Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
- The Rise of the New Economy Movement
- Preying on Poverty: How Government and Corporations Use the Poor as Piggy Banks
- The Organic Watergate: Alarming Report Reveals USDA's Cozy Relationship with Corporate Agribusinesses in 'Organics'
- Updated: Under Pressure, TED Releases 'Income Inequality' Talk
- 'Biggest Act of Civil Disobedience in Canadian History'
Popular content
Today's Top News
Cluster Bomb Treaty: Signing Begins to Bring Ban on Production
Ban on cluster bomb production due to pass into international humanitarian law, despite absence of US, Russia signatures
OSLO - Governments from around the world today began signing an international convention banning the production of cluster bombs - unexploded canisters that have killed and maimed thousands of civilians and remain scattered dozen of countries.
Under-Secretary for Multilateral Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Peru Antonio Garcia Revilla signs a treaty banning the use of cluster bombs in Oslo today. Around 100 governments are expected to sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions on Wednesday and Thursday in the Norwegian capital, though the big military powers and arms-producers, the United States, China, Russia, and others will be absent. (REUTERS/Lise Aserud/Scanpix) At
the Oslo signing ceremony, Norway, which has led the efforts to ban
cluster munitions, was the first country to sign. It was followed by
Laos - where cluster bombs dropped by US planes more than 30 years ago are still killing civilians, and Lebanon, another country affected by the weapons.
By the end of tomorrow, around 100 of the United Nations' 192 members will have signed up. Once 30 countries have ratified the convention, it will become part of international humanitarian law.
There will, however, be a number of notable absentees, including the US, China, Russia, India and Pakistan as well as Israel, which fired many cluster bombs during the 2006 Lebanon war.
Campaigners hope the treaty might help change global attitudes towards the munitions, as a 1997 treaty did on land mines, prompting some nations to sign up later.
Intended primarily as anti-personnel weapons, cluster bombs open up in mid air to release dozens of individual devices, known as bomblets, which scatter across a wide area.
While the bomblets are intended to explode when they hit the ground, many do not and can lie dormant for years. Victims often include farmers tilling land and children, attracted by the bomblets' bright colouring.
The US and other nations insist cluster bombs have a legitimate military use. One group that deals with the issue, Handicap International, says 98% of cluster-bomb victims are civilians and 27% are children.
The convention has been enthusiastically welcomed by the Red Cross, and on guardian.co.uk by David Miliband, the foreign secretary, and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, his German counterpart.
The weapons had "rendered huge tracts of land unusable, cutting farmers off from their crops and visiting further suffering on families forced to risk their lives simply to pursue their livelihoods", said Matthias Schmale, international director of the British Red Cross.
Miliband and Steinmeier said their goal was a "truly global treaty on cluster munitions", while noting that "many of the major users, producers and stockpilers of cluster munitions" had not yet agreed to sign it.
During the 34-day Lebanon war in 2006, up to a million devices failed to explode and this summer more than 40.6m square metres were identified as still being contaminated, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. More than 200 civilians died in the year after the Lebanon ceasefire. Cluster bombs also caused more civilian casualties in Iraq in 2003 and Kosovo in 1999 than any other weapon system.
At least 75 countries currently stockpile cluster munitions. More than 30 have produced the weapons. Unexploded cluster bombs have also killed civilians in Afghanistan, Chad, Eritrea, Chechnya, Sierra Leone and Vietnam.
Despite initial misgivings within the military, Britain, which fired Israeli-made cluster bombs in its attack on Basra in 2003 and had been the third biggest user of cluster bombs after the US and Israel, has agreed to get rid of its stockpiles of land-fired and air-launched cluster weapons. British diplomats are trying to persuade the US to get rid of stockpiles at its bases in the UK, officials said yesterday.
Today's convention excludes weapons that fire fewer than 10 explosive submunitions designed to locate a "single target".
- Posted in
30 Comments so far
Show AllDis-investing in nations that refuse to ban these child killers seems to be in order.
What??? Stop manufacturing cluster bomb and divest our Military Industrial Complex of one of its lethal playthings????
I can't put into words how much I loathe what the United States has become - a veritable "rogue nation!"
Civilization will advance, with or without the United States.
A simple fact. If 98 percent of casualties are Civilians, then there NO MILITARY use and countries that use them are TARGETING civilians, no matter the platitudes they hide behind.
"Dis-investing in nations that refuse to ban these child killers seems to be in order." (Humbaba)
Good Idea. But the United States would have to give up its own use of these horrible weapons. The problem here is that as far the United States is concerned everything is always "on the table." This will definitely have to change. The same is true for Russia also.
American invsestment never or rarely is about the interests of the recipients. It is aways about self-interest. What are a few cluster bombs where there are billions to be made? It is sad that we are even having this discussion in the so-called "civilized" world.
"Civilization will advance, with or without the United States." (Jaybot)
True. The world is no longer expecting the United States to lead in the advancement of civilization but it would be helpful if it would participate. (As an honest partner) I tend to be an optimist with regards to the future relationship the international community will have with the United States but only time will tell.
Dante: what about getting local. Where are cluster bombs being made in the US? I remember when some folks in Minneapolis were demonstrating at a factory, but I can't remember if it was land mines or cluster bombs being made in the factory. What a country. How much of our manufacturing at this time is military weapons, or movies? Clothing manufacturing is gone. NYC used to be a center of good manufacturing jobs in the fashion industry.
" Where are cluster bombs being made in the US?"
NYCartist.
Good question. A quick search one can find lists of nations that manufacure such weapons and to no one's surprise the United States is on all the lists. As far as exact locations are concerned that would require more research.
" How much of our manufacturing at this time is military weapons, or movies? Clothing manufacturing is gone. NYC used to be a center of good manufacturing jobs in the fashion industry." (NYCartist)
The garment industry is now a shadow of what it once was in New York, Montreal, and Toronto. New York is still one of the worlds great fashion centers but actual production is contracted out to third world sweat shops. We are just not making anything anymore. Well not much of anything.(As a child I don't think I wore anything that wasn't made in the United States or Canada)
JohnSDNewHampshire
The producer of the CNU-97 is Textron Defense Systems in Wilmington, Massachusetts. This is a 1000 pound bomb with sub-munitions. I found the manufacturer by first searching for cluster bombs and then searching using the name of the bomb.
Antiwar people had better use this issue as a litmus test for the incoming Obama administration -- one of several litmus tests, I should say. Few weapons at the disposal of a State are as evil, as cruel, as cluster munitions, and States are the biggest cold-blooded killers on earth.
"Antiwar people had better use this issue as a litmus test for the incoming Obama administration" (Paul)
Paul,
I agree. But it will be one of many.
The new President-elect will have so many litmus tests presented to him that it would be impossible to list them all in this space. As I said many times before, his greatest test will be that of creating stability in these most unstable times. In this he must succeed before any other changes are possible. President-elect Obama's complete Presidency could very well turn out to be a continous transition from a past United States to a future United States. The current status quo would be totally unacceptable. (not to mention unsustainable) I wouldn't want his job.
Take Care Paul
These cluster bombs will never be banned because they work. Dormant shells that later exploded and kill innocents spread terror and fear to the people we want to control. "Collateral damage" for Russia, U.S.A, China, Israel, and India is just a term used to justify willful and tactical state terror with no accountability.
Obama just the other day was talking about spreading American morality around the world. Perhaps he meant spreading cluster bombs around the world.
Could we be lucky enough to be saved from American Morality? Or American Values? Or American leadership? Or American Exceptionalism? Or America's Manifest Destiny?
P.S. DavidG boiled over on his blog today. His new post is called: Beacon On The Hill or World Curse?
Be warned! He lets it all hang out.
www.dangerouscreation.com
Nice to know that we, along with Russia, are holding on to our "values".
So the US, China, Russia, India and Pakistan are some of the noted hold-outs. Why am I not surprised. So when these ass hole countries get suicide or car bombed, how much sympathy should they get from the rest of the world? As they say in Norway, "knula du, USA og andre!"
All empires, all of them, become death-centered. We're no different. So it's no surprise we won't sign this treaty. As sole control of the world begins visibly to slip out of our hands, the ass kickers, the homicidal geeks and nerds, the 99 cent store killers who live and breathe death and can actually deliver it, will hang on to their bombs and bullets with even greater fury.
Don't worry, as soon as Obama is sworn in the US will sign the ban on cluster munitions...yea really...er ah... well it is change that we could believe in.
I will believe it when I see it.
Harvey,
American Cluster bombs dropped on Vietnam or Cambodia or Lebanon may kill an innocent child today.
And Americans talk about a "War on Terror" !!!!! Real terror is caused by the Cluster Bombs !!!!
Why am I not surprised that the U.S. A. is not present at the signing of this treaty? Why am I not surprised at all. It is a travesty. This country is so selfish, so immoral, so war centered, self-centered, invested in hate and fear and weapons of mass destruction.
This is shameful.
I agree with what Frank S.wrote.
Its simple. Rumsfeld's lean military needs the ability to quickly neutralize much greater numbers of troops. Even if the enemy is essentially helpless civilians or poorly equipped and trained conscripts.
Worked great in Iraq! (Of course, Rumsfeld didn't have an answer for later when the lean military is surrounded by millions of pissed off survivors.)
The USA is the world's biggest and brokest terror nation. We bury fresh water streams in our own country and attempt to destroy people forever in other countries with our cluster bombs. I am ashamed to be from here. Obama will not do much to alleviate any of this with Hillary warmonger Clinton as his secretary of state.
General Patton said something like: A soldier's job isn't to die for his country, but to make that other fellow die for his. That shouldn't include that other fellow's neighbors, family, children and grandchildren.
Good thing the neocons are leaving before they bring back mustard gas.
Disappointed by our morally disconnected government, once again, I can't help but wonder...
How far does humanity have to sink before our collective outrage
over legions of mangled children overcomes the propensity toward self-inflicted carnage by
a species being misled to extinction.
Cluster bombs are endemic to a perverse economic system, based in toxic, unevenly distributed, expensive, anti-environmental, finite chemicals. A society that bases the evolution of its money into poisonous resources, will inevitably evolve a warped set of inhumane values to go along with what necessarily must be an unconscious, shortsighted economy such as the one we are witnessing the collapse of now.
The unquantifiable "externalities" that never got included in any of the equations are finally adding up, regardless of our denial of them.
The price of war is the death of civilization. Until we recognize the true value of sustainable organic agricultural values and redistribute the wealth of the world, there will be endless, intensifying wars in the context of increasing, accelerating food insecurity, fuel shortages and essential resource scarcity.
How bad do things have to get before all compassionate solutions are considered?
The REAL Question for Davos07
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edZw3hXkGJo
Wake up world.
That the United States isn't signing this convention is another symptom of a festering, prolonged imbalance that we were born into.
I agree with you 100 percent. However, as for redistribution of wealth: This world was already created with an equal distribution of wealth. Each cave man had equal access to the planet's resources. It was a small group of cancerous personalities that decided that they were worth more than their neighbors. Those defective humans cheated and connived their way into distributing more of the planet's wealth to themselves. Today, they are called CEO's, leaders, presidents, kings and other such title-holding SOBs. Some would say, capitalists.
I think the correct term for restoring equality would be "re-redistributing the wealth".
Not surprising considering that the USA is the largest exporter of death......Its a lucrative business folks! Oh yeah, almost as surprising,the US is not a part of the ICC/World court either.....Yawnnnnn
~ Some people live their whole lives without ever waking up ~
Despite his hawkish stance I believe that Obama, unlike Bush, is fundamentally a decent man. He could at once obey a moral imperative incumbent on all civilized peoples, regain support among his core progressive constituency, convince our allies of his good intentions, deprive our potential enemies of some of their grievances and uphold the tenets of his personal faith by simply announcing that he will, upon taking office, sign the treaty and submit it to the Senate for ratification.
Alex
Four million bomblets contained in hundreds of thousands of cluster bombs were dropped by Israel on Lebanon in the last few days of the 2006 Lebanon confrontation.
The following was stated by the UN humanitarian chief, Jan Egeland, soon after the war ended: “What is shocking and completely immoral is 90% of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution …” According to the UN mine action coordination centre for South Lebanon, by December 19, 2006, 18 people had been killed and 145 injured since the ceasefire in August.
It does not surprise me that the US does not want to sign the treaty. They claim to be the moral watchdogs of the world yet this title seems to be discarded as soon as being morally correct does not suit their needs.
Regards
'What we can achieve is limited only by what we can dream!!'
A war on Nature and humanity -- and what then can we expect for
our own land and our own people--?
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
I will be looking for this story in my local press, if they have room after all the stories about the big rich goofus who shot himeself in the thigh. Or the shoppers who charged into Walmart for a sale, trampling to death a store employee in a rush to buy cheap toxic crap in honor of Jesus' birth.
There is one story yesterday in the NYT that talks about Karzai endorsing the treaty. Mention of US refusal is buried way down in the article. Didn't they teach that in the first day of journalism school? You have to put the important things in the first paragraph because few people go to the bottom of the article.
I took the following dialogue from Democracy Now website -
START:
Helen Thomas: “Is the President going to sign the anti-cluster bomb treaty? Apparently this is—"
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino: “Right, this is a treaty that was passed out of the UN Security Council several months ago. We said then that, no, we would not be signing onto it. And so, I think that the signing is actually—we did not participate in the passage of it, and therefore we’re not going to sign it either.”
Thomas: “Why not?”
Perino: “What I have forgotten is all the reasons why, and so I’ll get it for you.” (Laughter)
END.
Ha Ha Ha. Exeunt the clowns... Enter left, Seymour Hersh. Keep on keeping on, Helen Thomas.
Joe
Everyone should write Nader and tell him to divest from his holdings in Fidelity Magellan which own Raytheon stock which manufactures cluster bombs. Let Nader know that it is unacceptable for him to invest in cluster bombs.