The Curse Of Cluster Bombs

Statement By The NZ Campaign Against Landmines - (CALM)

The irresponsible and excessive use of cluster bombs by NATO forces in Kosovo has stirred the Executive of the New Zealand Campaign Against Landmines (CALM) into action on the issue of cluster bombs.

In the media and on emails there have been many accounts of human suffering caused by NATO dropping 1,100 cluster bombs on Kosovo, and the necessity of now having to clear 15,000 dangerous "duds" (unexploded bomblets) before they cause further mutilation and death.

Added to that was the statement from a leader of a NATO bomb disposal team as reported on the BBC, that " we are not in the business of humanitarian clearing."

Then on 16 August 1999 Lt Col John Flanagan, the New Zealand programme manager of the United Nations mine action coordination centre made a strong plea for NATO to become more proactive in mine clearing. Flanagan has sixteen experts working with NGOs trying to solve mine clearing, whereas NATO has a huge bomb clearing capability with specialist teams attached to each brigade area.

The anger of many was expressed by Roland Schwanke of Medecins Sans Frontieres when he said, "They should collect what they dropped here. For the demining organisations it is too much. NATO dropped them so they should collect them as well." Does the reluctance of NATO to assist with humanitarian demining reflect their collective lack of concern for the people of the area?

CALM was going to call for international pressure from the ICBL to require NATO to assist with the essential task of humanitarian demining in Kosovo, but the latest information we have from Lt Col Flanagan is that KFOR EOD teams will now undertake survey and marking activities and some troops will clear the cluster munitions.

The leaders of NATO were irresponsible when, knowing that there would be thousands of "dud" bomblets left lying around at the end of the bombing campaign, and believing that NATO troops would eventually enter Kosovo, they persisted in using cluster bombs.

It should be noted that air combat commander Maj Gen Michael Ryan, now US Air Force Chief of Staff, decided during Operation Deliberate Force in Bosnia in 1995 to prohibit the use of cluster bombs. His staff said that cluster bombs were not used because the fragmentation pattern was too large and that there was a further problem of potential unexploded ordnance.

Similar to NATO in Kosovo there was no concern for post war reconstruction and the welfare of civilians when there was excessive use of cluster bombs in Laos and Kuwait.

CALM believes very strongly that NATO should withdraw all cluster bombs from service until the makers can guarantee that 99.95% of the bomblets will explode before or on hitting the ground.

Most New Zealanders are aware that there is a large UXO problem in Laos because our Government is contributing financially to their disposal and our Army was represented in UXO LAO. Unfortunately, Laos is a small, poor, isolated and landlocked country in South East Asia. But it has not always been poor. It is the deprivation of the fertile lowlands because of the presence of UXOs that has created hunger and despair among the people. From 1964 to 1973 Laos suffered some of the heaviest aerial bombing in world history. During this period over 500,000 bombing missions were launched or the equivalent of one plane load of bombs every nine minutes around the clock for nine full years. Two million tons of ordnance fell on Lao territory and at the end of that period it was estimated that there were nine million dud bomblets still lying on Lao territory.

The Mennonite Central Committee consistently spoke out about the results of the bombing and with the support of American Friends Service Committee, OXFAM, the British Mine Action Group and other groups, did help clear many UXOs and worked to redevelop the potential farmland but unfortunately their impact on world opinion was very limited.

The Gulf war saw the most widespread and extensive use of cluster bombs in the history of armed conflict, both air- and ground- delivered. A total of 62,000 air-delivered cluster bombs together with 10,000 MLRS rockets and 100,000 Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munition artillery shells were used by the allied forces. This translates to 24-30 million sub munitions and, assuming a dud rate of 5% it is estimated that the number of dangerous "duds" left in Iraq and Kuwait is from 1.2 to 1.5 million. In the desert the percentage of duds rose to 30%. The US General Accounting Office (GAO) reported that at least twenty-five US military personnel were killed and many more injured by these submunitions fired by their own forces.

The people of Kosovo are fortunate that the bombing of Kosovo only went on for a few months and the use of cluster bombs after their "use by" date should not be interpreted that supplies of cluster bombs were running out.

Action needs to be taken now so that when the next conflict comes, the lands fought over will not become unlivable because of unexploded duds from cluster bombs.

We need action BEFORE the next conflict. Judging by the statement by the US President when he was recently in Kosovo we need action quickly. He said "..the Alliance could intervene elsewhere in Europe or in Africa to fight repression. We can do it now. We can do it tomorrow if it is necessary." On the NATO air war in Yugoslavia he said: "We are proud of what we did, because we think it's what America stands for." This could be "fighting talk" by a politician but these are not comforting words for the victims of cluster bombs and could indicate that President Clinton needs educating onthe effects of unexploded bomblets.

CALM does not call for a long drawn out debate within the ICBL and the Governments that have signed the Mine Ban Treaty as to whether cluster bombs should be included in the MBT. We are calling on civil society and the Governments of the world, aware of the suffering caused by cluster bombs, to unilaterally withdraw cluster bombs from their country's armouries until their makers can guarantee that 99.95 % of the bomblets will explode before or on hitting the ground.

We do see the statements by the national CBLs of Switzerland, Germany, Italy and Canada doing much to stir the consciousness of landmine campaigners world wide and their views, even if we do not agree with all their conclusions, need a wide audience.

The ICBL has won a moral victory over landmines. We see a moral victory over cluster bombs coming much more quickly if the ICBL takes the lead in publicising the horrors of the duds produced by today's cluster bombs. The ICBL should not go into the business of banning a certain type of bombs.

HOWEVER WE CAN AND SHOULD CALL FOR A BAN ON DEFECTIVE WEAPONS WHICH BECOME TIME BOMBS AND CAUSE SUCH MISERY.

We call on the Coordinating Committee of the ICBL to add cluster bombs to their agenda, not to decide yes or no as to whether cluster bombs should be added to the MBT, but to initiate a publicity campaign to make national campaigns fully aware of the impact of cluster bombs so that, if appropriate, they will call on their Governments to unilaterally withdraw these weapons from service.

We are planning to see that cluster bombs will feature on next year's CCW Agenda and perhaps by the 2004 Review of the MBT, cluster bombs could be banned if they continue to be in service with defective components. But so much depends on the stirring of civil society. The absence of action after Laos should be a lesson for us. The use of cluster bombs in each campaign has posed a severe threat to friendly ground forces and peace keeping troops, and this should be a lesson for those countries still wishing to use these unreliable weapons.

John V Head
john.head@xtra.co.nz
Spokesperson for CALM