Billions of Deadly Cluster Bomblets Remain

Cluster Bombs
Pepe Escobar, The Real News Network

Cluster bombs are literally hell from above. Anyone who has seen the effects of cluster carpet bombing on innocent civilians - in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and in the 60s and 70s in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam - cannot help to be horrified. A cluster bomb is a canister that opens in mid-air and eject hundreds of "bomblets" across an area of more or less two football fields. These bomblets are little metal balls - as powerful as a hand grenade. When these bomblets explode, there’s a rain of jagged shrapnel. When they explode on the ground with a time delay they kill or maim anyone on a radius of 10 to 15 meters. But as many as 1 in 4 of these bomblets never explode. The place where they fall becomes a minefield. And the victims, afterwards, stepping over them, are in most cases, children. Diplomats from 111 nations, meeting in Dublin, have just agreed on a landmark treaty banning cluster bombs. Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, urged everyone to sign the treaty, I quote, “without delay”. It goes into effect by mid-2009. Who did not agree – and who won’t sign? The biggest producers – and users – of cluster bombs. Israel, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and the number one producer and user, the United States. The US did not even attend the meeting in Dublin.