Red Cross Says Global Ban on Cluster Bombs Urgent
GENEVA - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called on Wednesday for urgent conclusion of a global pact to ban cluster weapons even if big powers like the United States, Russia and China were not ready to join.
The Swiss-based humanitarian body’s senior arms specialist, Peter Herby, told a news conference the ICRC hoped the text of a treaty would be approved at a conference in Dublin in May and be signed by many countries by the end of the year.
“We need a strong, legally-binding treaty urgently, in 2008, that would ban the use, development, stockpiling and transfer of inaccurate and unreliable cluster munitions,” said Herby, who heads the ICRC’s Arms Unit.
Herby discounted arguments from some producer states that the weapons — which can spread hundreds of bomblets over a target area — can be made to self-destruct or otherwise rendered harmless after conflicts in which they have been used.
Cluster bombs — which campaigners say have killed or maimed thousands of civilians stumbling on them — can never be made totally reliable, he declared.
“We are not proposing any exclusions (from a treaty), as some states have,” said Herby.
Some 140 states are involved in the so-called Oslo process, launched by Norway three years ago to prepare a treaty on an international ban outside the United Nations-sponsored CCW talks on dangerous weapons which many think can only move slowly.
A similar process has led to an international ban on landmines which major powers have still not signed up to.
Herby said urgency was added to the issue by the growing age of stockpiles, and by the risk that many more countries — and also “non-state actors” — jargon for terrorist or guerrilla groups — would get them.
An international group called Cluster Munitions Coalition (CMC) says nearly 100 countries favour a ban, although some like Germany, France, Italy and Japan want a transitional period first.
The United States, Russia and China are reluctant to give up the weapons — originally developed to counter tank and troop offensives across borders during the Cold War but since used in many types of conflicts.
They say that cluster munitions should be handled in the CCW — talks on updating a 1981 pact on especially dangerous conventional weapons which will hold a series of “expert discussions” on the issue this year.
The topic climbed up the international agenda last summer when cluster munitions were used by Israel in its battle against the Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.
Campaigners say hundreds of Lebanese civilians were killed or maimed during and after the conflict because of what they call indiscriminate use of the weapon. Israel denies that it was used irresponsibly.
Editing by Jonathan Lynn and Sami Aboudi
© 2008 Reuters
The Red Cross is trailblazing a new path - international treaties that defy the increasingly isolated rogue US. We need more such treaties in other areas. Just look at the great potential benefits of having virtually the entire world in unanimous agreement on justice and security issues.
Fall 2006, Senate Amendment No. 4882, an amendment to a Pentagon appropriations bill that would have banned the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas.
Senator Obama of Illinois voted IN FAVOR of the ban.
Senator Clinton of New York voted AGAINST the ban.
McCain claimed to support the ban, but not enough to get his tail back to Washington to vote on it. Saying you support something while doing nothing isn’t supporting it.
Way to go. And we can see how he would behave as president. I read that he’s already showing memory issues, and not just for the sake of convenience. Well, maybe in the general campaign, his opponent can provoke him into one of his famous tantrums so the public can meet the real John McCain.
kathyodat
I guess when your military is in danger of breakdown, you kill anyone you can.
We probably have already awarded contracts to make them look like toys so we can kill future terrorists even younger than teen-age - (see new spin on Al-Quaida kid training camps).
DU is okay though.
In a vote on an amendment last year sponsored by CA Senator Dianne Feinstein, Hillary vote FOR continued use of cluster bombs.
Obama VOTED AGAINST the continued use of them.
Need we know more?
Thank you SCROLLER. I see you wrote this too. Repetition can’t hurt. It seems to have not made it into the campaign dialogue as yet. Wonder why not?
###
Like DU, it is not an issue with the majority, so it’s not a campaign issue. Obama does favor nuking Pakistan however.
We absolutely must outlaw cluster bombs.
r
Yes we must DOT, and many other types of weapons as well, some of which are far worse.
Of course some being used daily are already outlawed, but that does not stop their being used.
A vote for Hillary is a vote for cluster bombs. I agree, that is a deal-breaker. She could have just voted “present” and covered her exposed ass, but she voted FOR KILLING that targets civilians. I would love to see Obama bring this up in the FOX debate. Of course, he is exposed on the nuclear power front, so none of them is very clean. Too bad Kucinich, Gravel and even Edwards is not there to bring the heat.
I was “forced” to vote for Nader because I was too late in changing my Green Registration to DTS. I did not really want to vote for Obama, so fate stepped in and relieved me.
peace,
st john
The United States has been supplying Israel with “Cluster Bombs”. These were used by Israel, last year, on villages in Lebanon. Now the United States is resupplying the Israel Military with the new and improved models.
Those villages were non combatant. The Lebanese victims were killed to increase pressure on the weak Government of Lebanon, and on Syria to intervene against Hezbollah.
This use of Cluster Bombing on these non combatants is a Major War Crime, by Israel and its accomplice, the United States. But of course, the dead have no voices……
How about outlawing war?
No profit in that Grappa.
Kem Patrick you said Obama does “favor nuking Pakistan”
That is news to me. Could you tell me where you got that info?
thanks, mikepeters
We need to stop bombing foreign countries to stabilize the US economy. Forget the type of bomb deployed. The concept of bombing is rotten. If the US economy relies on control of energy resources and the currency in which they are denominated, US dollars mandated by OPEC and maintained by bribes and bombs, we need to fundamentally change the basis of the economy.
Until that happens, we wil continue bombing. A dead foreigner is a dead foreigner. Cluster bombs versus alternative bombs is a low level tactical point.
mif69, the problem with cluster bombs is that they are the gift that keeps on giving, and are particularly attractive to children who pick them up off the ground.
I agree with you that this is an argument we shouldn’t even be having. Discussing just how we are going about killing civilians.
Maybe at some future point, our discussions will be about how we are all in this together and about the best way for us to work together to solve common problems. I can dream, can’t I?
kathyodat
Obama said it on a televised program MIKEPETERS, about last July, when answering a question of the newscaster. I am sorry but I do not recall which newscaster it was now. He did say he would only consider atomic weapons use against military targets. He should not have said it.
Thanks KEM PATRICK, and good morning. Yes, he better watch his every word now. He is under a microscpope.
mikepeters.
I’ve just joined you from the newly(1994)democratic Republic of South Africa. As a campaigner for conscientious objection against the military conscription of white males imposed by the unlamented apartheid government in the 1970s, I recall the courageous stand of several COs. They really added to the pressures for negotiated change. Cluster bombs are the most devilish invention particularly as children think they are toys - which then blow them to smithereens. Away with war and its weapons.