More than 10 years after the end of the 1991 Gulf war, cluster bombs, grenades and shells left over from the conflict remain a threat to daily life in Kuwait, according to a coalition of anti-landmine charities.
Launching a petition urging governments to ban the use of cluster bombs in Iraq, the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund and Landmine Action warn today they are becoming one of the most lethal types of abandoned munitions.
Cluster bombs, designed to wreak destruction on concentrations of troops, each contain around 200 smaller bomblets which are dispersed on impact. In the Kosovo conflict between 7% and 11% of NATO bomblets failed to detonate.
"Analysis of the effects of cluster bombs from the 1991 Gulf, Kosovo and Afghanistan [conflicts] shows that unexploded bomblets cause even more post-conflict deaths among civilians, especially children, than landmines," the charities say.
"In the immediate post-conflict period [in Kuwait] there were 1,348 injuries from explosive remnants of war compared with 531 mine-related injuries."
By the end of 2002, nearly 2,000 people had been killed or injured by exploding bombs which had been accidentally triggered by Kuwaitis.
The Ministry of Defense has refused to tell MPs whether RAF aircraft will use cluster bombs in Iraq. The refusal reflects the government's embarrassment about a weapon it knows is controversial from the humanitarian point of view but is also technologically inefficient.
Sir Robert Walmsley, chief of Defense procurement, admitted in evidence to the Commons public accounts committee after Kosovo that it would have been preferable to use Brimstone - an anti-armour weapon still not available to Britain's armed forces - instead of cluster bombs. In a subsequent letter to the committee the MoD admitted the limitations of cluster bombs were "well understood".
The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund and Landmine Action, which launch their petition at the Imperial War Museum in London today, say that between 1991 and 1997 more than 110,000 tonnes of unexploded ordnance were cleared and destroyed. The Kuwaiti ministry of Defense still receives 15 to 20 reports of mines and unexploded ordnance every day.
Landmines were banned under the 1998 Ottawa treaty but international law does not cover unexploded shells and bombs. The global petition urges governments to agree a binding protocol as part of the UN convention on conventional weapons that would make belligerents responsible for clearing up unexploded bombs after a war and providing warnings to civilians.
The charities argue that the use of cluster bombs in Iraq may be illegal under the Geneva convention because it "may not adequately discriminate between civilians and combatants".
Richard Lloyd, director of Landmine Action, said: "The government must guarantee that the UK will not be party to a war with Iraq involving the use of weapons with indiscriminate effects."
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
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