U.S., Russia and China urged to join treaty banning use of cluster bombs

Tuesday, 2 October 2007
AP

BELGRADE, Serbia: Big cluster bomb producers the United States, Russia and China will be urged to join a new treaty banning the use of the deadly weapon, officials negotiating the deal said Tuesday.

"We want the U.S., Russia and China to join," said Thomas Nash, a coordinator of the Cluster Munition Coalition at the start of a three-day conference of 23 countries most effected by the weapons, which have caused growing concern because of the dangers they pose to civilians.

"The three biggest cluster munition producers have a moral obligation to join the new treaty, which has so far been approved by 81 nations," Nash told The Associated Press.

The attempts to work out an international treaty regulating the use of cluster bombs has so far met opposition from China and Russia, and received only lukewarm support from the United States.

The U.S. has said there were sufficient controls on the weapon in existing treaties. And it has said cluster bombs, if used carefully, have important military uses, such as attacking artillery positions, armored columns and missile installations.

European countries joined by Canada, New Zealand and Australia urged other countries in the 1980 U.N. Convention on Conventional Weapons, known as CCW, to develop a new treaty just for cluster munitions — small bomblets typically scattered over a wide area that can explode years after they were deployed.

The meeting in Belgrade is part of the so-called Oslo Process, which was launched in February and aims to conclude a treaty in 2008. The discussions will focus on the clearance of the cluster bomblets, victims' assistance and international cooperation, Nash said.

"The rights and needs of victims of cluster munitions must be at the heart of the new international treaty to ban those weapons," he said.

Fired by artillery or dropped by aircraft, cluster bombs are canisters that open in flight and eject dozens or hundreds of small bomblets across a wide area. They were first used in Laos in the 1970s, and as early as last year in Lebanon.

Branislav Kapetanovic, an former Yugoslav army explosives expert who lost both his hands and legs while trying to defuse a U.S.-made cluster bomb after the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, described the weapon as "the most cunning munition ever made."

"I tried to look at this small yellow object sitting in a bush when it went off," Kapetanovic, 41, told the AP at the start of the conference, where he will describe his experience.

"In the center of the blast, it sounded like a glass bottle crashing on a concrete pavement," Kapetanovic said. "At the spot, I immediately lost my hands and legs and remained blind for another three months."

Serbia — a former user, producer and stockpiler of cluster bombs — has said it is "an unwilling possessor of cluster munitions."