Harper Skulks Behind Cluster Bomb Ban

In 2008, countries around the world signed on to a global ban on cluster bomb munitions.   Apparently the sheer humanity of it was too much for the Prince of Darkness to bear.

Now there are warnings that our prime ministerial Beelzebub is prepping legislation to circumvent the spirit and letter of the agreement.

The spotlight is on Australia and Canada, two countries setting out legislation that cites occasions when they might be able to take part to help in joint military operations where cluster munitions are being used, Cheeseman said.

The proposed Canadian legislation, which could be completed within six months, goes against the letter and the spirit of the law, Paul Hannon, the executive director of Mines Action Canada who also sits on the CMC advisory board, told AlertNet.

Cluster Bomblets

"Our view is that this is a great treaty and it bans cluster munitions for all time, and that means no Canadian should ever be involved in use of cluster munitions for anyone, in any place, at any time, for any reason,” Hannon said from Oslo.

Campaigners were unsuccessful in their fight to change the Australian legislation, which was ratified in its parliament in August, but has not yet been passed into law.

Cluster bombs are the ultimate "fire and forget" weapons.  Countries particularly fond of them, like Israel, fire them into neighbouring territories, like Lebanon, and forget about them once hostilities are concluded leaving them to kill and maim masses of civilians for years, even decades afterward.   Israel was found to have launched thousands of cluster munitions into Lebanon despite realizing the end of hostilities was imminent.   Afterward Israel refused to provide Lebanese authorities with its computer date of where these weapons were delivered.

In South East Asia it's estimated that upwards of 60% of those who fall victim to cluster bombs are kids. (Warning - opening that link leads to a graphic photograph of what befalls a kid who runs into a cluster munition).

A Day to Celebrate

Today marks the beginning of the ban on production, storage and use of cluster bombs.  107 countries have signed on to the ban.   America, naturally, hasn't but it has promised to restrict the use of cluster bombs and their export.

Today is also the day that the Dutch cease their military role in Afghanistan and begin packing up to go home.   Most of the Dutch force is expected to be back in the Netherlands by September.

Cluster Bomb Ban Kicks In Sunday

For 107 countries, the use, production and stockpiling of cluster bombs is officially banned beginning Sunday, August 1st.  From AlterNet:

Dropped from aircraft or fired from artillery or rockets, the weapons scatter bomblets over a wide area, but have limited military impact today as they were designed to attack tanks on an open battlefield, an increasingly rare scenario, they said.



Cluster bombs often fail to detonate immediately and can explode years after a conflict, killing or maiming civilians in Laos, Kosovo and Lebanon, according to humanitarian groups.


"These weapons are a relic of the Cold War. They are a legacy that has to be eliminated because they increasingly won't work," Peter Herby, an arms expert at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told a news conference.


Support is growing for the Convention on Cluster Bombs, adopted in May 2008 and ratified by 37 states including Britain, France, Germany and Japan, which all have significant stocks.


But the United States -- the world's largest producer with the biggest stockpile of 800 million submunitions -- has shunned the treaty, although it says it will ban the weapon from 2018.


China and Russia have also stayed away and don't disclose their stocks.
 
...Most countries are turning away from the weapon because they kill too many civilians and undermine political objectives, according to Thomas Nash, coordinator of the Cluster Munition Coalition. Lockheed Martin and Alliant Techsystems are among U.S.-based companies known to have produced cluster bombs in the recent past, he said.

As ever, the problem isn't with the weapon itself so much as our inability to resist using it inappropriately.   Cluster bombs, like land mines, have a legitimate purpose in conventional, battlefield warfare - army versus army.   But those who use the things like to fire them into civilian areas, fail to keep track of them and simply leave them where they fall to claim the lives of innocents, too often children, for many years afterward.   The Israelis have provided ample justification for banning these weapons.

By the Way, I Think These Are Yours.

It's a big day for the peace movement today as 100-nations meet in Geneva to sign an international disarmament treaty banning the use, manufacture, storage or transfer of cluster bomb weapons.

Even reclusive Laos - which could be the poster child for the campaign - has emerged to sign on. Tiny little Laos is the most heavily bombed country on the planet. Given that bombing didn't really get rolling until WWII, you have to wonder who Laos went to war with to get bombed so badly. The answer is no one. The United States used high-explosive bombs, cluster bombs and aerial land mines on Laos to try to stop North Vietnamese forces heading south into South Vietnam. It was a game try but, as you might recall, it didn't work.

The Laotian countryside was littered with mines and cluster bombs (some 260-million were dropped) that still kill today. Now you would think that someone who made that sort of mess would go in afterward and clean it up, right? Forget it. It's sort of like the Agent Orange contaminated regions of Vietnam that could continue causing hideous birth defects and premature deaths for another six centuries. Oopsie. And the verdict is still not in on those vast regions contaminated with depleted uranium weaponry either.

But cluster bomb makers needn't worry too much. The United States, China and Russia have said no to the ban along with South Korea, India and Pakistan. In other words, those most likely to use the weapons won't be giving them up anytime soon.

Ban The Bomb!

Representatives from 100-nations are meeting today in Wellington, New Zealand to discuss the final issues leading to an international treaty to ban the production, sale and use of cluster bombs.

At the same time the New York based Human Rights Watch has released a report estimating the number of cluster bomblets Israel fired into Lebanon in 2006 at 4.6-million. From the UN Humanitarian Affairs Office:

"HRW’s estimate - an increase on the UN figure of about 4 million - is based on information gathered from Israeli soldiers who re-supplied Multiple Launch Rocket System units with cluster bombs during the July-August 2006. The number is more than were used in recent conflicts in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq combined, it said.

"Israel fired cluster bombs, either US-supplied or manufactured in Israel, on nearly 1,000 individual strike sites across 1,400sqkm of southern Lebanon, an area slightly larger than the US state of Rhode Island.

"Each cluster bomb can release up to 2,000 bomblets, and about a quarter of the bomblets failed to explode on impact in Lebanon. Since the war, unexploded bomblets have killed at least 30 people and injured some 200 others."

Human Rights Watch also reports that Hezbollah fired some cluster weapons into Israel during the conflict. How many is unclear.

Israeli Clusterbombing Violated International Law

Barely a month after the Israeli military cleared itself of all wrongdoing in the use of clusterbombs against Lebanon during its 2006 war with Hezbollah, the Winograd commission into the war has found just the opposite - that the weapons and the way they were used clearly violated international law.

From the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs:

"The Winograd Committee said it did not find any evidence to prove that soldiers fired cluster bombs at civilian targets or that civilians were injured by the bomblets during the war, but it did say that firing the bombs at built-up areas - even if they were being used by Hezbollah as military posts at the time - "does not comply with the rationale on which the restrictions [in Israeli and international law] on the use of cluster [bombs] is based."

The committee, set up by the Israeli government to investigate the war, found that firing the bombs into residential areas, even if the residents had left, was not an "acceptable widening" of the rules, as civilians would be hurt.

The Winograd Comittee had five members, who were appointed by the cabinet about a month after the war ended, and was headed by retired judge Eliyahu Winograd. The committee’s mandate was to investigate and reach conclusion on the conduct of political leaders as well as the military and defence systems.

In the final report, it said that the cluster bombs were inaccurate and spread out over a wide area; not all the bomblets exploded and continue to cause harm long after they were fired.

About 90 percent of the cluster bombs were fired in the last days of the war, when it was clear a ceasefire would soon be announced. Over four million bomblets were fired during the war, according to the UN."

The UN says unexploded cluster bomblets such as those shown above continue to exact a toll on Lebanese civilians having killed 30 and wounded 200 since the war ended.

The Israeli military still refuses to assist UN workers trying to clear the remaining weapons, finding ten new sites every month.

"All these weapons systems are computerised and grid references are entered before the bombs drop. Not receiving the cluster bomb strike data from the Israelis remains our biggest obstacle to clearance,” Dalya Farran, a spokeswoman for the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre for South Lebanon (MACSL), told IRIN. The UN estimates that Israel rained down around four million bomblets - most US-supplied - onto south Lebanon in the last three days of its 2006 July war with Hezbollah fighters, when a ceasefire had already been agreed.

And this, supposedly, is our ally and friend.

Torture, No - Terror, Absolutely

The men shown here are hunting for unexploded cluster bomblets from Israeli weapons fired into southern Lebanon. The UN reports they're still finding an average of ten new sites every month. Israel, which left the Lebanese countryside littered with these weapons, won't tell the UN where they are. From the UN Human Affairs Office news service, IRIN:

"Deminers clearing Israeli-dropped cluster bombs in south Lebanon are turning up an average of 10 new sites per month, while Israel continues to ignore requests for data that would assist clearing the estimated one million unexploded bomblets, which continue to kill and maim civilians and decimate rural livelihoods. A single cluster bomb can disperse hundreds of bomblets.

All these weapons systems are computerised and grid references are entered before the bombs drop. Not receiving the cluster bomb strike data from the Israelis remains our biggest obstacle to clearance,” Dalya Farran, a spokeswoman for the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre for South Lebanon (MACSL), told IRIN. The UN estimates that Israel rained down around four million bomblets - most US-supplied - onto south Lebanon in the last three days of its 2006 July war with Hezbollah fighters, when a ceasefire had already been agreed.

Cluster bombs, or sub-munitions, are legal, and manufacturers say their failure rates should be between 10-15 percent. The UN estimates in general the weapons fail between 20-30 percent of the time. In south Lebanon MACSL estimates between 30-40 percent of the bombs dropped failed to explode, rising up to 80 percent in some places.

The high failure rate may partly be explained by Israel’s use of Vietnam-war era munitions, such as the M42, M77 and Blue 63, all US or Israeli-made and the MZD2, made in China, many of which MACSL said had gone beyond their expiry date by the time they were dropped on Lebanon.

The Israelis also dropped the new M85 cluster bomb that is designed to self destruct if it fails to explode on impact and which manufacturers say has a 1 percent failure rate. MACSL’s Dalya Farran said they estimate the bomb, used for the first time on battlefields in Lebanon, had a 10 percent failure rate."

Refusing to assist in clearing these weapons or at least disclosing where they can be found is state terrorism, plain and simple. These weapons are serving no military purpose unless the Israeli government and its military see some benefit in killing and maiming Lebanese civilians.

Israel Clears Israel Over Cluster Bomb Attacks, Quelle Surprise!

The Israeli military has notified the Israeli military that it has completely exonerated the Israeli military in its use of cluster bombs in Lebanon during its failed skirmish with Hezbollah in 2006.

Israel's military advocate-general, Brig-Gen Avihai Mendelblit found the, " majority of the cluster munitions were fired at open and uninhabited areas", but in some cases the military hit residential areas, responding to rocket attacks by Hezbollah. In Maroon a-Ras, the bombs were used to "allow the evacuation" of Israeli soldiers.

Amnon Vidan of Amnesty International in Israel said he was not surprised by the decision, noting that in such cases, rather than have the army investigate itself, it was better that an international investigation take place.

"The amount of cluster bombs used in civilian areas, as well as testimonies by soldiers about the use of the bombs, and Israel's refusal to hand over to the UN maps of the locations where it fired the bombs to help demining efforts," all point to different conclusions than those reached by the military, he said.

In August 2006, Jan Egeland, then the UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, had harshly condemned Israel's use of cluster bombs, calling it "shocking and completely immoral."

"Ninety percent of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution," he said, adding that populated areas, such as homes and agricultural land were now covered with unexploded bomblets.