Von: mlad An: target ; Zeleni Italije ; zana ; Yajna Tamrakar ; Working Group on sustainable technologies ; Wolfgang Liebert ; Wl odzimierz Wojcik ; WFM USA ; Vladimir Yakimetz ; Vlada Ilic ; UNOY ; Thomas Deichmann ; The Earth Charter Commission ; Stokholm Conference (p rof. dr. Armin Tenener) ; Sergey I. Baranovsky ; Rutgers Center for Global Change & Governance ; Rutgers Center for Global Change & Governance ; Rodrigo Monteluisa Vivas ; Robert Hayden ; Reiner

Datum: Freitag, 2. April 1999 17:13
Betreff: Cluster Bombs

PLEASE PROTEST AGAINST NATO’s USE OF CLUSTER BOMBS AGAINST THE YUGOSLAVIA!!!

"Ton Kemla is only 15, but his fate is settled: He will never have children of his own. While tilling the family rice paddy behind a water buffalo [in May 1996], his plow hit a long-hidden cluster bomblet that exploded and ripped apart his genitals." - Account of Laotian cluster bomblet accident in 1996; Catherine Toups, "Vietnam War still takes toll on Laos; Unexploded bombs often maim, kill," Washington Times, June 28, 1996, p. A19.

"It looked like the ball boys and girls toss to each other during Hmong New year festivities. [Six-year-old] Sia Ya threw it to her [4-year-old] brother. He couldn't catch it and it landed behind him, exploding and killing him instantly. Sia Ya died after two agonizing days and nights in the provincial hospital." - Account of Laotian cluster bomblet accident in 1993;

"Laos: War Legacy," Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), 1994. (Available from MCC, 21 South 12th St., P.O. Box 500, Akron, PA 17501-0500 or MCC Canada, 134 Plaza Drive, Winnipeg, MB R3T 5K9.)
"19 March 1991. The first civilian cluster bomb victim died today. It was a child. These insidious bombs were sprinkled all over the desert. Despite numerous warnings to the contrary, people could not leave them alone. They seemed to be drawn to them, almost mystically. "The devastation they caused on explosion was unbelievable. Shrapnel flew everywhere. Limbs were severed by the force of detonation. Massive abdominal bleeding and pulmonary pressure wounds occurred." - MASH unit account of Gulf War cluster bomb victims; Brian Ginn, "807th MASH Operation Desert Shield and Operation D esert Storm `Restore to Serve,'" 1995, from http://www.igbu.com/law/mash.htm

"Toy-size bombs designed to kill tanks and soldiers appear as white lawn darts, green baseballs, orange-striped soda cans -- and have proved deadly to children. . . `When you see a 5-year-old boy come to the hospital without any limbs,' asked Kuwait City surgeon Dr. Mohammad Khaled, `how can you forget the sight?'" - "Ft. Worth Star Telegram", January 12, 1992; James Vincent Brady, "Kuwaitis dying from old menace: unexploded bombs," Ft. Worth Star Telegram, January 12, 1992

"Saturation of unexploded submunitions has become a characteristic of the modern battlefield." - U.S. Military Procedures Report; "UXO: Multiservice Procedures for Operations in an Unexploded Ordnance Environment," Air Land Sea Application Center, July 1996, ch. 1 p. 1.

The growing movement to ban anti-personnel landmines is a tribute to the courage and persistence of the hundreds of thousands around our world who suffer daily from the tragedy of landmines. While the world pauses to celebrate, then implement the provisions of the Ottawa Treaty, we join in urging all nations to fully support this remarkable effort.

Cluster weapons, like landmines, continue to kill long after a conflict is over, because many fail to function as designed. Civilian adults and children are among the primary victims. Cluster weapons inhibit agricultural production, impede the return of refugees and displaced persons to their hom es, sap families' economic prospects by transforming breadwinners into disabled dependents, and overburden already deficient public health networks.

Military experts recognize that unexploded cluster bombs transform themselves into landmines. A South African army officer at the Certain Conventional Weapons conference in Vienna in October 1995 completed the sentence of a nongovernmental representative in revealing fashion. The NGO representative was speaking about unexploded "bombies" in Laos. "When they don't explode on contact," began the NGO representative, ". . . they become mines," finished the officer.