I am most grateful to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs for giving me this opportunity to raise the issue of cluster munitions. For the past 40 years these weapons systems have been devastating the lives and livelihoods of thousands of people in many parts of the world. Our public conscience and spirit of humanity dictate that it is time the international community prohibited the production, stockpiling, transfer and use of these weapons once and for all.
On a number of occasions during the campaign to ban landmines, I had the opportunity to raise the issue of landmines and blinding laser weapons with this committee. Its support for that work was most crucial. The Irish Government played an important role on the landmines issue. Protocol II to the convention of conventional weapons dealing landmines was strengthened in 1996. A legally binding instrument on blinding laser weapons came into being, and in 1997 a new treaty, commonly known as the Ottawa treaty, emerged prohibiting the production, stockpiling, transfer and use of anti-personnel landmines. I wish to thank the committee for its interest and contribution towards securing these goals.
In April 2003, a conference on the explosive remnants of war organised by Pax Christi Ireland and hosted by the Government at Dublin Castle, drew government and civil society representatives from 39 countries and made an important contribution towards securing a protocol on the explosive remnants of war in November 2003. At that conference, interest converged to address the issue of cluster munitions comprehensively and a new international initiative emerged. On behalf of the innocent and silently suffering people whose lives are being devastated, I urge this committee to spare no effort on securing a comprehensive ban on cluster munitions on the grounds that they violate international humanitarian law and have consistently proven indiscriminate. The Ottawa treaty and the protocols to the CCW are now part of international humanitarian law. A legally binding instrument is urgently required on cluster munitions.
Cluster munitions are weapons in a container containing between dozens and hundreds of submunitions that can be dropped from the air or fired by artillery or rockets. The container breaks open to deliver the submunitions over a wide area covering one to three football fields. They explode just before, on or after impact. I have circulated to members a picture of a BL-755 cluster bomb used in Afghanistan. On detonation, these bombs, which are designed to disable tanks and kill people, blast a jet of molten copper, a ball of fire and 2,000 steel fragments. Some 147 of these items disperse when the container opens in mid-air, covering an extensive area. Delivery altitude, weather conditions and types of terrain affect their functioning, in addition to other aspects related to design, storage and handling. Their intensive use as a means to compensate for failure rates results in high concentrations of unstable and dangerous bomblets that are primed to go off when disturbed.
The story of Adnan, who is from Kosovo, will give us a picture of what happens on a daily basis in countries and regions contaminated by cluster munitions. On 17 August 1999, three months after the NATO strikes, Adnan and his family went for a swim in a lake a few kilometres from his village. Adnan, who was nearly seven years of age at the time, happened to find a yellow can on the bank. He brought the can home, innocent of the fact that it was an unexploded BLU-97 cluster bomb. Adnan's 17 year old brother, Gazmend, dropped the can, causing it to explode and kill Gazmend and his father on the spot and injuring Adnan's left arm and leg. When his sister, Sanije, went to the site to retrieve possessions that the family had left behind in the midst of the confusion, she stepped on a cluster bomb and was instantly killed. Adnan now lives with his older sister and mother on his late father's €62 monthly pension. Similar tragic events are caused in many parts of the world by landmines, cluster bombs and other unexploded ordnance.
I wish to briefly discuss the Indochina war. Versions of BLU cluster munitions were extensively used in aerial bombardments by the US which left a deadly legacy of post-strike contamination in Cambodia, Vietnam and the Lao PDR. In Cambodia, bombings took place between 1969 and 1973 which resulted in 1.92 million to 5.77 million cases of submunition contamination based on a 10% to 30% failure rate of cluster munitions, although it is generally agreed that the approximate failure rate was in the region of 30%. Similarly, Vietnam accounts for between 7 million and 31.2 million cases of contamination from bombing strikes between 1965 and 1973, while the Lao PDR suffered between 20.9 million and 62.6 million cases between 1964 and 1973.
In the recent conflict in Lebanon it is estimated by the UN that the submunition contamination of southern Lebanon could be as high as 1 million. Some 90% of cluster munitions were fired in the last 72 hours before the ceasefire. In a month, the UN identified 519 cluster munition strike locations and the Lebanese armed forces also identified hundreds more strike areas. Lebanon was already contaminated by mines, cluster bombs and other unexploded ordnance from various incursions. It will take very many years for Lebanon to free its land from contamination that will continue to claim victims for years to come, undermining the post-conflict rehabilitation and economic recovery of the affected areas.
The Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and emergency relief co-ordinator, Jan Egeland, has described the use of cluster munitions in Lebanon as shocking and immoral. Cluster munitions not only destroy lives but paralyse the affected community, destroying its infrastructure and livelihood. In affected parts of Lebanon summer crops, for example tobacco, wheat and fruit, could not be harvested and the same applied to olives in November. Winter grains and vegetables cannot be planted because the land cannot be ploughed until it is cleared. In many areas roads, schools, houses and gardens are all contaminated by cluster munitions.
The basic tenet of international humanitarian law is that the right of combatants to choose their means and methods of warfare is not unlimited. Over forty years of the use of cluster munitions, resulting in civilian deaths, and their impact on lives and livelihood during the conflict and post the conflict overstate the case for a total ban on cluster munitions as we know them. A recent study shows that 98% of victims of cluster munitions are civilians. The Belgian ban on cluster munitions came into force on 9 June 2006 and initiatives in various countries are under way to address the issue.
At the recent review conference of the convention on certain conventional weapons, CCW, a group of 25 countries, including Ireland, called for the prohibition of the use of cluster munitions within areas of civilian concentration and the prohibition of the development, production, stockpiling, transfer and use of cluster munitions that pose serious humanitarian hazards because they are, for example, unreliable, inaccurate or both. The group also called for the destruction of stockpiles of cluster munitions that pose a serious humanitarian hazard.
Securing an effective instrument on cluster munitions within the framework of the CCW is seriously questioned. In a climate where there is a lack of serious political will to address the issue on the part of some countries, securing an effective instrument will be very difficult considering the CCW works on the basis of consensus. Just a small number of countries can prevent any final outcome after years of deliberations as occurred regarding mines other than anti-personnel mines, MOTAPM. Initiatives have been taken to explore the possibility of developing a legally binding instrument outside the CCW framework. Our failure to address the issue comprehensively would increase the proliferation and use of these weapons, exacerbating an already dire situation and this would have a detrimental impact on development in many parts of the world.
I urge the Irish Government to play a leading role in the following: securing a total prohibition on the production, stockpiling, transfer and use of cluster munitions through active participation in international initiatives to address the issue comprehensively and effectively; to enact a national law prohibiting the production, stockpiling, transfer and use of cluster munitions as we know them; to support research, publication and awareness raising initiatives on this subject nationally and internationally; to increase support for the clearance of contaminated land by landmines, cluster munitions and other unexploded ordnance; to increase support for risk education for the prevention of death and injury of vulnerable populations living in contaminated parts of the world; and to increase support for rehabilitation and social and economic integration of those injured by landmines, cluster munitions and other explosive ordnance.