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RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Ambiguity on Cluster Bombs Draws Flak

Stephen de Tarczynski

MELBOURNE, Aug 15 2007 (IPS) - As the campaign to prohibit the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions – known as the Oslo Process – builds momentum, Australia is among those countries seeking to exclude from the treaty munitions which have a self-destruct mechanism.

“It’s disappointing that Australia has aligned itself with this limited group of countries that are arguing for exemptions to the treaty,” says London-based Thomas Nash, coordinator of the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC), an umbrella group representing around 200 NGOs that support the process to ban cluster munitions.

The treaty bans cluster bombs that “cause unacceptable harm to civilians”. Australia, which did not attend the initial meeting in Norway in February, joined the process at the second meeting in Lima, Peru, in May.

Despite not currently possessing cluster munitions, Australia has joined with countries such as Germany, Britain, France and Poland – nations that have cluster munitions with self-destruct mechanisms in their stockpiles – in calling for munitions with these mechanisms to be excluded from the treaty.

Cluster bombs, of which there are many different kinds, operate by dispersing submunitions over an area of up to one square kilometre. As happens with all munitions, some submunitions fail to explode, therefore leaving behind large numbers of unexploded ordnance. Self-destruct mechanisms are supposed to minimise the danger to civilians in the aftermath of the fighting.

Nash argues that self-destruct mechanisms do not necessarily minimise harm to civilians as these mechanisms can also fail.

“They shouldn’t be saying that a self-destruct mechanism makes a cluster munition okay because that’s simply not true. I’ve seen [this] in Lebanon myself. I was there just under a year ago, after the ceasefire. There were large numbers of submunitions sitting around unexploded, posing a hazard to civilians,” Nash told IPS.

“The argument that’s made by some states…just doesn’t hold water. It’s not the reality,” says Nash.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), the New York –based international rights group estimates that last year Israel fired nearly four million submunitions into Lebanon in the final 72 hours of its 34-day conflict with Hezbollah. HRW estimates that 30 to 40 percent of these failed, leaving one million unexploded bomblets.

More than 30 people have died as a result of leftover cluster bombs and landmines exploding since the fighting stopped.

While Australia is supportive of the prohibiting of cluster munitions, the Defence Department is currently in the process of acquiring what it calls “advanced, sensor-fused explosive ordnance.”

While operating in a similar way to a cluster munition, in that they have submunitions, these sensor-fused munitions are for use against tanks and have only small numbers of submunitions. Defence told IPS that they have a “precision targeting system which reduces the potential for unintended damage.”

The department adds that if a target is not detected, a reliable self-destruction or self-neutralisation capability is activated.

Nash says that these sensor-fused munitions are “qualitatively different from the types of weapons that have brought about this (banning of cluster munitions) campaign.”

Dr Mark Zirnsak, National Coordinator of the Australian Network to Ban Landmines (ANBL), agrees.

“You’d have a hard time arguing that these are probably not better than an ordinary dumb bomb and an ordinary artillery shell. They seem to be more targeted and less likely to be misused than other (cluster) munitions,” says Zirnsak, citing their high cost as another potential mitigating factor against their widespread and indiscriminate use.

But these munitions remain relatively untested. “The latest HRW report on cluster munitions suggests that the only time they’ve ever been tested has been in the 2003 Iraq war and an assessment hasn’t been fully conducted yet on their impact,” says Zirnsak.

The CMC’s Nash says that while sensor-fused munitions are very sophisticated, unexploded ordnance was left behind after their use in Iraq, although the severity of that contamination remains unknown.

He argues that governments should take the lead in determining whether a weapon will cause “unacceptable” harm to civilians.

“It’s up to governments to say, look, this weapon is okay. We’ve done some studies and we’ve done some evaluations and on the basis of that we can say that this particular weapon…doesn’t cause the type of harm (to civilians) that we’ve seen over the last 40 years,” says Nash.

“If governments can show that a certain type of weapon doesn’t have those effects and if they can show that convincingly then they can make a case. At the moment that case hasn’t been made,” he says.

Nash is critical of Australia’s ambiguous stance on which munitions should be excluded from the ban. The CMS coordinator says that in informal discussions with Australian diplomats, they are clear in their message that Australia wants to exclude the sensor-fused munitions from the treaty.

“Unfortunately, when it comes to speaking at the international processes and formal statements and so on, that’s not what Australia says. Australia says that it agrees with Britain that weapons with self-destruct mechanisms should be excluded,” he says.

Nash argues that countries that are influential in their regions and who have strong partnerships with military powers risk undermining the process when they seek exemptions.

“That does have an impact on the process and is something that we’re concerned about, particularly from countries like Australia who should be taking the lead on humanitarian issues,” says Nash.

Zirnsak, from the ANBL, is concerned that Australia’s lack of clarity on the issue might be the government’s way of giving itself more room in which to manoeuvre.

“Even if they have no intention of initially purchasing munitions outside those they’ve specified, defence (department)may want to leave its options open,” says Zirnsak.

He says that the defence department is also “making very worrying noises to us about working with allied forces who still use cluster munitions.”

Zirnsak says that the United States, for example, may decide not to sign up to the treaty.

“Our defence forces seem to be saying they’d want to maintain the option to fully participate with US forces and benefit from the use of cluster munitions that have a huge humanitarian legacy,” he says.