Canada & Cluster Bomb Munitions

In my daily random perusings on the net, I found this on the Physicians for Global Survival Website. Cheers!

Oslo talks bring cluster-bomb ban within reach: Canada agrees to wording of text that will form treaty

Peter O'Neil
Canwest News Service
Thursday, May 29, 2008

PARIS - Crippled civilian victims of cluster bombs helped convince Canada and more than 100 other nations to move a step closer yesterday to a treaty that would ban the production and use of the weapon, according to a lobbyist participating in the negotiations.
The participating countries agreed to the wording of a text yesterday and all will be asked to endorse the wording during the final day of negotiations in Dublin tomorrow, according to officials involved in the talks.

However, countries won't be locked into the treaty until they attend a signing ceremony in Oslo in December.

Cluster bombs explode in mid-air, spreading smaller "bomblets" across an area as large as several football fields. Some might not explode until picked up months or years later by curious civilians.

While lobby groups declared victory, the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper wouldn't say whether Canada was firmly committed to the ban.

"Canada is supportive of all efforts to prohibit those cluster munitions that are known to be inaccurate, unreliable and that cause unacceptable harm to civilians," spokesman Andrew Lemay said in a cautiously worded statement sent by e-mail. "We are participating in the Oslo Process," the statement said.

Earlier this week, Afghan cluster-bomb victim Soraj Ghulam Habib, 16, presented the Canadian Embassy in Dublin with a letter saying that a bomblet blew off his legs and killed his relatives.
"When the delegates looked the survivors in the eye, it was very hard for them to say, 'I need this weapon,' when you're talking to someone who has lost two, or all four, limbs or who is blinded," said Paul Hannon, Executive Director of Mines Action Canada and one of the many non-government lobby groups at the Dublin negotiations.

"It's very powerful for them. They understand it's not just a statistic. These are all innocent civilians."

Mr. Hannon said he'd be shocked if Canada didn't endorse the treaty since this country obtained the wording it was seeking that would ensure the agreement wouldn't prevent Canadian soldiers from working with the American military.

The U.S. government, which has refused to take part in the negotiations, has been accused of pushing allies such as Canada, Britain, France, Germany and Australia to oppose or try to water down the treaty.

China, India, Russia, Israel and Pakistan, which produce and stockpile the weapons, have, like the U.S., refused to participate in the talks.

Pope Benedict XVI and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have supported the ban.
"I'm a little bit breathless," Mr. Hannon said. "This exceeds expectations."
Cluster bombs haven't been used since they were fired by the Israeli army in Lebanon in 2006, he said. They haven't been used in Afghanistan since 2001 or in Iraq since 2003.
Mr. Hannon said the ban, if it goes ahead, will ultimately make the weapons politically prohibitive for non-signatories.

"This treaty will now stigmatize the weapon," he said. "Any country that wants to use this knows it's politically very difficult. The world knows it's inaccurate, it's unreliable, and we (will) have a legal treaty saying it's unacceptable."

Mr. Hannon said Canada, which played a lead part in the Nobel Prize-winning initiative to strike a land-mine-ban treaty in 1997, has played an effective diplomatic role in the Dublin talks.

(c) The Ottawa Citizen 2008