Small bombs, big trouble
Katleen Maes
There
are renewed hopes of an international treaty on cluster munitions - although
the only way forward is to ban them.
June 2007
Thundering noise, then
deafening silence - this is the normal reaction of audiences every time I show a
cluster munitions strike. The clip in question leaves the tank unscathed and
the fields around it in flames. It is not entirely representative, not because
the vehicle survives, but because it does not portray a built-up area, nor the
deadly souvenirs left behind and the human pain they inflict.
Cluster munitions have
been used every year since 1965, most recently in Israel, Iraq and Lebanon.
They release up to several hundred small bombs, so-called submunitions, leaving
a fatal footprint hundreds of metres wide. Within this circle of menace,
cluster submunitions indiscriminately kill and injure. A large percentage of
submunitions (up to 30%, say manufacturers) do not explode upon impact and lie
in houses, schools, fields or orchards - places where people need to go every
day.
In Lebanon, I have
pussy-footed around unexploded cluster submunitions in girls' bedrooms in
Yohmour. I have walked witnessed local officials in Kfar Sir urging a woman to
hurry out of the tobacco field full of cluster submunitions, dangerously
retracing her footsteps among the lovely yellow tobacco flowers which make the
battery-size weapons invisible.
What do you say to a
boy who lost both legs while collecting scrap metal in Herat, Afghanistan? What
do you tell the parents of the boy in Laos who injured while helping his father
in the rice paddy - they cannot even afford transport to the nearest hospital,
let alone the actual treatment?
These are not isolated
cases, but have been daily tragedies in 25 countries for the past three decades.
This is why Handicap International Belgium decided to undertake a global report of the one issue rarely addressed: the
human impact of cluster munitions.
Although cluster bombs
are supposed to hit military targets, research revealed that 98% of casualties
are civilians - the overwhelming majority struck while making a living or
playing. When confronted with this result, a US military representative
responded simply: "Why are you surprised?"
Exactly, why should we
be surprised? Most cluster munitions have been dropped in or near civilian areas
- 440 million submunitions in just nine countries - and governments have
