U.S. not among signers of cluster bomb treaty

Some 100 nations signed a major anti-cluster bomb treaty, the Convention on Cluster Munitions, during a conference that began Dec. 3 in Oslo, Norway. It is a move that supporters hope will shame the United States, Russia, China, Israel and other non-signers into abandoning weapons blamed for maiming and killing thousands of innocent civilians.

Norway was first to sign, followed by Laos and Lebanon, both hard-hit by the weapons.

The Holy See not only signed the treaty but ratified it. The Vatican said by ratifying the treaty on the same day it was signed, it wanted “to give a strong political signal.” Pope Benedict XVI voiced support for the treaty effort in mid-May.

The drive to ban cluster bombs gathered momentum after Israel’s war with Hezbollah in 2006, when it scattered some 4 million bomblets over Lebanon.

Supporters call it the most significant disarmament and humanitarian treaty of the decade, banning the use, production and stockpiling of cluster munitions and obligating user nations to provide victim assistance and to clear contaminated land.

Signatories include many of the world’s producers, stockpilers and past users.

“This treaty shows what can be achieved when states act together,” said Co-Chair of the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) Grethe Østern of Norwegian People’s Aid. “The real winners are the thousands of people who will not have to lose life or limbs in the future. This effort has been driven by cluster bomb survivors in nations affected by them. Because of this the treaty has the strongest provisions to assist victims that have ever been laid down in international law.”

Like chemical, biological and land mine conventions before, the treaty bans an entire category of weapons. For over 40 years, cluster bombs have killed and injured civilians during and after conflicts.

Innocent civilians should not be the majority of people killed and that’s what this weapon does. Humanity has gone beyond this,” said Lynn Bradach, whose son Travis, a Marine, was killed in Iraq in 2003 while on a team disarming unexploded ordnance.

On average, a quarter of all cluster bomb victims are children. The treaty will help ensure that survivors, their families and communities receive measurable assistance, including meeting physical and psychosocial needs, rights and national action plans.

“Since 1997, there’s been a de facto ban on land mines. We think that will happen again with cluster bombs,” said Thomas Nash, CMC coordinator. “The moral stigma is going to be so powerful, we think cluster bombs also will quickly become a thing of the past.”

The Holy See not only signed the treaty but ratified it. The Vatican said by ratifying the treaty on the same day it was signed, it wanted “to give a strong political signal.” Pope Benedict XVI voiced support for the treaty effort in mid-May.

The United States has refused to sign the treaty, and earlier this year it boycotted the negotiations leading up to the treaty, claiming the cluster bombs are needed for military purposes in some instances.

Brooke Anderson, President-elect Barack Obama’s chief national security spokesperson, said on Dec. 3: “As president, Barack Obama will carefully review the new treaty and work closely with other countries to ensure that the United States is doing everything feasible to promote protection of civilians in conflict.”

As a senator, Obama supported a proposed amendment to a Defense Department appropriations bill in 2006 that would have banned funds for cluster munitions. The amendment was defeated.

Cluster bombs, which can be dropped from a variety of airplanes, each contain about 200 bomblets, according to Handicap International, which cofounded the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Handicap International won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997.

Each bomblet is the size of a soft drink can and, depending on the flight of the bomb, can be scattered over wide areas. It is the equivalent of dropping, as one description put it, “a shower of tiny hand grenades,” all capable of exploding and sending lethal shrapnel flying.

A survivor described the weapons in action: “You cannot understand their sickly consequences. They look like sweets scattered from the sky. You don’t realize what they are until they touch you. You know it when they make you bleed. They massacre people in minutes.”

One particularly insidious characteristic of the weapon, critics maintain, is that many don’t explode when first deployed, and they can appear to the unaware as toys or other benign devices. Because they stay deployed over large stretches of land, they have become deadly to thousands of civilians long after hostilities cease. Agricultural lands have been rendered useless because of cluster bomb infestations.

The United States insists that these weapons remain a necessary part of the 21st-century arsenal, putting it in league with China, Iran, Syria and Russia, among others. With China and Russia, the United States is one of the principal manufacturers and exporters of the weapons.

The treaty must be officially ratified by 30 countries before it takes effect.

(Rich Heffern is an NCR staff writer and Thomas C. Fox is NCR editor.)