The anti-cluster bomb campaign

Geneva - Human rights groups launched Friday a “week of action” to try to convince governments to sign and ratify the international treaty which bans the use, production and stockpiling of cluster munitions. The campaign was being launched one year after countries concluded negotiations on the treaty in Ireland. In December, the treaty was opened for signatures. Since then, 96 governments signed and seven have ratified the treaty.

Work has also commenced in several countries on eliminating their stockpiles of the weapon.

Spain became the first country to destroy its entire stockpile in March. Other countries were on their way, the Banning Cluster Munitions report released Friday said. These included Canada, Colombia and Britain.

Steve Goose, of Human Rights Watch’s arms control division, said he was “optimistic” the United States would eventually join the convention.

He noted that President Barack Obama, when he was in the Senate, supported some bans on cluster bombs, and also signed into law, after entering the White House, a permanent ban on exporting the weapon.

Cluster bombs eject sub-munitions over a wide area, making them a deadly and generally imprecise weapon. Many fail to explode and effectively turn into landmines scattered across civilian populated areas. Clearing them can also be an expensive task.

In Afghanistan, for example, Human Rights Watch said 232 strikes by the US army spread 1,228 cluster bombs, with 248,056 bomblets, throughout the country in 2001 and 2002. Parts of the country were also covered by the weapon during the Soviet invasion.

Afghanistan, like Laos and several other countries, remains heavily affected by cluster munitions.

“Cluster bombs have killed and injured far too many civilians at the time of attack,” said Steve Goose, of Human Rights Watch’s arms control division.

“Even worse, they go on killing days, weeks, months and even decades later,” he added, explaining that after they fail to explode they can remain for years in the ground or in lakes where people fish.

The coalition said some of the world’s biggest users and stockpilers have not yet signed up to the convention. These include the US, Russia, China, North Korea, and Israel.

It was Israel’s massive use of clusters in southern Lebanon in 2006 that sparked rights groups into action on getting the treaty together, the report said.

Russia and Georgia have both been accused of using the weapon during their conflict last summer.

Cluster bombs were still believed to be produced in at least 17 states. At the same time, more countries who support the treaty were also banning the transport of the weapon through their territory, effectively limiting the way to move them.

The treaty, beyond calling for the complete destruction of all cluster bombs within a decade, also orders states to give extensive assistance to victims of munition.

It does not include clauses on criminal prosecution against users, and the campaigners said that would have to be decided at the level of national legislators.

Six months after the 30th country signs the treaty it will enter into force. That is expected to occur next year, Goose said.

The progress made in ending the use of the bombs was a “remarkable story of sea change in the international perspective on the weapon,” Goose said.

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