| | |  Americas & Beyond | December 2008 
Historic Signing of Cluster Munitions Treaty
 Stéphane Bussard - Le Temps
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| | Cluster bombs are scattered over vast areas, and sometimes do not immediately explode. They then lay dormant until disturbed. Children are often cluster bomb victims; they mistake the bombs for toys. (AFP) | |
Armaments: In Oslo this week, a hundred countries - including Switzerland - affixed their signature to a Convention that prohibits cluster munitions. A major landmark for humanitarian law.
This was the result of an extraordinary mobilization of state and non-state actors. In Oslo's City Hall this morning, at 10 o'clock on the dot, over 100 countries signed the Cluster Munitions Convention. Notably absent were producers, such as the United States, Russia, China, Pakistan and even Israel.
The treaty aims to prohibit these weapons, which mutilate thousands of people in the world every year. Head of Norwegian diplomacy Jonas Gahr Store, who played a major role in drafting the treaty, considers it "a historic event that places humanitarian disarmament at the center of the international agenda." [Swiss] Federal Counselor Micheline Calmy-Rey is in the Norwegian capital to sign the Convention on behalf of Switzerland. The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), a guarantor of international humanitarian law, was much involved in the process. Its president, Jakob Kellenberger, was also present in Oslo to witness the event.
The Convention signed today will become effective after 30 ratifications. It obliges signatory states to refrain from using cluster munitions, to destroy their existing stocks within eight years, and to demine their national territory within ten years. Cluster munitions come in the form of containers (bombs, missiles, rockets, shells) filled with dozens, even hundreds, of bomblets the size of a beer can supposed to explode on contact with the ground.
Tested under conditions that do not always reproduce the realities on the ground, they are not always reliable. During the 2006 war in Lebanon, duds reached an estimated level of 30 percent, with the result that cluster munitions settle in the ground and transform themselves into anti-personnel mines with even more devastating effects. They explode more easily, and, above all, demand complex work from de-miners. Finally, designed to stop tank and armored car convoys, they have greater power than anti-personnel mines. Consequently, they kill more often and mutilate more severely. The Oslo meeting punctuates a remarkable evolution. Moreover, it's impossible to talk about the present cluster munitions Convention without mentioning another treaty, the Ottawa treaty adopted in 1997 that prohibits the use and stockpiling of anti-personnel mines. "At the time, civil society wanted to prohibit all explosive leftovers of war, including cluster bombs. But it was an unattainable objective. Prohibiting anti-personnel mines was already a big step," remembers Paul Vermeulen, director of the Swiss section of Handicap International. The "Oslo Process" fed off the work related to the Ottawa Convention and based itself on new studies that showed the true impact of cluster munitions specifically on civilians, who represent 90 percent of these weapons' victims.
In November 2006 in Geneva, the Conference on Certain Classic Weapons (CCW), where all the great powers convene, had refused to so much as consider prohibition of cluster munitions. Faithful to its international reputation, Norwegian diplomacy grabbed the ball on the rebound and launched a process in the margins of the CCW. A first conference of 46 countries took place in Oslo in February 2007. After several meetings, it was in Dublin, in May 2008 that 107 countries adopted the text of the present Cluster Munitions Convention.
The working method used by the participating actors was the same as during the Ottawa process. The Coalition against Cluster Bombs, formed from some 300 non-governmental organizations from over 80 countries, collaborated closely with countries. This multilateral creativity, which makes a mockery of the blockages in inter-country institutions such as the CCW, produced dazzling results. Paul Vermeulen explains how: "We had the same NGOs and often the same state interlocutors as we had in Ottawa. That contributed to this breakthrough."
As for Switzerland, which has a stockpile of 200,000 cluster bombs, it was extremely cautious at the beginning of the Oslo process because of marked resistance from the military establishment. Now it's more committed. However, in order to ratify the Cluster Munitions Convention, Parliament will have to change the law on war materiel. Switzerland is unlikely to figure among the first 30 countries to ratify the treaty.
Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.
Ninety-Two Nations Sign Cluster-Bomb Ban; US, Russia Don't
Doug Mellgren - Associated Press
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Oslo, Norway - An Afghan teenager who lost both legs in a cluster bomb explosion helped persuade his country to change its stance and join nearly 100 nations in signing a treaty Wednesday banning the disputed weapons.
Afghanistan was initially reluctant to join the pact - which the United States and Russia have refused to support - but agreed to after lobbying by victims maimed by cluster munitions, including 17-year-old Soraj Ghulan Habib. The teen, who uses a wheelchair, met with his country's ambassador to Norway, Jawed Ludin, at a two-day signing conference in Oslo.
"I explained to the ambassador my situation, and that the people of Afghanistan wanted a ban," Habib, who said he was crippled by a cluster bomb seven years ago, told The Associated Press.
Speaking through an interpreter, Habib said the ambassador called Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who agreed to change his stance on the treaty.
"Today is a historic day," Habib declared.
Afghanistan's reversal even surprised the activists who are urging countries to join the pact against cluster munitions, which have been widely criticized for maiming and killing civilians.
"It is just so huge, to get this turnaround. Afghanistan was under a lot of pressure from the United States," said Thomas Nash, coordinator of The Cluster Bomb Coalition. "If Afghanistan can withstand the pressure, so can others."
Australian activist Daniel Barty said the Afghan ambassador appeared to start changing his mind after meeting Habib at a reception Tuesday.
The U.S., Russia and other countries refusing to sign the treaty say cluster bombs have legitimate military uses, such as repelling advancing troop columns.
Cluster bomblets are packed by the hundreds into artillery shells, bombs or missiles, which scatter them over vast areas. Some fail to explode immediately. The unexploded bomblets can then lie dormant for years until they are disturbed, often by children attracted by their small size and bright colors.
The group Handicap International says 98 percent of cluster-bomb victims are civilians, and 27 percent are children.
Organizers hoped that more than 100 of the 125 countries represented will have signed by the end of the conference on Thursday. Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said 92 countries did so on Wednesday.
The treaty must be ratified by 30 countries before it takes effect.
His country, which began the drive to ban cluster bombs 18 months ago, was the first to sign, followed by Laos and Lebanon, both hard-hit by the weapons.
Britain, formerly a major stockpiler of cluster munitions, also signed the treaty, which Foreign Secretary David Miliband said showed that a NATO country can defend itself without cluster weapons.
Miliband said he would urge President-elect Barack Obama's administration to reconsider the U.S. stance.
The Bush administration says a comprehensive ban would hurt world security.
"Although we share the humanitarian concerns of states signing the (accord), we will not be joining them," the U.S. State Department said in a statement. "Such a general ban on cluster munitions will put the lives of our military men and women, and those of our coalition partners, at risk."
In Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said his government had decided not to join the treaty, and instead believes the issue of cluster bomb use should be addressed through the U.N. Convention on Conventional Weapons.
The anti-cluster bomb campaign gathered momentum after Israel's monthlong war against Hezbollah in 2006, when it scattered up to 4 million bomblets across Lebanon, according to U.N. figures.
"In southern Lebanon, for more than two years, children and the elderly have been victimized (by cluster munitions)," Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Saloukh said.
Activists hoped the treaty would pressure non-signers into shelving the weapons, as many did with land mines after a 1997 treaty banning them.
"The cluster bomb treaty will save countless lives by stigmatizing a weapon that kills civilians even after the fighting ends," said Steve Goose, arms director of Human Rights Watch.
Associated Press writer Shawna Ohm in Jerusalem contributed to this report. |
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