Just Remember These Nations...

Date: May 29, 2008

Just Remember These Nations...

Date: May 29, 2008

Simple answer, these countries still want to use cluster bombs to attack other countries, especially United states

Date: May 29, 2008

Yes and which countries refuse to join land mine ban, because they plant the land mine to kill their own citizens to this very day? Burma, Laos, Vietnam.

Date: May 29, 2008

LAOS: Deadly cost of unexploded cluster munitions.

Nine-year-old Joi does not remember his brother dying - only the explosion and the noise, which he still hears in his nightmares three years later. Joi had gone into a nearby forest with his brother to dig for worms for fishing when they detonated a cluster bomb several decades old. His brother was killed outright, and Joi was badly injured. Shrapnel - mainly ball bearings embedded within the small but powerful explosive - pierced his body and lacerated his throat, permanently damaging his vocal chords so that he talks in a barely audible whisper. "It still hurts," he told IRIN. "But mostly I'm still scared … scared to go into the forest, scared to play there. I'm scared of the bomblets." Cluster bombs are one of warfare's most indiscriminate weapons, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said recently. "For a number of years, the United Nations has voiced its concern over the humanitarian impact of cluster munitions. Because they are inherently inaccurate and often malfunction, they are particularly indiscriminate and unreliable," Ban said. When released, cluster bombs split open, dispersing hundreds of "bomblets", designed to scatter and kill within an area up to the size of two football fields. One bomblet alone has a kill radius of 30m. The bomblet that killed Joi's brother was part of an aerial arsenal dropped on Laos by US forces from 1966 to 1975 to stem the tide of North Vietnamese troops, who were infiltrating South Vietnam through Laos. Fifteeen of the country's 17 provinces were targeted, according to the National Regulatory Authority (NRA) for the UXO/Mine Action Sector in Lao PDR. Based on records released by the US Air Force in 1999, an estimated 277 million bomblets were dropped on Laos.According to John Dingley, UNDP senior technical adviser to UXO Lao, the government's clearance operator, there is an industry-wide accepted detonation failure rate of 20 to 30 percent, and as many as 84 million unexploded bomblets still litter the countryside, impeding farming and overall development. Eighty percent of the Lao population are subsistence farmers and risk injury or death from unexploded ordnance (UXO) accidents. Somphet, the village chief of Ban Ven, in the northern province of Xieng Khouang, told IRIN that villagers had adapted their farming practices to avoid fatal accidents. "We only till a few centimeters deep into the paddies, and use buffaloes to pull the ploughs – never tractors," he said. "It's much slower and means we don't get the fertile mud lower down, but with UXOs around, this method is much safer – risky still – but safer," said Somphet. "According to Mike Boddington, victim assistance technical adviser with the NRA,in the four month period from January to April 2008 alone, 17 accidents were reported, with a total of 47 casualties, including 15 deaths - nine of whom were children. One hundred people were injured or killed by UXOs, mostly bomblets, in 2007 and 49 people in 2006." Japan, Australia, Ireland and the US are providing significant funding for UXO clearance and numerous UXO clearance groups, including Mines Advisory Group, Milsearch, Phoenix Clearance Ltd, and the Lao government's clearance organisation, UXO Laos, continue to operate throughout the country. In a little over 15 years of clearance operations, up to the end of 2007 only about 131 sqkm had been cleared, according to NRA data. But with 87,000 sqkm of the country contaminated, it is estimated that with current resources, including de-miners, it will take another 100 years to complete the task. Call for ban The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and many other humanitarian groups are calling for an international ban on the weapon. "It's bad enough when civilians get caught up and injured in conflict," says the head of the ICRC's mines-arms unit, legal division, Peter Herby, "but for us, it's repugnant when killing goes on for years and decades." On 19 May, 109 countries began negotiations in Dublin to finalise a draft treaty to ban cluster munitions. Laos is one of the countries pushing hard for a comprehensive ban of all cluster bombs. Ban Ven village elder Mahasiphan Vongthanamathaphan asked for a message to be conveyed to the international community: "We had a peaceful happy life before the war. Bombs destroyed that. We'd like our lives back … Please stop these UXO. No one should have to live like this."

source: http://www.IRINnews.org

Date: May 29, 2008

Deadly cluster bombs to be banned by other countries, still okay by Bush.

After ten days of negotiations, yesterday, in Dublin, delegates from 111 countries agreed to the terms of a proposed new treaty that calls for all of them to eliminate their stocks of cluster bombs.

No representatives of the government of George W. Bush attended the gathering in Ireland's capital.

The United States did not sign the agreement.

Also absent were representatives of the governments of three other countries that, like the U.S., are major producers and stockpilers of cluster bombs: Israel, China and Russia.

Yesterday's agreement "was reached shortly after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged to scrap Britain's entire stock of cluster bombs." The proposed treaty will be formally adopted by its backers tomorrow, then signed in a ceremony that will take place is Oslo, Norway, at the beginning of December. Thereafter, each of the agreement's signatory countries must ratify it. The effort to organize a worldwide ban and scrapping of cluster bombs was started by Norway in February 2007.

Brown said: "We will now work to encourage the widest possible international support for the new convention." Since the U.S. "holds huge stocks of cluster bombs and did not take part in the negotiations" in Dublin, it "will be earmarked by Britain and the other signatories to reduce its dependence on the weapon systems, which are regarded as posing an unacceptable threat to civilians."

What's not to hate or condemn about cluster bombs, whose primary purpose is to kill people? Reuters reports that cluster weapons "open in mid-air and scatter as many as several hundred 'bomblets' over a wide area. They often fail to explode, creating virtual minefields that can kill or injure anyone who finds them later, [such as,] often[,] curious children." Offering the Bush gang's excuse for not backing the weapons-scrapping agreement, "U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the elimination of cluster bombs from U.S. stockpiles would put the lives of U.S. soldiers and those of their allies at risk." Casey stated: "While the United States shares the humanitarian concerns of those in Dublin, cluster munitions have demonstrated military utility."

Commenting on the Dublin agreement, Steve Goose, the arms director at Human Rights Watch in New York, noted that it represented a success for anti-cluster-bombs activists but also pointed out that "a section in the text about military cooperation with non-signatories was a partial American victory." An HRW statement noted: "The U.S. won some concessions on the issue of interoperability....The draft treaty text contains a loophole." Reuters also reports: "Cluster bombs can be dropped from aircraft or fired in missiles or artillery shells and have been used in...Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, the Balkans and by Israel in southern Lebanon" (in 2006).

In an issue of the Economist published before the results of the Dublin conference were announced, the British newsmagazine reported that anti-cluster-bombs activists "think the treaty will reduce and stigmatize the use of cluster munitions." After all, even countries that did not sign a 1997 treaty banning landmines "have mostly ended up complying with it." Also, "[c]ompanies that produce cluster munitions risk [their] investors' wrath: in March, at the Irish government's request, the National Pension Reserve Fund sold [$36 million worth] of shares in seven arms companies that produce the weapons." However, the Economist noted, "Such pressure works only in some countries. Turkey and Pakistan signed an agreement this February to produce cluster munitions. Textron, an American arms company, says the three countries that have bought its new 'sensor-fused weapons,' and the 17 that may, are unlikely to sign the treaty."

The British newsweekly pointed out that another "snag" on the road to eliminating the world's cluster weapons is the fact "that 76 countries have stockpiles of cluster munitions." Human Rights Watch "reckons the number of bomblets runs into the billions. Signatories will have to destroy these weapons, not store or sell them. That is a hazardous, messy and costly business, requiring scarce skills. Dealing with Britain's 3650 BL-775 cluster munitions may use up to eight years' worth of the [$65 million] annual budget for disarmament. Some states want lengthy transition periods too. Places like Laos, whose territory is still littered with munitions from the hot wars in Indochina, will have difficulty meeting the five-year target for clearing up unexploded ordnance, let alone finding money to pay for it."

Posted by Edward M.Gomez

SFGate.com May 29, 2008

Date: May 30, 2008

It shows you that (the non-participating,non-signing nations), they don't give a damn about another human beings of other nations, besides their own interest.

Date: May 30, 2008

There are many countries still want to use cluster bombs, they are China, India, Pakistan, Russia, USA....etc, so there you are. furious furious furious

paris_vientiane · Guru

shame on those nations... France too had big interests in cluster bomb... we used them and built some.. but finaly, France accepted the agreement. Every nation should do the same

Date: May 30, 2008

Anonymous wrote:

There are many countries still want to use cluster bombs, they are China, India, Pakistan, Russia, USA....etc, so there you are.

So long as the countries still have their own troops, they would want to use the cluster bombs. Unfortunately, there are not only these countries, others signed the agreement would want to use as well.

Date: May 30, 2008

Govt works to ban cluster munitions

The Government of the Lao PDR is calling on every country to support the development of a comprehensive ban on all types of cluster munitions.

Since Monday, May 19, representatives from 109 countries, including Laos , have been meeting in Dublin , Ireland , at the two-week Dublin Conference on Cluster Munitions to negotiate the text of a treaty banning cluster munitions, according to the National Regulatory Authority for UXO/Mine Action in the Lao PDR.

This is the final meeting of a series of five held since February 2007 through a process initiated by the Norwegian Government called the Oslo Process. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Bounkeut Sangsomsak, is leading the Lao delegation at the conference from May 19-30, accompanied by the National Regulatory Authority for UXO/Mine Action in the Lao PDR National Director, Ambassador Dr Maligna Saignavongs.

As representatives of the country worst affected by cluster munitions in the world, they are sharing the experience of the people of Laos with the conference. During the conference Mr Bounkeut said: “We do not want other people to experience the same pain and suffering as the Lao people have endured.”

A cluster munition is a weapon made up of a parent container which opens on deployment and spreads hundreds of sub-munitions or bombies over a wide area. It is estimated that more than 260 million bombies were dropped on Laos during the Indochina conflict from 1964-1973.

Survey figures suggest more than 30 percent of these bombies failed to explode and remained in the ground, contaminating 15 provinces of Laos after the war ended. Today many millions of bombies remain scattered through rice paddies, on roads and under paths, making Laos the most cluster munition affected country in the world.

Although the cluster munition bombies in the Lao PDR were deployed over 40 years ago, the number of civilian casualties continues to mount. A young man, aged 21, is the latest person in Laos to become victim to a bombie. On April 23 in Saravan province he was burning cuttings from land he had been clearing to extend his rice fields. A BLU-26 (the most common type of bombie used in Laos ) was buried in the ground near where he was working. It exploded, spraying deadly fragments over his right hand and chest.

Twenty-two other countries around the world are also affected by cluster munitions, including Afghanistan , Iraq , Vietnam and, the most recently affected country, Lebanon . It is estimated that 97 percent of global cluster munitions victims have been civilians, including a disproportionate number of children killed and injured.

The conference negotiation have been challenging but productive. Mr Bounkeut said the conference was close to reaching its final goal. “But to be truly effective, we need a strong convention which defines cluster munitions in full definition and dimension,” he said.

By Vientiane Times
(Latest Update May 29, 2008)

Zak · Senior Member

Its pathetic how the Chinese government can sway Laos so easily

But yet when Laos asks for something as small as banning cluster bombs, China refuses.

Lan_Xang · Guru

Zak wrote:

Its pathetic how the Chinese government can sway Laos so easily

But yet when Laos asks for something as small as banning cluster bombs, China refuses.

Zak, we know the obvious answer to that. Money talk.

Date: May 31, 2008

Zak wrote:

Its pathetic how the Chinese government can sway Laos so easily

But yet when Laos asks for something as small as banning cluster bombs, China refuses.

It is easy for sane people to understand why China refuses to sign the agreement.

While our world is governed by animal rule, which is called superpower, of course, China and Russia will not sign. As all we know that US wants to dictate all people around the world by its powerful arsenal.

So, that is why it would be stupid for Russia and China to sign the agreement.
You may argue that why British and France can sign? The answer is simple. They are in the same gang with US.

To some extent, I do support China and Russia that refuse to sign the agreement. Otherwise, US government will kill all people around the world who do not listen to it like tiger will eat all small animals.

Zak · Senior Member

Anonymous wrote:

Zak wrote:

Its pathetic how the Chinese government can sway Laos so easily

But yet when Laos asks for something as small as banning cluster bombs, China refuses.

It is easy for sane people to understand why China refuses to sign the agreement.

While our world is governed by animal rule, which is called superpower, of course, China and Russia will not sign. As all we know that US wants to dictate all people around the world by its powerful arsenal.

So, that is why it would be stupid for Russia and China to sign the agreement.
You may argue that why British and France can sign? The answer is simple. They are in the same gang with US.

To some extent, I do support China and Russia that refuse to sign the agreement. Otherwise, US government will kill all people around the world who do not listen to it like tiger will eat all small animals.

Please, your anti-American statements are too amusing.

I'm sure the situation is that neither of the three will back down, fearing that one of the other three will not respect such an agreement.

Date: Jun 1, 2008

Zak wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Zak wrote:

Its pathetic how the Chinese government can sway Laos so easily

But yet when Laos asks for something as small as banning cluster bombs, China refuses.

It is easy for sane people to understand why China refuses to sign the agreement.

While our world is governed by animal rule, which is called superpower, of course, China and Russia will not sign. As all we know that US wants to dictate all people around the world by its powerful arsenal.

So, that is why it would be stupid for Russia and China to sign the agreement.
You may argue that why British and France can sign? The answer is simple. They are in the same gang with US.

To some extent, I do support China and Russia that refuse to sign the agreement. Otherwise, US government will kill all people around the world who do not listen to it like tiger will eat all small animals.

Please, your anti-American statements are too amusing.

I don't think that the statements are the anti-American, but I think, are the naked truth about US.

Zak · Senior Member

Like any country, the best interest is the country's interest.

When you're a global player like America, a country with a GDP of 13 trillion, even with the onset of a "bad economy", the interest of America stretches further than 50 states.

But do I support American Imperialism? No, I'm very much against it. I'm very much against America going into other countries for no god damn reason.

Instead of going into Iraq, Somalia, all the other countries in the past decades, and making the world think we're some sort of World Police, let's just leave everyone else alone. Rather, spend some ****in time with Diplomacy, George.

Essentially this is how I see it. Europe stuck their big white noses into Asia and Africa, colonizing lands they had no rights to be in. The 1900s came and those people wanted to rebel. After WWII, Europe was a **** hole, and those countries were very much rebelling. Europe had to rebuild themselves and couldn't keep control on their colonies and so who felt like picking up on all that mess? America.

I would very much like America to ban cluster bombs, and all those other nations.

Date: Jun 1, 2008

Alternative needed to cluster bombs?
Reducing the world's stockpiles of weapons is desirable from a humanitarian point of view, but becomes troubling if it compromises the nation's security.

A draft treaty banning cluster bombs was adopted at an international conference in Dublin attended by the representatives of more than 100 nations.

Cluster munitions contain large numbers of bomblets that are scattered midair before detonating over a wide area of ground. They are a cost-effective way of attacking enemy forces, but pose a lingering risk to civilians, many of whom have been killed or maimed by unexploded bomblets left scattered around. In recent years, international public opinion has increasingly turned against cluster bombs, with calls for a ban rapidly gathering momentum.

Civilian cluster-bomb fatalities have occurred in faraway nations such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Laos, and Lebanon, but Japan cannot be indifferent to the issue as it has a stockpile of such munitions.

The draft treaty effectively calls for a total ban on cluster bombs--with the exception of some state-of-the-art cluster munitions that have nine or fewer bomblets, all equipped with self-destruct mechanisms and target sensors.

Compromise nixed :

Japan unsuccessfully asserted at the conference that the portion of its cluster bombs that are equipped with self-destruct devices be exempted from the ban and that a grace period be set, allowing scrapping of the weapons to be postponed while a replacement is sought.

Other countries, such as China, Russia, South and North Korea and the United States, did not attend the convention, meaning they remain exempt from any regulations regarding cluster bombs.

Japan's proposed compromise had a sound logic that might have won over such nations, but still fell short of winning the understanding of other participating countries.

The draft treaty, meanwhile, contains a clause that allows signatories to engage in joint operations with nonsignatory nations.

The clause--whose inclusion was pushed by Japan, Britain, France, Germany and some other nations--would leave room for military cooperation with the United States.

The conclusion of the draft treaty was promoted by an overwhelming majority of the participating nations. Although Tokyo had some reservations about its contents, Japan decided to endorse the draft treaty from a humanitarian and disarmament promotion point of view. We believe that was an appropriate decision.

December signing eyed :

Japan plans to sign the draft treaty in December. As a signatory, Japan would be obliged to abandon four kinds of cluster bombs in the Self-Defense Forces' arsenal worth 27.6 billion yen within eight years after the treaty took effect.

It is estimated that scrapping the weapons and procuring replacements would cost the nation tens of billions of yen.

That is by no means a trivial sum at a time when growth in defense budgets has been capped. The government must start studying possible ways of handling this situation without delay, with such studies to include effective ways of disposing of the weapons.

The issue at stake is how to find an alternative weapon.

The latest cluster bombs use target sensors and will be exempted from the treaty. Such weapons are useful for precision attacks on fixed positions, but no use in denying an enemy use of an area by spreading bomblets all over it.

Of particular concern to Japan, this type of cluster bomb is regarded as ineffective in preventing enemy troops from conducting beach landings--a prime concern for an island nation.

It will not be easy to find a perfect alternative. Japan may have to review its military tactics, including its defense cooperation with U.S. military forces.

From: The Yomiuri Shimbun, June 1st,2008

Date: Jun 1, 2008

Bombs In Bad Company

THE BUSH administration's refusal to join a landmark international treaty banning the production, stockpiling, transfer, and use of cluster bombs is inexcusable. This is not a time when military necessity overrides humanitarian imperatives.The cluster munitions that 110 nations agreed to foreswear in Dublin on Wednesday inflict horrific suffering on civilians and have little military utility in today's conflicts. Hundreds or thousands of bomblets are released when containers of cluster munitions burst open in the air. And all too many of those remain unexploded in field, farm, and village - until they are set off by a plowing peasant or a playing child.Cluster bombs were originally used in World War II, and most of the arsenals existing today were meant for a Cold War battlefield, to kill and maim soldiers in tank and infantry formations over an extended area. The overwhelming international consensus expressed in the Dublin agreement is a recognition that the indiscriminate, unreliable weapons go on killing innocent civilians long after the military combat in which they were used has ended.The most recent examples are Israel's scattering of cluster munitions over parts of southern Lebanon during the 2006 war against Hezbollah, and the NATO war to drive Serb forces out of Kosovo in 1999. Civilians living today in those areas are still being crippled and killed by remnant bomblets, as are villagers in Laos who remain vulnerable to unexploded cluster munitions dating back 40 years.The Pentagon does not like being told what weapons it can keep, and President Bush does not like being bound by international treaties. But the new cluster bomb treaty can, and should, embarrass all the treaty's major holdouts - China, Russia, Israel, India, and Pakistan as well as the United States - to stop making, using, and peddling these inhumane weapons.Source: The Boston GloveJune 1st, 2008

Date: Jun 1, 2008

Families in Fallujah are calling for an investigation into the rise of birth defects after the US used phosphorus over the Iraqi city in 2004.

They have raised concerns about the weapons used by American forces in 2004, including constant bombardment with uranium depleted artillery shells and other depleted uranium ammunition- when Fallujah suffered the heaviest blitze following the overthrow of the Saddam regime of the entire war in Iraq.

Hikmat Tawfeeq, deputy chairman of the Fallujah-based human rights group Al-akhiyar said: "We have around 200 cases of deformities recorded by our society. Most of these cases are birth deformities which have arisen after the bombing of Fallujah."

Campaigners say officials are reluctant to speak out publicly because of US pressure but at Fallujah's children's hospital one doctor told Sky News in the past month she has seen one or two cases of birth deformities every day.

An opthalmologist said he deals with four or five cases of newborn babies every week suffering from some form of eye deformity.

At one of the cemeteries in Fallujah, undertaker Mahmoud Hummadi said he usually buries four to five bodies of newborns every day and most of them are deformed.

Fallujah today still bears the scars of a time when it represented the backbone of the Sunni insurgency - a power-base America decided it had to break.

April and November 2004 saw some of the heaviest bombardments of the war in Iraq, including the controversial use of white phosphorous.

It is a highly flammable material which ignites when it comes into contact with oxygen, causing severe burns.

In a statement to Sky News the US military said it had used white phosphorus in Fallujah but primarily as a smokescreen and not as an incendiary weapon.

The families say doctors have raised concerns to them about what kinds of materials were used by the Americans in order to achieve their military goals.

Fatima Ahmed is three years old. Small and lifeless she barely moves, burdened by two heads on her tiny frame.

Her mother Shukriya says doctors have been unable to diagnose exactly what has caused Fatima's condition.

But her father Jassim, when asked who he held responsible for his daughter's condition, said: "It's because of the war - it's the flagrant aggression they launched against us. What they dropped in Fallujah God knows."