US sabotaging cluster-bomb treaty
Source: AFP, 11-04-2008
BRUSSELS: A leading group working on behalf of disabled people has accused the United States of pressuring European and African countries not to join a new treaty next month banning cluster bombs. "Five weeks before the conclusion of the historic Cluster Munition Treaty, Handicap International urges states to resist the growing pressure from the US and other arms-producing countries," the group said in a statement on Wednesday.
Cluster bombs are notorious for killing and maiming civilians. They contain smaller bomblets, which scatter over a wide area and can explode decades after a conflict has ended.
The treaty banning the weapons is expected to be published in Dublin during an event involving almost 100 countries from May 19 to 30.
"We got evidence from a number of states they have been lobbied, sometimes very aggressively, by the US," said Stan Brabant, head of the non-governmental organization's Belgian section. He said African states had been threatened with losing aid from the United States if they signed up. He also accused Britain and the Netherlands of trying to weaken treaty provisions on helping the victims of such weapons.
No official records exist of how many people have been maimed or killed by the weapons, but Handicap International estimates that about 98 percent of victims were civilians, usually children.
The weapons have killed and wounded about 300 people in Lebanon alone since the summer 2006 war with 'Israel', when the Jewish (Zionist) state peppered the South with some 4 million of the weapons, most of them in the final 72 hours of the war when a cessation of hostilities was about to go into effect.
BRUSSELS: A leading group working on behalf of disabled people has accused the United States of pressuring European and African countries not to join a new treaty next month banning cluster bombs. "Five weeks before the conclusion of the historic Cluster Munition Treaty, Handicap International urges states to resist the growing pressure from the US and other arms-producing countries," the group said in a statement on Wednesday.
Cluster bombs are notorious for killing and maiming civilians. They contain smaller bomblets, which scatter over a wide area and can explode decades after a conflict has ended.
The treaty banning the weapons is expected to be published in Dublin during an event involving almost 100 countries from May 19 to 30.
"We got evidence from a number of states they have been lobbied, sometimes very aggressively, by the US," said Stan Brabant, head of the non-governmental organization's Belgian section. He said African states had been threatened with losing aid from the United States if they signed up. He also accused Britain and the Netherlands of trying to weaken treaty provisions on helping the victims of such weapons.
No official records exist of how many people have been maimed or killed by the weapons, but Handicap International estimates that about 98 percent of victims were civilians, usually children.
The weapons have killed and wounded about 300 people in Lebanon alone since the summer 2006 war with 'Israel', when the Jewish (Zionist) state peppered the South with some 4 million of the weapons, most of them in the final 72 hours of the war when a cessation of hostilities was about to go into effect.
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