Britain has joined the United States, China and Russia to block a proposed ban on cluster bombs in the wake of extensive use of the weapons during the war in Lebanon.
A group of countries, led by Sweden, is urging a worldwide ban on cluster bombs at arms talks in Geneva. Each bomb contains hundreds of small brightly coloured ”bomblets”, many of which fail to explode until picked up by inquisitive children or stepped on by civilians.
Israeli forces dropped an estimated one million cluster bomblets in southern Lebanon this year — 90% of which were dropped in the last three days of the conflict, a report from Landmine Action said this week. The weapons have left a trail of unexploded munitions that is killing three to four civilians every day and impeding relief work.
In just one month, the United Nations identified more than 500 areas hit by cluster bombs, the report said.
Richard Moyes, policy and research manager of Landmine Action, which supports the proposed ban, said Britain’s refusal to back a ban was incredible. ”Unfortunately, it is not surprising because Britain has been one of the biggest users of the munitions, in Kosovo and in Iraq.”
Moyes did not want to speculate on why Israel had dropped so many cluster bombs in the last days of the war in Lebanon that ended in August. One theory was that it hoped it would make it more difficult for Hezbollah to fire its rockets from southern Lebanon.
Aid agencies and human rights groups, such as Landmine Action, have repeatedly called for an international ban on the use of cluster weapons. Most Israeli cluster strikes hit built-up areas. Landmine Action says when the research for its report was undertaken a month after the ceasefire, water and power supplies had been blocked, and schools, roads, houses and gardens were still littered with unexploded devices.
The report says: ”In many affected areas, farmers have not been able to safely harvest what was left of this summer’s tobacco, wheat and fruit; late-yielding crops such as olives will remain too dangerous to harvest by November, and winter crops will be lost because farmers will be unable to plough their grains and vegetables.”
Simon Conway, the director of Landmine Action, said: ”Every day women and children are killed or injured as they sift through the rubble of their former homes by cluster munitions that failed to go off. If they were any other kind of product, they would have been recalled.”
The British Foreign Office confirmed that the United Kingdom is opposing the diplomatic push led by Sweden in Geneva to change the Certain Conventional Weapons treaty.
It said: ”The UK believes existing humanitarian law is sufficient for the conduct of military operations, including the use of cluster munitions, and no treaty is required.
”The UK remains committed to improving the reliability of all munitions with the aim of achieving lower failure rates and leaving few unexploded ordnance in order to minimise the humanitarian risk.”
Sweden is supported by various countries, including Austria, Mexico and New Zealand, as well as the Vatican and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Cluster bombs have been used in most conflicts since the Vietnam war. Belgium has banned them and Australia and Norway have declared a moratorium on their use. Germany has said its forces will stop using them.
British Foreign Office minister Lord Triesman told the House of Lords recently that ”cluster munitions are legitimate weapons when used in accordance with international humanitarian law”.
He said: ”They provide a unique capability against certain dispersed and wide-area military targets, for which other munitions are not necessarily practical.” He said Britain expected the Israeli government to investigate any ”well-founded allegations of the misuse of munitions by its armed forces”.
According to the UN’s mine action coordinating centre, Israeli forces fired 1 800 rocket systems, each with 12 individual rockets, into south Lebanon.
Britain’s Liberal Democrats said the high failure rate meant about 450 000 cluster bomblets were left on the ground. — Â