Jesuit Service Cambodia Campaigns To Ban Cluster Munitions

Posted: 15th November 2007

PHNOM PENH (UCAN) -- Jesuit Service Cambodia (JSC) has conducted a weeklong campaign across the country in solidarity with international groups seeking a ban on cluster bombs.

The JSC effort began on Nov. 5, the Global Day of Action to Ban Cluster Bombs. People around the world had organized activities for that day to make governments aware of their concerns about cluster bombs, which, like landmines, maim and kill civilians who stumble across them.

JSC is an international team of people committed to reconciliation, peace and justice, and comprehensive human development of Cambodia's people, who have been scarred by war, oppression and exile.

It organized meetings with people in Siem Reap, Poipet, Battambang, Banteay Mean Chey and Phnom Penh to increase public awareness of and support for an international treaty banning cluster weapons that will be discussed Dec. 4-7 in Vienna. A follow-up meeting is scheduled Feb. 18-22 in Wellington to develop the draft ban treaty and a third meeting, May 19-30 in Dublin, will work out further details.

Ny Nhar of JSC's Landmine Monitor Research told UCA News his organization is collecting thousands of signatures from people to support the comprehensive ban.

Noeun Tong Leang, a JSC staff member, said he is happy to take part in the campaign and sign the petition because he feels sad when he meets local victims of cluster bombs. "Some are disabled for their whole life, some cannot move and some cannot see," he lamented.

Kol Seap, a parishioner from St. Joseph Church in Phnom Penh, told UCA News she signed the JSC petition because she strongly supports a ban. She expressed hope that cluster bombs will no longer be used to kill people and that her country will be cleared of them.

She wants Cambodia to raise public awareness, reinforce global concern about this deadly threat and demonstrate the importance of government participation in the "Oslo Process" to ban cluster bombs and address the needs and rights of affected communities.

The Oslo Process is a Norwegian-led initiative to develop an international treaty banning cluster munitions by 2008. About 80 states including the Holy See have agreed to a declaration committing themselves to develop such a treaty. Asian supporters include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Thailand and Yemen.

In a message issued on Oct. 29 for the Nov. 5 day of action, King Norodom Sihamoni wrote: "On behalf of my beloved people of Cambodia, I would like to make an appeal to all countries of the world that did not yet join the call for the international ban on cluster munitions to support the Oslo Process." He called for cooperation among "like-minded states in seeking a legally binding agreement on cluster munitions."

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which declared the first-ever global day to ban cluster bombs, aims to unite civil society to call on their governments to adopt an immediate national moratorium on the use, trade and production of cluster munitions, and to participate in diplomatic discussions.

Up to 6 million unexploded weapons including cluster bombs and landmines remain in Cambodia after more than three decades of conflict, according to various estimates. During the Vietnam War, the United States used cluster munitions in Cambodia from 1969 to 1973 in an attempt to liquidate Vietnamese communist forces operating from eastern Cambodia and to interdict the flow of supplies to what was then South Vietnam. U.S. forces are believed to have carried out more than 17,000 cluster-munitions strikes in Cambodia.

Cluster bombs dropped from aircraft, delivered in rockets or shot from artillery release numerous small explosives over an area that can be the size of several football fields. Many of these fail to explode on impact and remain a fatal threat to anyone in the area long after a conflict ends. These weapons kill and injure people trying to rebuild their lives after war and stop people from being able to use their land. One-third of all recorded cluster-munition casualties are children.

According to Handicap International, an international voluntary organization supporting the needs of disabled people in countries affected by poverty and conflict, Cambodia, with a population of 14.1 million people, has the highest percentage of amputees in the world.

Article Source: UCAN