Nobel Women's Initiative

(15 November 2006) In Geneva this week the Cluster Munition Coalition's campaign for a new international treaty addressing cluster munitions is picking up steam. The International Herald Tribune reports two dozen countries have joined in a move to negotiate a treaty to curb the use of cluster bombs, which are blamed for killing and injuring innocent civilians long after the end of the wars in which they were used.

The Third Review Conference of the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) is underway in Geneva. The Nobel Women's Initiative calls on the governments there to show responsible leadership and a genuine concern about the protection of civilians in armed conflict and negotiate a ban on unreliable and inaccurate cluster munitions.

*Update*
Norwegian initiative  for a new treaty to ban clusters, 17 November 2006

The below op-ed by Betty Williams, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi and Wangari Maathai appeared in the Ottawa Citizen on November 15, 2006.

Ban the Bomblets

As recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, we have been shocked by the extensive use of cluster munitions during the 33-day conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in July and August.

The unnecessary civilian deaths and injuries from cluster bombs and their lasting impact on attempts to rebuild shattered lives and communities will continue long after the conflict has faded from the front pages of our newspapers. We have watched this predictable and preventable situation unfold with deep dismay.

The appalling violence on both sides of the conflict and deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure in both Lebanon and Israel almost defies our imagination. While other weapons were also used indiscriminately during this war, cluster munitions are of particular concern because of the deadly legacy they leave in their wakes -- a legacy like that of antipersonnel landmines.

Submunitions released from the cluster munitions that fail to explode on impact, "duds," are little different from antipersonnel landmines -- except all too often they are much more lethal.

According to the United Nations, Israel used cluster munitions, which released up to four million submunitions over southern Lebanon; the overwhelming majority of those were used in the last 72 hours of fighting before the ceasefire took effect. Three civilians are still being killed or injured every day by these lethal bomblets. Beyond the deaths and injuries of men, women and children, the contamination by an estimated one million submunitions that failed to explode on impact means people's lives will not return to normal in southern Lebanon for years.

Israel also reports casualties as a result of Hezbollah's use of more than 100 Chinese-manufactured clusters.

This most recent use of these horrific weapons weighs heavily on our minds, but it is not the first such use -- cluster munitions have now been used in 22 countries by 13 governments and several non-state armed actors. The United States used them decades ago in its war in Vietnam and has used them much more recently in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. The Soviet Union used them in Afghanistan, and Russia in Chechnya.

With more than 70 countries stockpiling billions of these weapons, we are deeply concerned that cluster munitions will increasingly be used in conflicts and that this latest war in the Middle East could mark the beginning of a frightening proliferation to non-state actors.

How can the world stand by mutely and watch the use of clusters become commonplace as happened in the 1970s and '80s when landmine use proliferated in conflicts around the world? It took tens of thousands of civilian deaths and injuries and the contamination of massive tracts of land before the international community finally banned antipersonnel landmines in 1997.

Governments must not make the same mistake with cluster munitions.

Do we passively watch the suffering from cluster munitions in Lebanon today -- just another human tragedy that we can do nothing about? Or do we create the political will necessary for our governments to change their policies on this humanitarian issue?

As ordinary women who have made a difference to peace through dedicated action, we know such changes can happen and do happen. In fact, a group of individuals and organizations came together in 2003 to form the Cluster Munition Coalition and work to stop yet another humanitarian disaster in the world -- this time from cluster munitions. And their work is bearing fruit: So far Belgium has banned the weapon, Norway has recently made its temporary moratorium on the use of clusters permanent until an international treaty is negotiated, and a growing number of other countries and political leaders are calling for negotiations to address the humanitarian concerns caused by cluster munitions.

As governments meet in Geneva for the Third Review Conference of the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), they have a chance to start work on a new international treaty addressing cluster munitions.

As activists for peace, we call upon the governments there to seize the opportunity and not let it slip through their fingers, as they did at an earlier review conference in 1996 where they proved incapable of banning landmines through the CCW. Then, just as now, the commitment from civil society was clear.

Now, it is up to governments with a genuine concern about the protection of civilians in armed conflict to show responsible leadership and negotiate a ban on unreliable and inaccurate cluster munitions.

For more information see the Cluster Munition Coaltion website: www.stopclustermunitions.org

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