- Title: VARIOUS: Global cluster munitions ban agreed by 100 nations but US absent
- Date: 29th May 2008
- Summary: (BN13) BLEEDA, SOUTHERN LEBANON (RECENT) (REUTERS) NAEMA GHAZI, WOMAN WITH ARTIFICIAL LIMB USING STICKS TO WALK VARIOUS OF NAEMA WALKING
- Embargoed: 13th June 2008 13:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: International Relations,Defence / Military
- Reuters ID: LVADVBLUN2K0YV9PP7RFYSJ8KGQY
- Story Text: More than 100 nations reach an agreement to ban cluster bombs, but major stockpilers, including the United States, China and Russia, oppose the move.
A draft treaty for a worldwide ban on cluster munitions was adopted on Wednesday (May 28) although some major powers, including the United States, did not attend the meeting in Ireland.
The Dublin gathering attended by more than 100 nations made the final step towards agreement after a promise from Britain to stop using the devices.
Cluster bombs can cause indiscriminate injury long after a conflict has ended.
The munitions open in mid-air and scatter as many as several hundred "bomblets" over a wide area. They often fail to explode, creating virtual minefields that can kill or injure anyone who finds them later.
Diplomats and activists said the text built on the lessons from the 1997 treaty to ban landmines and it did not allow exceptions.
Activists have accused the United States of pressing allies such as Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Australia to try to weaken the treaty.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been pushing his reluctant military to ban the use of the munitions and ordered a Ministry of Defence review earlier this month.
"We have decided after a great deal of discussion that we can help break the log jam so that we can get an international agreement that will ban cluster bombs. We have decided that we will take all our types of cluster bombs out of service...I look forward to other countries following us in this action....I think this would be a big step forward to make the world a safer place," Brown said.
The draft will be submitted to a plenary session on Friday (May 30) but approval is now regarded as a formality. Unless any unexpected objections derail the process, the treaty is due to be signed in Oslo in December.
Despite the draft treaty, the United States said it still opposed a ban on cluster munitions arguing the elimination of cluster bombs from U.S.
stockpiles would put the lives of U.S. soldiers and those of their allies at risk.
France said last Friday it would withdraw a type of munition that accounted for 90 percent of its cluster bomb stocks.
The last major issues to be resolved centre on military cooperation with countries still using cluster bombs and whether non-signatories such as the United States could keep stockpiles of such weapons in states that have signed up to the ban.
As the meeting was taking place campaigners lay down in the Dublin city centre streets to protest the use of cluster bombs.
Campaigners said the draft treaty was "groundbreaking" but left some important issues unresolved.
Thomas Nash, co-ordinator for the 'Cluster Munition Coalition' told reporters:
"It's an incredibly strong document because it will ban forever all cluster munitions. There's a very strong restrictive definition in here that doesn't allow for any cluster munitions to be ever used again."
Nash said that the draft treaty would lead to a change in international standards.
Simon Conway, Director of 'Landmine Action' was also enthusiastic about the draft treaty.
"We've seen personal intervention by Gordon Brown who has stepped-in to say that he wants to support a strong treaty and that means that current UK stockpiles of cluster munitions will be banned under this treaty.
We will see destruction of all cluster munition stockpiles within a period of time, a deadline that is still being negotiated and then the removal of stockpiles of other countries from UK territory," he said.
Conway said the effect of the treaty would be felt worldwide.
The Oslo Process against cluster bombs began three years ago and is modelled on the campaign against anti-personnel landmines, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 and led to the 1999 Ottawa Treaty banning them.
Two years after the Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon, international and local deminers continue to hunt for the tiny but deadly bomblets scattered in the plains and fields, near houses and schools in the south. The U.N.
estimates that Israel dropped a million or so of those during the final hours of the war, triggered by Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12, 2006.
Naema Ghazi is one of many Lebanese victims of unexploded cluster bombs. She was working in her tobacco field one day when she stepped on one.
One leg was torn off and the other badly hurt. "I was returning back from the field, I stepped on the ground and I don't know how it exploded, I was bleeding, I felt immediately that I lost my leg, it was connected to the body with just one vein. My mother saw that and started screaming," she said.
In addition to the pain and suffering caused to individuals, cluster munitions also have long term economic consequences, making farmland unusable and preventing travel and communications. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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