Nobel winners urge cluster bomb ban
Wed, 23 May 2007 06:52:30
 A US B-1 Lancer releasing its payload of cluster bombs |
Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi and four other female Nobel prize laureates have urged civilians to press for the elimination of cluster bombs.
"While so many of the world's arms cause so much human misery, cluster munitions deserve to be singled out as an especially pernicious weapon of ill repute," Williams said.
"They have become synonymous with civilian casualties," the US Nobel laureate read from the statement signed by her and five women Nobel Peace Prize winners: Rigoberta Menchu (Guatemala-1992); Shirin Ebadi (Iran-2003); Wangari Maathai (Kenya-2004); Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan Maguire (Ireland-1976).
An international conference in Lima, Peru opening Wednesday will seek to ban the weapons.
Ninety-eight percent of 11,044 recorded cluster munitions casualties that have been registered with Handicap International are civilians. Cluster munitions are hotly opposed by many individuals and hundreds of groups, such as the Red Cross, the Cluster Munition Coalition and the United Nations, because of the high proportion of civilians that have fallen victim to the weapon.
"They cause too many entirely predictable civilian deaths and injuries during attacks because they saturate such a large area with no degree of precision whatsoever," Williams said.
Williams, whose work to ban landmines garnered the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, represents the Cluster Munition Coalition, which urged South America to follow Central America, which has already banned the weapons.
Representatives of more than 100 countries are expected in Lima for the conference that follows up on work begun February in Oslo, where 47 countries signed the Oslo Declaration seeking to ban the weapons.
"They go on killing and maiming, for days, weeks, years, even decades after the attacks because they leave behind huge numbers of so-called duds that act just like antipersonnel landmines," Williams said.
"These indiscriminate, inaccurate, and unreliable weapons cannot be allowed to proliferate."
"Eliminated now, the world will not face their global contamination as it has with landmines," she added.
At least 400 million people live in areas contaminated by these unexploded weapons, the groups said, largely in the Middle East, where they are used by Israel, the former Yugoslavia and South East Asian countries, where the United States deployed them in the
1970s.
Close to a million unexploded bombs are estimated to litter southern Lebanon, according to UN figures, threatening mostly children who pick them out of curiosity.
"While so many of the world's arms cause so much human misery, cluster munitions deserve to be singled out as an especially pernicious weapon of ill repute," Williams said.
"They have become synonymous with civilian casualties," the US Nobel laureate read from the statement signed by her and five women Nobel Peace Prize winners: Rigoberta Menchu (Guatemala-1992); Shirin Ebadi (Iran-2003); Wangari Maathai (Kenya-2004); Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan Maguire (Ireland-1976).
An international conference in Lima, Peru opening Wednesday will seek to ban the weapons.
Ninety-eight percent of 11,044 recorded cluster munitions casualties that have been registered with Handicap International are civilians. Cluster munitions are hotly opposed by many individuals and hundreds of groups, such as the Red Cross, the Cluster Munition Coalition and the United Nations, because of the high proportion of civilians that have fallen victim to the weapon.
"They cause too many entirely predictable civilian deaths and injuries during attacks because they saturate such a large area with no degree of precision whatsoever," Williams said.
Williams, whose work to ban landmines garnered the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, represents the Cluster Munition Coalition, which urged South America to follow Central America, which has already banned the weapons.
Representatives of more than 100 countries are expected in Lima for the conference that follows up on work begun February in Oslo, where 47 countries signed the Oslo Declaration seeking to ban the weapons.
Many countries shattered by their effects such as Afghanistan, Cambodia, Lebanon, Vietnam and Laos also were to be on hand.
Argentina, Brazil and Chile currently manufacture cluster bombs in South America. China, Russia and the United States, the largest manufacturers of cluster bombs, oppose the ban. Israel most recently used the bombs less than a year ago on Lebanon and the bombs are causing more and more causalities everyday.
"They go on killing and maiming, for days, weeks, years, even decades after the attacks because they leave behind huge numbers of so-called duds that act just like antipersonnel landmines," Williams said.
"These indiscriminate, inaccurate, and unreliable weapons cannot be allowed to proliferate."
"Eliminated now, the world will not face their global contamination as it has with landmines," she added.
At least 400 million people live in areas contaminated by these unexploded weapons, the groups said, largely in the Middle East, where they are used by Israel, the former Yugoslavia and South East Asian countries, where the United States deployed them in the
1970s.
In Vietnam, it has been reported that people are still being killed as a result of cluster bombs and other objects left by the US and South Vietnamese militaries. Estimates range up to 300 people per year. In post-war Kosovo unexploded cluster bomblets caused more civilian deaths than landmines. Cluster bombs have claimed 30 civilians and wounded 191 in Lebanon since the August 14, 2006 ceasefire in the 2006 Israeli-Lebanon conflict.
Close to a million unexploded bombs are estimated to litter southern Lebanon, according to UN figures, threatening mostly children who pick them out of curiosity.
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