WELLINGTON—Survivors of cluster bombs will be among those pushing towards an international ban of the weapons in Wellington this week.
The victims from Afghanistan, Iraq, Serbia and Tajikistan are at the conference to "remind us why we need a treaty on cluster munitions and why this needs to be progressed urgently," New Zealand's Minister of Disarmament and Arms Control Hon Phil Goff said in his opening address.
"They are also a reminder of the obligations on us to address the needs of survivors, their families, and the communities which are required to provide care and support to those directly impacted for the rest of their lives," Mr Goff said.
More than 500 delegates from 122 states are attending the Cluster Munitions Conference in the capital until Friday 22 February with the aim of drafting a treaty text – the "Wellington Declaration" - that will go to Dublin, Ireland in May for formal negotiations. A signing ceremony in Norway in December is expected to complete what has been dubbed the 'Oslo Process'.
The process has been prompted in part by Israel's cluster attacks on Lebanon in 2006, the Human Rights Watch said. Israel dropped as many as 4.6 million submunitions across southern Lebanon in at least 962 separate strikes, according to a Human Rights Watch report just released.
"Only a global treaty that bans cluster munitions will prevent such tragedies in the future," Steve Goose, director of the Arms division at Human Rights Watch said.
Cluster Munitions Facts
At least 14 countries and a small number of non-state armed groups have used cluster munitions in at least 30 countries and territories;
At least 76 countries stockpile cluster munitions;
Thirty-four countries have produced more than 210 different types of cluster munitions; and
At least 13 countries have transferred more than 50 different types of cluster munitions to at least 60 other countries, as well to non-state armed groups.
SOURCE: Human Rights Watch
Cluster munitions are large weapons that contain dozens and often hundreds of smaller submunitions (bomblets). After being dropped from the air by planes or helicopters or fired from the ground by artillery or rocket launchers, cluster munitions open up in the air and release their bomblets over a wide area.
The wide dispersal of the bomblets and high rate (up to 40 percent) of detonation failure increase the risk of innocent victims being injured or killed for a long period of time after the bomblets have been dropped.
The United Nations has estimated that at least hundreds of thousands and perhaps 1 million submunitions did not explode on impact in Lebanon, but remained deadly, lingering like landmines, states the Human Rights Watch Report, "Flooding South Lebanon: Israel's Use of Cluster Munitions in Lebanon in July and August 2006."
Mr Goff said. "The legacy of unexploded cluster munitions endangers civilian lives in the same way that landmines do and the problem needs to be dealt with in a similar manner."
New Zealand has sent teams of clearance experts from our Defence Force to help clear the unexploded cluster submunitions in Southern Lebanon after the 2006 conflict, he said. Defence Force personnel have also worked in Laos, Cambodia, Mozambique, Angola and Afghanistan clearing landmines and unexploded ordinance.
Oxfam New Zealand, coordinators of the Aotearoa New Zealand Cluster Munition Coalition, has called on the government to take strong stand to ensure the draft treaty is not "weakened or compromised" in the course of the meeting.
"While we will need as many governments to sign up to the final treaty as possible to outlaw this morally reprehensible weapon, it is critical that the draft agreement not been compromised in the hope of bringing on board the "difficult countries," said Oxfam's Advocacy Director Mary Wareham, Coordinator of the Aotearoa New Zealand Cluster Munition Coalition in a press release.
"The true test of this agreement will be in the strength of its provisions and by the number of lives that are saved as a result," she said.
Amnesty International will be campaigning to ensure a total ban without exemptions, such as self-destruct mechanisms or a 1% dud rate – one of the controversial issues on the agenda.
Amnesty International NZ spokesperson Margaret Taylor said, "... long after a conflict is over it is often innocent civilians and in particular children who lose limbs, lives or loved ones when they pick cluster munitions up."
"The only guaranteed way to prevent this carnage is to ensure cluster munitions are banned, and that adequate resources are provided to assist survivors and to clear areas contaminated with unexploded cluster munitions. That is the only sane, humane way forward," Ms Taylor said in a press release.
Major munitions-making countries, Britain, France and Germany are attending the conference in Wellington this week, while abstentees include the United States, China, Russia and Israel.
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