UN humanitarian chief calls for freeze on cluster bombs
The United Nations’ top humanitarian official today demanded an immediate moratorium on the use of cluster bombs, a day after the international Red Cross stepped up its campaign against the weapons by calling for their outright abolition.
“As long as there is no effective ban, these weapons will continue to disproportionately affect civilians, maiming and killing women, children, and other vulnerable groups,” said Jan Egeland, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs.
“This freeze is essential until the international community puts in place effective legal instruments to address urgent humanitarian concerns about their use,” Egeland said in an address to countries meeting in Geneva to review a 26-year-old treaty controlling conventional weapons.
Cluster bomblets, which can be as small as a flashlight battery, are packed into artillery shells or bombs dropped from aircraft. A single container fired to destroy airfields or tanks and soldiers typically scatters some 200 to 600 of the mini-explosives over an area the size of a football field.
The campaign against the weapons has picked up steam since Israel’s month-long war against Lebanon.
Human rights groups have estimated that Israel dropped as many as 4 million of the bomblets in southern Lebanon, with perhaps 40% of the submunitions failing to explode on impact.
Those that do not explode right away may detonate later at the slightest disturbance, experts say.
Children are especially vulnerable because the bomblets are often an eye-catching yellow with small parachutes attached.
Yesterday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said countries should stop using the bombs because the indiscriminate deaths they caused outweighed any military advantages.
No international treaties, including the Geneva Conventions, specifically forbid the use of cluster bombs. However, the Geneva Conventions outline laws protecting civilians during conflict.
Because cluster bomblets often cause civilian casualties after conflicts end – much like land mines – their use has been heavily criticised by human rights groups.
Israel, Russia and the United States have resisted efforts to eliminate the weapons.
An attempt in September by congressional Democrats to stop the US military from using cluster bombs near civilian targets was defeated, and US officials attending the 10-day review conference of the 1980 UN Convention on Conventional Weapons said they would object to putting cluster bombs on the agenda.
“The US does believe that this is a legally acceptable munition but, of course, it has to be used very carefully in terms of the rules of engagement,” Tom Casey, a State Department spokesman, said in Washington.
“One of the things we are always concerned with, in any military operation, is that civilians not be targeted deliberately and that all effort is taken to minimise any impact of any military operation on civilian populations.”
