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U.K., U.S. resisting ban on cluster bombs

George Monbiot

THE CENTRAL mystery of the modern state is this. The necessary resources, both economic and political, will always be found for the purpose of terminating life. The project of preserving it will always struggle. If the money and determination expended on waging war with Iraq had been used to tackle climate change, our carbon emissions would already be in free fall. If as much money were spent on foreign aid as on fighter planes, no one would ever go hungry.

In Geneva, at the new review of the conventional weapons treaty, the British Government will be using the full force of its diplomacy to ensure that civilians continue to be killed, by blocking a ban on the use of cluster bombs. Sweden, supported by Austria, Mexico, and New Zealand, has proposed a convention making their deployment illegal, such as the Ottawa treaty banning anti-personnel landmines. But the U.K., working with the U.S., China, and Russia, has spent the past week trying to prevent negotiations from being opened. Perhaps this is unsurprising. Most of the cluster bombs dropped during the past 40 years have been delivered by Britain's two principal allies — the U.S. and Israel — in the "war on terror."And the U.K. used hundreds of thousands of them during the two Gulf wars.

Cluster munitions are tiny bombs packed inside bigger bombs or artillery shells. They scatter over several hectares and are meant to be used to destroy tanks and planes and to wipe out anti-aircraft positions. There are two particular problems.

The first is that the bombs, being widely dispersed, cannot be accurately targeted. The second is that many of them do not detonate when they hit the ground. Officially, cluster bombs have a failure rate of between 5 per cent and 7 per cent. In reality, it is much higher. Between 20 per cent and 25 per cent of the cluster munitions NATO forces dropped during the Kosovo conflict failed to go off when they landed.

The unexploded bombs then sit and wait to be defused — leg by human leg. They are as devastating to civilian populations as landmines, or possibly worse, because far more of them have been dropped. Even 30 years or more after they land — as the people of Vietnam and Laos know — they can still be detonated by the slightest concussion.

A report published last week by the independent organisation Handicap International estimates that around 100,000 people have been killed or wounded by cluster bombs. Of the known casualties, 98 per cent are civilians. Most of them are hit when farming, walking or clearing the rubble where their homes used to be. Many of the victims are children, partly because the bombs look like toys. Handicap International's report tells terrible stories of children finding these munitions and playing catch with them, or using them as boules or marbles. Those who survive are often blinded, lose limbs or suffer horrible abdominal injuries.

Mind-boggling figures

The numbers of cluster bombs deployed are mind-boggling. The U.S. air force released 19 million over Cambodia, 70 million in Vietnam and 208 million in Laos. Over much shorter periods, the U.S. and the U.K. dropped some 54 million cluster bombs on Iraq during the 1991 Gulf war and around two million during the 2003 Iraq invasion. Israel scattered four million cluster bombs over Lebanon during its latest invasion earlier this year, almost all of them during the final 72 hours.

These weapons are arguably already illegal. A protocol to the Geneva conventions prohibits attacks which "are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction" and "which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated." I think 98 per cent would be a fair definition of "excessive."

But their deployment will continue until there is a specific treaty banning them.

Two days ago, a letter sent to U.K. Defence Minister Des Browne by the U.K.'s International Development Secretary, Hilary Benn, was leaked to the press. He argued that "cluster munitions have a very serious humanitarian impact, pushing at the boundaries of international humanitarian law. It is difficult then to see how we can hold so prominent a position against landmines, yet somehow continue to advocate that use of cluster munitions is acceptable."

But Mr. Benn appears to be alone. The Foreign Office maintains that "existing humanitarian law is sufficient for the conduct of military operations, including the use of cluster munitions, and no treaty is required." The Government seems unable to break its habit of killing. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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