Nobel Peace Laureate Says US Trying to Stall Cluster Bomb Agreement
Wellington, New Zealand - Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams accused the United States on Wednesday of trying to stall negotiations on an international agreement to ban cluster bombs - without even attending talks on the treaty.
Delegates from more than 120 countries are negotiating a convention in New Zealand that would ban the use, production, trade and storage of cluster bombs that cause unacceptable harm to civilians.
The talks, first launched by Austria, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Peru and the Vatican last year, aim to define which cluster bomb weapons are acceptable and which should be banned.
Williams, a delegate to the talks, said the U.S. was seeking exemptions from the treaty for many cluster weapons, a 10-year delay to any treaty coming into force, and the right for non-cluster munition states to work in coalition with cluster bomb users.
The United States was not represented at the negotiations, and Williams accused its allies of making the demands on its behalf. “The U.S. has put pressure on states to do these things,” she told The Associated Press.
There was no immediate response to a request for comment from U.S. Embassy officials in Wellington.
Williams said other countries seeking major changes to the proposed treaty were the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark as well as Japan, which she said was “fronting for the U.S.”
John Duncan, Britain’s Ambassador for Multinational Arms Control and Disarmament, said many cluster bomb users agree the uncontrolled use of the weapons was “not a tenable situation,” but added a blanket ban was also unacceptable.
“Some cluster munitions don’t cause unacceptable harm and should not be covered - so we need to keep a balance between the military requirement and the humanitarian requirement,” he said.
The head of Japan’s delegation, Ryuichi Hirano, denied his country was acting under instructions from the U.S. in the talks, and said it backed a treaty involving “as wide range of states as possible, including the major producers and possessors of cluster munitions.”
A U.S. citizen, Williams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work on the international convention that outlawed land mines. Washington is not a signatory to the land mines convention, but no longer uses the weapon.
Some 41 of the 76 states in the world that stockpile cluster munitions are taking part in the negotiations. But major producers such as the U.S., Russia, China and Pakistan have not joined the process and have no observers at the conference.
This week’s negotiations are the last talks among senior officials before final diplomatic negotiations scheduled for May in Ireland.
Negotiators hope to release a “Wellington Declaration” after the talks end Friday, said conference chairman Don MacKay, New Zealand’s Disarmament Ambassador.
© 2008 Associated Press
I was just thinking how out of step the US has become. Crude oil has reached $100 a barrel yet we’re still behaving as if the supply were unlimited. We are one of only 3 countries not to have adopted the metric system. Only the US and Somalia have failed to sign the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The US is the only industrialized country without universal health care. The US has gone from a creditor nation to the world’s largest debtor nation, and from a net exporting country to the country with the largest trade deficit.
While other countries make social progress, the US stagnates in fantasies of past glory or (for the religious right) the rapture.
Here we have a significant difference between the two Democratic candidates. Obama voted to ban cluster bombs, Clinton voted against the ban. So which as president would support the international ban? Clearly Clinton would continue dancing to Israel’s tune regardless of the consequences. Obama is not rejecting Israel, but does insist on right action.
kathyodat
The National Security State only seeks supremacy. It is a Cyclops, its sole eye staring out in search of enemies, seeing them everywhere.
locust and others scream but their voices go unheard (except by the secret listeners).
The Beast is unstoppable. It will take us over the edge, into the abyss. We can only hope that it won’t take the rest of the world down with it.
Have a nice day.
Hillory Clinton has taken heat for accepting loads of dosh from a company called Textron that makes a pretty penny selling cluster bombs. Coincidentally, she votes against banning the weapons.
The article states re land mines ” Washington no longer uses the weapon”
That is incorrect. ‘matrix’ & ’spider’ systems circumvent the common definition of landmine-but they are claymores and can be ’set’ to detonate via proximity or contact.
That is a landmine. Think I learned that on CD.
Thanks jlocke, I didn’t know that. I thought she was just trying to kiss up to AIPAC. Actually, I now think she’s killing two birds with one stone.
kathyodat
Why do we want to harm civilians in war? Demoralizing the enemy? We’re too chicken to fight the soldiers so we go after women and children, infrastructure and ambulances?
What the hell is wrong with us??
kiss up >==> throw up >==> throw out
New Zealand, please ignore the United States, and join with your fellow enlightened nations to build a better world minus the participation of the United States. When you give the US your attention, you find that inevitably you’ve been had. The US takes your attention and abuses it in a zero-sum game. The US wants you to submit to this game. The US abuses your attention and cooperation, your good faith, your dreams of a better world, and your effort to achieve that. Don’t let the US abuse you. Excluse the US, isolate it. Build your better world without it. Loosen the ties that tether you to the US.
Money and Power, are the critical ingredients for the US of I. Death and disability to human beings in non US of I countries seem to be counted as bonus, an indicator of the weapons success and desirability. If they were not so effective at killing civilians, the US of I would not be able to sell them. It is therefore in the death and disability that the US of I has the real gory glory. A pity that US of I cannot be made to pay out millions of dollars for each life destroyed. Leaving those weapons around on US soil would be a criminal offense. That is the moral test.
The current Administration does’t want to enter into any type of local or international agreements because they don’t want any restrictions on individual actions as people or as a nation. It is the root of their undemocratic ideology.
American Christian Values?
Make the little children suffer
and leave no child behind.
Was something lost in translation?
“Do this unto the least of these my brethren, and you do it unto me.” A paraphrase of Jesus The Christ from the New Testament. It could also be translated as, “Do this unto any other human being and you are doing it to me.” Take it out of the biblical/religious context, and it applies to everyone. Do you justify killing and maiming other human beings for your own self-interest? Hold up a mirror to any one of your behaviors and ask if this is tolerable to you and those you hold dear to you. If you can justify its being done to you and yours, then go for it.
peace,
“I am committed to Oneness through Justice and Transformation.”
st. john
It makes me so damn proud to be an American. What do little kids need arms and legs for anyway.
The US used phosphorus and Napalm in Fallujah, both prohibited. Cluster bombs? That’s peanuts! The war crimes are much, much bigger than that. Can you say Hiroshima? I knew you could.
The US is the number one criminal of the world. This is settled. The US is the greatest danger to humanity at the present time and since, at least, the second world war. The US must be stopped for everybody’s health. War, oppression, armaments and pollution are America’s biggest and most important contribution to the world. Abominable.
Bill Clinton refused to sign the landmines treaty, and Hillary has adopted a similar position on cluster munitions. If the US is to reinstate the rule of law and regain the respect of the world, it must finally join treaties such as those on landmines, child soldiers and cluster munitions, restore compliance with existing international and domestic law, and prosecute offenders up to and including the president.
Our leaders are inhuman. Their brutal actions belie their mockingly civil words. The monsters are enabled by us. We have created a powerful self perpetuating evil. An election is insufficient to change it. Denial does not remove it. We are vulnerable and exposed.
The US (and NATO) dropped cluster bombs on Serbia, in 1999. I actually saw the devastation, on CNN, one Saturday morning.
It wasn’t a military target, but the middle of town. (City of Nis, population approx. 350,000.) The father of a friend of mine (a retired high school teacher) had just walked through the area, 15 minutes before the attack.
As always with the Bush White House; follow the money trail!
The US will never get back its “good” reputation. Its ugliness gets exposed more and more everyday. The only problem though is that it doesn’t get exposed enough to its citizens.
According to Sen. John McCain, the US was attacked by terrorists “BECAUSE WE ARE GOOD.” End of discussion. (This is, in fact, the GOP Party-line.)
And is it not truly amazing to behold how the ‘party of freedom’ mindlessly marches in lock-step, following their issued-from-above daily talking points, word-for-word and with machine-like precision? No introspection allowed. Very conveniently, that — and sometimes just raising questions — is now considered (CAUTION: thought-impairing, hate-inspiring label ahead) ‘unpatriotic.’
THC for the masses.
I hate america and i am one
Dear Americans, I heard Jodi speak on NZ radio this morning and she is superb, just like millions of you working to change the US nation. We are all paddling the same canoe and the work to ban cluster bombs is one of many huge tasks facing us all. IN NZ the Greens exposed that while hosting the conference to “negotiate” the treaty to ban of cluster bombs, the NZ superannuation Fund invests in companies that make them! So our government now has to clean up its act there.
Videos;
Cluster Munitions Press Conference: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0802/S00245.htm#p2
Activists Sense Victory for Cluster Bomb Ban.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0802/S00235.htm
We will win people, have hope, dont give up, it’s a long road. I am hoping that Obama will be president and usher in a new era for the USA. Rangimarie/Peace.
Thank you for hte upddate ECO HOBBIT
NZ’ians are thankfully both progressive and kind to our world, and set a laudable tone of what is really acceptable and humane international policy.
Namaste … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … … … … … … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed »
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — ML King
Kia ora Namaste. I salute the Light within you and all people getting off their butt to MAKE a CHANGE for justice and peace. Common Dreams is a great community of thinkers and talkers and doers, but some of the comments are so despairing. Unity is strength. If the Republicans get back in in USA however I will be depressed along with most of the world. C’mon USA - you can do it! Elect Obama!
There will be no US cooperation in the eradication of cluster bombs and other child killing devices until Mommy and Poppy and their Psychotic ninny children can unload their stock in the immoral companies that make the munitions.
I highly recommend seeing the film “Bombies,” about the legacy of cluster bombs in Laos. More info here: http://www.itvs.org/bombies/ In Laos, nearly every day people are still being killed from bombs dropped more than 30 years ago. Encourage your library to buy it, if it does not yet have it, or borrow it here http://mcc.org/clusterbombs/bombies/.