on five successive nights in December 1999. These concerts united some of the most distinctive voices and finest singer/songwriters of our time, sharing their songs and stories in an intimate, acoustic setting. Included on this compilation are performances by Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Mary Chapin Carpenter, John Prine, Nanci Griffith, Guy Clark, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Kris Kristofferson and Bruce Cockburn. Coming off its sold-out 1999 tour, the VVAF recreated the musical event by featuring a second series of dates in the Northeast United States and Canada December 2-6, 2000.

Founded in 1998, by the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation (VVAF), a Washington, D.C.-based international humanitarian organization, the Campaign for a Landmine Free World is a comprehensive program that addresses the danger and damage caused by antipersonnel landmines. Operating post-conflict rehabilitation clinics and landmine awareness programs around the world, the campaign also conducts mine impact surveys in landmine-affected nations, educates the public on the worldwide impact of the problem and works to ensure the U. S. government will join the Ottawa Convention, a convention established to ban the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of antipersonnel landmines.

According to the United Nations, 340 types of landmines are produced by forty-eight nations. These landmines are designed not to kill, but to inflict injury, pain and suffering. Landmine victims - those that survive the massive bleeding - require amputations and a life of unending pain and surgeries. The State Department estimates that 60-80 million landmines are in the ground worldwide. One-third of the world's countries are mined and every twenty-two minutes, someone is killed or maimed. Of the 26,000 men, women and children injured or killed each year, nearly 90 percent are civilians.

Concerts for a Landmine Free World Quote Sheet

"There will never be peace in a country like Cambodia, because the people don't have the freedom to walk their homeland. That's a basic right we take for granted." Emmylou Harris Chicago Tribune, January 5, 1998

"It's not enough to say we won't put anymore in the ground; we've got to get them out,' says Harris. "It comes down to a basic courtesy, something you learn in kindergarten: You clean up after your mess when you're through. Until we do, these countries are going to be hostages. They're going to continue to live the war many, many years after peace has been declared." Emmylou Harris The Washington Post, October 9, 1998

"To me it's not a political issue," says Harris. "The war's over, we're gone, so people think the issue is resolved. It's not resolved. The trash we left behind is killing someone every 22 minutes. We take for granted that we can go outside for a walk, or our children can, without getting [body parts] blown off. But millions of people live with that fear. That's why they call it terrorism in slow motion." . "It's one thing to know intellectually that people are victims of landmines," she said. "It's another thing to actually see it and how common it is. We're not talking about handicapped-access countries, either." Emmylou Harris Boston Sunday Globe, August 13, 2000

"I'm sure there was a good reason for using nerve gas, too, but there's a certain point where you have to say, 'Yeah, we could use it, this could be handy in this situation, but when you look at the pros and cons this is really fighting dirty and the civilian population around the world is going to suffer.'" Emmylou Harris Star Phoenix, December 22, 1998

"The people who are killed by landmines are for the most part civilians, 90 per cent are civilians ... Every 22 minutes, someone is maimed or killed by a mine ... they can't plow fields, they can't farm, they can't gather firewood." Emmylou Harris Ottawa Citizen, December 2, 2000

"The cities are full of people begging who are missing limbs, or blinded, or horribly disfigured by contact with mines," he said. "They're very visible because there's no other way they can survive. ... The mines constitute not just a problem for a person who has encountered them and his or her family, but a problem for the country as a whole. All they can do is beg. ... It doesn't matter what side of the political ring you stand on. It's a humanitarian issue." Bruce Cockburn Burlington Free Press, November 30, 2000

"I was in Phnom Penh and counted how many amputees I saw in a city block. On average, over an afternoon, I saw four on every block, everywhere I went." Steve Earle Ottawa Citizen, December 4, 2000

"Once you have held a child in your lap who is being fitted for an artificial limb from having stepped on a landmine in his own back yard, the issue of banning landmines ceases to be a controversy." Nanci Griffith Burlington Free Press, November 30, 2000

"I think it's very important that as Americans, we go out and clean up our own garbage and also teach other countries to clean theirs as well. As an American, it's embarrassing that we're the country that instigated the international treaty to ban landmines, which has been signed by over 120 countries? but not ours." Nanci Griffith Billboard, January 15, 2000

"If Guthrie were still with us, you know there would have been a seventh chair on stage." Los Angeles Times, December 6, 1999

"This started out as networking for me. I would do Emmy's landmine stuff and she would do my death penalty stuff. Then I met Bobby Muller and John Terzano and went to Vietnam and Cambodia and saw the work that V.V.A.F. is doing for myself. It changed my life." Steve Earle

"Imagine sitting around a campfire, listening to some of the best singer-songwriters of our time swap tales and songs for hours." San Jose Mercury News, December 2, 1999

"A concert of epic proportions" San Francisco Chronicle

"Music from the heart" The Ottawa Citizen

"Great minds, great music" The Burlington Free Press