Rights group seeks ban on cluster munitions

MIDDLE EAST: The death and devastation wreaked by four million cluster bomblets fired by Israel into southern Lebanon in 2006 should compel the international community to ban this weapon, Human Rights Watch said yesterday.

The organisation argued in a report that Israel had violated international humanitarian law by inflicting "indiscriminate and disproportionate cluster munitions attacks on Lebanon".

The 122-page document, Flooding South Lebanon: Israel's Use of Cluster Munitions in July and August 2006, was issued ahead of a 120-nation conference today in Wellington, New Zealand. Its purpose is to adopt a treaty prohibiting the manufacture, stockpiling, transfer and use of cluster munitions. Human Rights Watch said the "dangerous and volatile submunitions" scattered by cluster shells and bombs "cannot distinguish between combatants and non-combatants" and should never be used "in or near populated areas" because "civilian casualties are virtually guaranteed".

The report added: "They threaten civilians after conflict because they leave large numbers of submunitions that have failed to explode on impact." Fourteen countries and non-state groups have used cluster munitions in 30 countries and territories.

The report focused on the 2006 conflict between Israel and Hizbullah because of the intensive use by Israel of cluster munitions, particularly during the last 72 hours of hostilities when a ceasefire was imminent. This was also the greatest use of such munitions since the 1991 US-led war on Iraq. Human Rights Watch re- searchers in south Lebanon found that in "dozens of towns and villages, Israel used cluster munitions containing submunitions with high failure rates. These left behind homes, gardens, fields, and public spaces - including a hospital - littered with hundreds of thousands and possibly a million unexploded submunitions" which could "endanger civilians for months or years to come". Nearly 200 people have been killed or maimed since the war ended, adding to 1,100 Lebanese civilian fatalities during the conflict.

Human Rights Watch called on the UN secretary general to establish an international commission of inquiry to "investigate possible war crimes" by both Israel and Hizbullah, and said Israel's use of cluster munitions should be part of its mandate.

The main producers and stockpilers of cluster munitions - the US, Russia, China and Israel - have opposed a ban.

© 2008 The Irish Times

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