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Menacing and Deadly, Cluster Bombs Still Maim and Kill the Innocent
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by Virgil Wiebe
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Cluster bombs have come back onto arms control agendas around the globe. This brief article provides a quick update on what’s going on and what advocates can do.
What are cluster bombs? Cluster munitions spread large numbers of smaller bomblets, often referred to as submunitions, over wide areas, often the size of several football fields. They are dropped from the air, delivered in artillery shells, or packed into rocket warheads. In many cases, a significant percentage of the bomblets fail to explode on impact, creating virtual minefields of unexploded ordnance.
The Israel/Hezbollah War of 2006
Cluster bombs came back on the international front pages last summer during the war between Israel and Hezbollah. Israel dropped or fired an estimated four million cluster submunitions, the vast majority of them in the last three days of the conflict. Between 10 percent and 25 percent of them failed to explode on contact, leaving behind de facto minefields. Very old cluster bombs were used (some that had been sitting on the shelf for over 30 years), resulting in very high dud rates. Very new cluster bombs were used as well, of a sort that manufacturers claim would leave no duds behind. Clearance personnel have been finding unexploded bomblets of the newer sort as well, despite the claims of manufacturers.
The Mine Action Coordination Center of South Lebanon estimates that 37,000,000 m2 of land have been affected. In an impressive effort, nonprofit, commercial, and governmental clearance teams are expected to have cleared the worst areas by the end of 2007.
Both the US government (which supplied many of the weapons used) and the Israeli government are investigating whether the weapons were used illegally or in violation of secret agreements between the two countries as to how the weapons could be used.
Another disturbing development during the war was the first use of cluster munitions by a non-state actor, Hezbollah, which fired over 100 such rockets (armed with thousands of submunitions) into northern Israel. Such use seemed calculated to inflict damage and injury to civilians rather than affect military targets.
International Efforts to Ban Cluster Munitions
For the past decade, advocates have tried fruitlessly to move the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) to seriously address the issue of cluster munitions. The CCW came into being in the mid-1970s to regulate conventional weapons. When efforts at the CCW to ban landmines in the mid-1990s hit roadblocks (thrown up by countries like the U.S., China, India, and Russia), Canada led a group of countries in the Ottawa process, which resulted in the 1997 Landmine Ban Treaty. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines and Jody Williams received the Nobel Peace Prize as a result.
A similar movement has now taken shape with cluster munitions. In February 2007, over 40 countries met in Oslo, Norway, to start a treaty process aimed at banning cluster munitions. By May, that number had grown to 74 countries when the next meeting took place in Lima, Peru. The Cluster Munitions Coalition, formed in 2003, has led nongovernmental efforts in support of a ban. The United States has chosen not to take part in the Oslo process, but suddenly now has endorsed an effort at the CCW to possibly regulate cluster munitions.
National Efforts
Beside a cluster munitions ban treaty, several nations have been grappling with legislative proposals to ban or restrict cluster munitions. Belgium banned most cluster bombs in 2006, and Australia, Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States have all taken up cluster munitions legislation over the past year. In the US, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California have introduced legislation that would require a very low dud rate for all US cluster munitions. While there are definite problems with so-called “technical fixes,” the bill at least begins moving the debate in the right direction.
What can you do? Two things would be (1) to urge the United States Department of State to support the Oslo process, and (2) to support the Leahy/Feinstein legislation.
Virgil Wiebe is associate professor of law, University of St. Thomas Law School, Minneapolis, MN. |
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More on Cluster Munitions
Websites to educate yourself about the issue are the following:
Cluster Munition Coalition: http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/
Mennonite Central Committee: http://www.mcc.org/clusterbombs/
Human Rights Watch: http://hrw.org/doc/?t=arms_clusterbombs
Handicap International: http://www.handicap-international.org/
Professor Wiebe’s website: http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/vowiebe
Since 1996 AlliantACTION has held a weekly vigil at the corporate headquarters of Alliant Techsystems (ATK) in Edina Minnesota. ATK has been one of the largest suppliers of Cluster Bombs to the DoD. ATK's predessor, the Honeywell Corporation, supplied most of the cluster munitions used in the American War in Southest Asia.
(more online)
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© 2007 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
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Complete November 2007 Index - click here
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