The government of Norway is hosting an international meeting of 40 nations this week, hoping to successfully ban the manufacture and use of cluster bombs. The USA is NOT participating, which is a crying shame.
Cluster bombs remain on battlefields for years, more often (98% of the time, according to Handicap International) injuring or killing innocent children and farmers. The Norwegian government is hoping to enact a ban similar to the Ottawa Convention which restricts the use of land mines.
Norway took the lead on the anti-cluster bomb campaign afer the Convention of Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) in November of 2006 failed to agree to begin negotiations on a ban.
"We are talking about munitions with inhumane consequences," said Raymond Johansen, a senior Norwegian foreign ministry official. "We hope this conference will lead to a very efficient action plan on how to proceed with this."
Norway, which plans to replicate the anti-landmine campaign that won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, hopes to push through a ban by 2008.
Cluster munitions comprise a variety of weapons that disperse anywhere from 10 to several hundred submunitions, or bomblets, over a target area.
They can be dropped from aircraft or fired in artillery shells or missiles and have been used in conflicts around the world, from Vietnam to Afghanistan. The bomblets often remain unexploded and endanger civilians for decades after conflicts.
Especially noteworthy was Israel's use of up to one MILLION cluster bombs dropped over largely Christian civilian population centers in southern Lebanon last summer, AFTER the cease-fire was scheduled. The most damning point was that Israel wanted to obtain a new, improved cluster bomb model from the US military, but had to use up its existing supply of US-manufactured cluster bombs to obtain the new model! Unfortunately for Israel, the world was paying attention at this latest atrocity. And appropriately recoiled.
Particularly illustrative was Israel's feeble attempt to paint dropping one MILLION cluster bombs as "within Israel's right to defend herself" -- WTF? The chutzpah meter just pegged. That is too fuckin' much.
