Landmine Action
Anti-personnel mines terrorise, kill and maim thousands of people every year. Landmine Action is working to eliminate landmines, and help both the individuals and communities affected by them.
Liz Archer
Cluster Munitions Petition
Representatives from Landmine Action, Handicap International and No More Landmines met with Foreign Secretary David Miliband to hand over more than 30,000 signatures that have been collected in the UK, calling for a ban on the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of cluster bombs. Joining these organisations were Lord Elton, Lord Hannay and Lord Ramsbotham.
The Foreign Secretary spoke with the group for nearly fifteen minutes and said the UK government is committed to the Oslo Process and the CCW (UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons).
All three Peers urged the Foreign Secretary that the UK should attend the Dublin Diplomatic Conference in May [to be attended by 100 countries, although the biggest military powers, including the US, Russia, China, Pakistan and India, are not taking part] and support the negotiation of the strongest possible treaty and not try to weaken it by calling for exemptions to the definition for the types of cluster munitions that the UK stockpiles.
Simon Conway, from Landmine Action [who spoke at the Soroptimist International Convention in Glasgow last July] developed this point, particularly focusing on the M73 bomb. [Britain wants the term 'cluster bomb' to be defined as a device with ten or more 'bomblets', which would allow it to continue using the M73 bomb, which has only nine. Britain also argues for exemption of the M85 because of its 'self-deactivation device”. Such 'smart cluster bombs' are claimed to have a failure rate of 1%, but when used by Israel in Lebanon in 2006, up to 10% failed to explode or deactivate.] Simon Conway said that if the UK fought for exclusions to the definition based on them being able to keep the M73 it would create huge loopholes in the treaty that would allow other countries to continue to produce and use this type of weapon (which will continue to allow large numbers of submunitions to be deployed over an area). He made the point that the UK has never used this weapon in combat and does not contain vast quantities of them in stockpile.
Overall, everybody involved felt the meeting was quite positive even though no guarantees were given.
During the General Meeting of Soroptimist International of Great Britain and Ireland in Durban 2001 the following Emergency Motion to Conference was accepted:
Soroptimist International of Great Britain and Ireland in Conference moves that Members call upon governments to urge those responsible for carrying out bombing raids, and any subsequent offensives on Afghanistan, not to allow the use of cluster bombs, anti-personnel mines, or any devices with similar effects on civilians.
Every year hundreds of faulty products are recalled in the UK because of the risk. they present to the public. It is time to do the same with our faulty weapons. The Product Recall campaign launched on Thursday 19 October 2006.
Visit the campaign website.
The Faulty Goods logo
Support the UK Campaign to ban Cluster Bombs
On 23 February 2007, 46 nations committed to work towards the creation of a new treaty banning cluster bombs by 2008. Read the News report on this website.
More information can be obtained from the cluster munitions page on Landmine Action's website.
What are Cluster Munitions?
Cluster munitions consist of a container filled with lots of explosive ‘submunitions’. These containers might be dropped as bombs from aircraft or fired from artillery or rockets.The container breaks open in mid-air and the submunitions are released - effectively carpet bombing an area the size of two or three football fields. Anybody, adult or child, within that area is likely to be torn apart.
For example, each of the UK’s BL755 cluster munitions contains 147 submunitions designed to disable tanks and to kill people. Each submunition contains explosives, a copper cone, a prestressed fragmentation sheath and an incendiary sponge. On detonation the submunition blasts a jet of molten copper, a ball of fire and 2,000 steel fragments through the surrounding area.
The aims of Landmine Action are:
- Helping to relieve the effects of landmines by securing resources for humanitarian mine action
- Educating the public, decisions-makers and opinion formers about the humanitarian, developmental, medical and human rights impact of landmines on civilians
- Working for the improvement, universalisation and full implementation of international legislation banning landmines.
The members of Landmine Action work in the world’s poorest countries to clear mines and assist victims. Together they campaign with non-governmental organisations around the world to outlaw landmines: to ban their use, stockpiling, manufacture and sale.
Landmine Action is the UK arm of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in December 1997. Established in 1992, Landmine Action is a coalition of more than 50 UK-based charities and agencies concerned with landmines and their impact on civilians.
Visit their Web site... (external link)