File spoon-archives/nietzsche.archive/nietzsche_2002/nietzsche.0207, message 26


Date: Wed, 03 Jul 2002 17:01:05 -0500
From: "Kevin Sanchez" <heliogabalus-AT-eudoramail.com>
Subject: more on cluster bombs


Bloomberg News / October 25, 2001

HEADLINE: PRINCESS DIANA MEMORIAL FUND CALLS FOR END TO CLUSTER BOMBING

BYLINE: Peter McGill in London, or at pmcgill1-AT-bloomberg.net

The memorial fund for the late Diana, Princess of Wales, called on the U.S. to stop dropping cluster bombs on Afghanistan.

"Components of these weapons are prone to missing their targets and fail in significant numbers to explode," Andrew Purkis, the chief executive of the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, wrote in a letter to the Times of London.

"They then pose a serious long-term threat to civilians and ground forces alike," said the letter, which was also signed by Richard Lloyd, who heads the U.K.-based Landmine Action.

The United Nations reported yesterday that U.S. cluster bombs hit a village near the western Afghan city of Herat, and that about a tenth of the ordnance remained on the ground without exploding.

Villagers told the UN-supported Mine Action Center in Herat that "many bombs were littering their village and they were afraid and could not be leave their houses," UN spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker told journalists in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital.

"Villagers do have a lot to be afraid of, as these bomblets, if they do not explode on impact, are very dangerous and can explode on touch," said Dan Kelly, the director of the UN's Mine Action Program for Afghanistan.

Each cluster bomb contains as many as 200 bomblets, which on detonation spray out shrapnel and set fire to any combustible material nearby. Kelly said the shrapnel travels "at the speed of a bullet" and can puncture 125 millimeters of armored steel.

The Mine Action Center in Herat is working to clear paths for the villagers while sandbagging the bomblets, Kelly said. "Our de- miners are not familiar with and have not been trained to destroy these devices," he said.

The letter to the Times said: "The U.K. should seek assurances from other members of the military alliance that they will not only cease using cluster munitions, but also take responsibility afterwards for the complete clearance of all unexploded bomblets."

Princess Diana helped to raise international awareness of the dangers from landmines through visits to Bosnia and Angola in the months before she was killed in a Paris car crash in 1997.

The use, production, stockpiling and transfer of anti- personnel mines was banned by the Ottawa Treaty of 1998. The U.S. is among states that still refuse to ratify the treaty.

A recent report by the Diana memorial fund said 35,000 unexploded bomblets were left on the ground in Serbia's province of Kosovo after air strikes by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1999. More than two years later, they are still killing one civilian a week, according to the report.


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