Cluster bombs and Australia’s national interest
By Rod Benson - posted Friday, 15 June 2007

At the same time as the Australian Government is engaged in international
talks aimed at securing a global treaty banning cluster bombs, the Defence
Department has claimed that limitations on the Australian Defence Force’s
capacity to acquire the weapons would be “detrimental to our national
interest”.

Cluster bombs, or cluster munitions, are a kind of artillery shell or rocket
dropped from the air or launched from the ground. Before reaching its target
the shell opens and ejects multiple smaller munitions (bomblets).

Cluster bombs are used primarily to kill enemy infantry, but versions are
also used to start fires, pierce the armour of tanks and other armoured
vehicles, disable runways, disperse mines, deliver chemical weapons and even
disrupt electrical power transmission.

Like land mines, cluster bombs pose an immediate and long-term threat to
civilians. They typically affect a wide area, sometimes as much as several
football fields, increasing the potential for civilian casualties. Further,
multiple unexploded bomblets may lie dormant for some time. The Australian
Red Cross estimates that typically between 7 and 30 per cent, but up to 40
per cent in some cases, of cluster bomblets fail to detonate on impact but
may explode if disturbed.

According to Handicap International, 98 per cent of its registered cluster
munitions casualties are civilians. Many of these are children. In addition
to the tragedy of civilian casualties, unexploded ordnance of cluster
bomblets can create long-term social and economic problems for countries
attempting to recover from war. Countries significantly affected include
Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Vietnam and Laos.

Australia possessed limited stocks of cluster munitions between 1970 and
1990 but these were destroyed, and Australia has until now undertaken not to
use cluster bombs in armed conflict. On May 8, 2007 Robert Tickner, former
federal Aboriginal Affairs minister and now chief executive of the
Australian Red Cross, urged the Australian Government to consider the role
it might play in supporting a ban on cluster munitions, based in part on his
personal experience of the devastation caused by them:

I saw the effects of unexploded cluster munitions while visiting Lebanon in
February, and they are truly devastating, and alarmingly random.
Sub-munitions were found in houses, backyards, in trees, in orchards and
many other places. In one street near a hospital, 800 sub-munitions were
found.

I met a farm worker who had been working in a field on September 9, about a
month after the conflict had ended. He was leaving the field after work and
did not notice the unexploded sub-munition that was hidden under some fallen
leaves. The munition exploded, severely damaging his foot and leg, resulting
in partial amputation. He did not believe he could return to work as a
labourer again, and I can only imagine the fear he must feel knowing that
almost anywhere in the fields he once worked could be another remnant of the
conflict waiting to release its potentially lethal payload …

To support a ban on the use of these inaccurate, unreliable weapons of
conflict would send a clear message to the rest of the world and be a
significant step towards ridding it of a weapon that goes on destroying
lives long after the fighting forces have packed up and gone home.

But Australian politicians and the Australian Defence Force (ADF) are
instead moving in the opposite direction. Australian Democrats leader,
Senator Lyn Allison, introduced a private members bill into federal
parliament on December 5, 2006, titled the Cluster Munitions (Prohibition)
Bill 2006, to prohibit the use, manufacture and possession of cluster
munitions.

The bill triggered an inquiry by the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Defence and Trade, which tabled recommendations in Parliament on May 31.
According to Senator Allison, the Senate Standing Committee selectively
ignored 80 per cent of submissions which supported a total ban or far more
stringent regulation of the use of cluster munitions, and effectively “gave
the cluster bombs the green light”.

Further, the ADF is reported to be acquiring high-precision and
self-destructing cluster bombs for use against armoured vehicles.

The preferred supplier of the bombs, Israel Military Industries, claimed
that they were “safer than others” and had been used to the “utmost
satisfaction of its users”. The ADF opposes legislation to ban cluster
munitions on the basis that such a ban could leave Australian troops open to
prosecution while serving with allies who have used the bombs in Iraq and
Afghanistan.

This action by the ADF may appear to contradict the government’s support in
Lima last week for a new international treaty to ban cluster munitions. But
as Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Greg Hunt, explained, “We
make no apologies for wanting to maintain a capability to adequately and
safely protect our defence forces”.

In addition, the Defence Department claimed the Allison Bill would have “put

Australia at a serious military disadvantage in future conflicts, which
would be detrimental to our national interest”.

The international response to this growing threat to civilian life has been
somewhat disappointing. Although many individuals and agencies including the
Red Cross and the United Nations oppose the use of cluster bombs, no
international legal instrument specifically covers them. Belgium alone has
issued a comprehensive ban on the use of cluster munitions. Several other
countries, including Australia, have engaged in parliamentary discussions
with a view to a moratorium or ban.

An international conference in Oslo in February 2007 led to 46 of the 68
participating nations backing a Norwegian push for a new international
treaty by 2008 that would ban “cluster munitions that cause unacceptable
harm to civilians”. What constitutes “unacceptable harm” is ambiguous and disputed.

Australia was not represented at the Oslo talks, but did send officials to a
second round of talks involving 70 countries in Lima, Peru, from May 23 to
25, 2007, aimed at a global treaty banning cluster munitions. Australia’s
contribution to the latest round of talks was to call for an exclusion of
weapons with a self-destruct mechanism in an apparent attempt to protect the
interests of the ADF.

Dr Mark Zirnsak, National Coordinator of the Australian Network to Ban
Landmines, described this as “a deadly and disastrous decision by the
Australian Government as the self-destruct mechanism has repeatedly been
proven not to protect civilians from the indiscriminate explosions.”

Handicap International asked whether the Government had actually studied the
humanitarian risks of the cluster bombs it wanted to acquire:

"As with landmines, cluster munitions pose a serious threat to civilians
during and after the conflicts. Australia should also be setting an example
based on its commitment to humanitarian law that weapons that are
indiscriminate should not be used."

Perhaps the mantra of “the national interest” has itself become a handicap

to the advocacy of reasonable notions of justice and compassion in
Australia. Indeed, it is debatable whether there is any contested area of
Australian public life in which the national interest could not be invoked
by political pragmatists, or economic fundamentalists, to justify what a
majority of the population regards as injustice.

First published in Soundings No. 58, 5 June 2007.

Rev Rod Benson is the Director of the Centre for Christian Ethics, Morling
College, and the Secretary for the Social Issues Committee of the Executive
Committee, Baptist Union of NSW.

Article at:
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5967

Selected links within article:
"Defence Department has claimed that limitations  ... "
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/defence-given-green-light-to-use-cluster-bombs/2007/05/31/1180205427816.html

"On May 8, 2007 Robert Tickner,  ... chief executive of the Australian Red
Cross, urged the Australian Government to consider the role it might play in
supporting a ban on cluster munitions ... "
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/australia-should-press-on-cluster-munitions-ban/2007/05/07/1178390223045.html

" ... Cluster Munitions (Prohibition) Bill 2006,  ...  inquiry ... "
http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/fadt_ctte/cluster_bill_2006/tor.htm

"According to Senator Allison, the Senate Standing Committee  ...
effectively “gave the cluster bombs the green light”.
http://www.democrats.org.au/news/index.htm?press_id=5900

" ... the ADF is reported to be acquiring high-precision and
self-destructing cluster bombs ..."
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/defence-force-seeks-deadly-cluster-bombs/2007/05/19/1179497342315.html

" ... Israel Military Industries, claimed that they were “safer than
others”
..."
and
" ... the Defence Department claimed the Allison Bill would  ... be
detrimental to our national interest”."
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/defence-given-green-light-to-use-cluster-bombs/2007/05/31/1180205427816.html

"Dr Mark Zirnsak, National Coordinator [ANBL], described this as “a deadly
and disastrous decision ... "
http://victas.uca.org.au/main.php?pg=download&id=4710

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