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TechnoratiCluster Bomb 'Soon To Be Thing of The Past'
On 3 December, more than 100 countries, including the UK, will sign a treaty banning cluster bombs.
As a result Britain, by law, will have to destroy more than 30 million explosives.
The UK does not have the facilities, so they are being exported to Germany for disposal.
"I feel good to work for a good thing in the world and for peace," says Jorg Fiegert, production manager for Nammo Demil.
It runs a site in Pinnow in Germany which destroys munitions.
Over the next five years its work will include taking apart bomblets from British cluster munitions.
"It can punch through armour," Jorg explains as he holds up a British bomblet.
It is only the size of an egg cup, and came from the MLRS, the Multiple Launch Rocket System.
Each one has six rockets, and within each rocket are 644 bomblets. They are designed to split open in the air and spread small bomblets over a wide area.
How cluster bomb warheads can be recycled
Angus Crawford shows how the cluster munitions are disposed of
Cluster bombs have been used in countries including Cambodia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Lebanon, and were used in the conflict in Lebanon in 2006.
Those who ratify the convention in December will then have eight years to get rid of their stockpiles of the weapons.
The UK government had already begun getting rid of its stocks by shipping them to Germany and elsewhere.
Nammo has a contract with the UK Ministry of Defence to destroy 28 million of these bomblets, and there are another 3.5 million in other systems to be disposed of.
"In principle everything except the explosive can be recycled," explains Ola Pikner, Nammo's vice president of marketing.
Whole weapons enter the factory, but raw materials for civilian use leave it.
He shows me how the MLRS rocket is split open.
The bomblets are extracted, the fuses are cut off and the copper inners are removed.
The explosive is then burnt off using red hot plasma.
The copper, aluminium and other metals are sold for scrap. The packaging for the bomblets is burnt for heating.
This will take up to 40% of their work for the next five years.
"There is huge potential", says Ola Pikner, "but the number of cluster munitions from each country is not known."
Campaigners believe there may be as many as a billion of them across Europe.
But the world's biggest users - Israel and the USA - will not sign this treaty.
Nor, it's thought, will China, Russia, India and Pakistan.
But Thomas Nash from the Cluster Munition Coalition remains undaunted by this.
"What you are going to see is a comprehensive stigmatisation of the weapon," he says.
"Countries that don't sign up won't be able to use this weapon on operations with those that do.
"You're going to see this weapon becoming a thing of the past."
11 Comments so far
Show AllWe will soon have a Democrat president and congressional majority, with 57 and possibly as many as 60 Senators. So the question is whether Obama will have the courage and moral decency to sign, and the Senate to support, this important step towards a more humane and less violent world.
Of course the Christian right and its subsidiary, the Republican party, will oppose our joining the treaty, which raises the question they rhetorically (i.e., not wanting an answer) ask: what would Jesus do?
Alex
Raytheon.
They make them.
Fidelity Magellan Investments sports this sickness and is common.
Divest.
You Too Ralph Nader.
Re some comments...PROFIT first, sadism is probably a BONUS...after all, what IS the rational of ANY WAR anymore....however, as long as PROFITS and DIVIDENDS accure to the worthy...no real end in sight...
Good riddance!
What will they come up with next?
John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta
I was going to say, "Why did it take the knuckleheads so long to come this far?"
But now I'm learning about the peoples who haven't yet signed on. Should we mollify them by not letting them know we know they are knuckleheads?
KNUCKLEHEADS!
I didn't say that. Would they like it if I did? Probably. So I take it back.
Please abolish these foolishly invented weapons once and for all.
The headline is quite misleading. The biggest cluster bomb users aren't signing the treaty.
The US has used them in every recent war: Yugoslavia in 1999, Afghanistan, and Iraq and has not renounced their continued use.
Obama voted for an amendment that would have prevented the use of such weapons against civilians, but if these weapons are used in war, they inevitably will kill civilians. The only sure way to stop killing civilians with cluster bombs is to eliminate them.
A Google search for "cluster bombs" on Obama's website came up empty; I didn't find any indication of what Obama intends to do about them.
If Bill Clinton were back in office, you can bet he'd find a way to continue to use these God-forsaken devices, even as he convinced everyone of the opposite. We'll see if Obama is a president in the Clinton mold.
"But the world's biggest users - Israel and the USA - will not sign this treaty.
Nor, it's thought, will China, Russia, India and Pakistan. "
We should be ashamed. I do not care what anyone else does. We should sign. Cluster bombs have nothing to do with keeping anyone safe, only with oppressing a population by leaving lingering weapons in fields shattering the limbs of its farmers and children for generations to come.
I suggest that people look at the book "Green Parrots" by Dr. Gino Strada, an Italian surgeon. The preface is by Howard Zinn. Strada was treating civilian injuries in war zones. Many of the injuries were caused by cluster bombs or an especially weird weapon in which explosives were flown out in devices that looked like pretty green parrots to attract children. No matter how hard he tried to keep up, the shattered children kept arriving and arriving. He finally realized that he could never keep up, and he had better spend more of his energy to END WAR.
The fact our country will not sign on for this most simple and safe step, to ban cluster bombs, is a cause for deep shame. I want to hear an explanation of WHY. There can be no reasons except to make money for arms manufacturers or to subjugate populations through maiming. Caring for the maimed is a physical, psychological and financial burden for a long time and helps keep populations subjugated. Or is it pure sadism?
Joe
EXCELLENT COMMENT!
All that science, all those resources and money that have been committed to producing these things in the past, a complete waste.
This is not to support the use of such weapons, it to demonstrate how idiotic Military spending and all these latest "Gadgets" are.
Our world has become far too integrated economically to ever justify "war". The nature of future wars ,ones that can not be fought using all these Golly Geee Whiz weapons sytems that costs 10's of billions to develop and deploy.
Our economies simply can not afford the waste of money and materials used in our war machines.
Yes cluster bombs are stupid as a weapons system. Ultimately so are a lot of other systems we waste our monies on.
Anyone for another dozen 6 billion dollars per submarines...?
PK
"Our world has become far too integrated economically to ever justify "war"."
Thats an argument heard before. So far its always been proved false. Hopefully you are right this time.
"Our economies simply can not afford the waste of money and materials used in our war machines."
This one was prevelent before WW1.
No thanks, we have enough Sub's I believe.
About time!