BAIANO DI SPOLETO, Italy — As land mine after land mine trickled down a conveyor belt, Maria Boninni carved out a candy-sized, pink tablet of explosive and tossed it into a small metal box.
Boninni and 20 other civilian employees at a military munitions plant in the hilly countryside of Umbria, are dismantling a mine every 50 seconds — helping the country evolve from one of the world's leading land mine producers to a major destroyer.
"It's a really unpleasant job," Boninni told an Associated Press reporter on a recent morning, without looking up from the belt. "But if we can save the life of a kid or an adult . . ."
At a pace of 12,000 mines a day, workers at the Baiano di Spoleto plant — which still produces hand grenades — are destroying Italy's anti-personnel land mine arsenal.
Over nearly two years, they have dismantled about 3.1 million mines according to strict environmental guidelines, mostly by hand and with in-house produced machinery. They work in bunker-like buildings hidden in the woods just miles from one of Italy's best preserved medieval hamlets, Spoleto.
Until 1992, Italy, together with China and the former Soviet Union, was the world's leading producer of land mines, exporting them to countries like Iraq and Nigeria.
Production stopped in 1994 when Italy adopted a moratorium on production. One of Italy's three land mine producing factories has since closed, and the other two converted into other industries.
Now Italy finds itself with 6.5 million mines, the biggest stock among the 138 countries that signed a 1997 treaty outlawing the weapons.
Six countries, including France and Australia, have finished destroying their stocks. The government promises Italy will be mine-free by October 2002, meaning workers in Baiano di Spoleto must still handle another 3.4 million mines.
"To dismantle a mine by hand isn't dangerous," said Lt. Col. Adriano Annino, deputy director of the plant, as a worker dropped a box and dozens of mines scattered on the floor next to him. "But when you have to deal with 12,000 mines a day, you better have safety measures."
It is a task that's never free from danger and fear, said Boninni.
But it is a commitment the Italian government carries like a badge of honor.
"We always have to keep in mind that every mine destroyed is a life saved in Bosnia, Angola or Afghanistan," said Rino Serri, undersecretary of foreign affairs.
A report by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which won the Nobel peace prize in 1997, estimates that more than 250 million mines remain stockpiled in 105 nations.
Most are countries that haven't signed the treaty and reserve the right to produce and use land mines, like the United States, Russia and China.
President Clinton wants the United States to approve the treaty by 2006, but only if the armed forces have come up with an alternative to land mines. Russia and China maintain they need land mines for defensive purposes.
Nicoletta Dentico, who has assisted maimed mine survivors in her work with Medicins sans Frontieres, or Doctors without Borders, said a real impact will be seen when the big powers follow Italy's lead to sign and ratify the treaty, stop producing mines and destroy stocks.
"On the NATO level, Italy hasn't done enough to impose its ways," she said.