What's the Problem?
For almost 50 years cluster bombs have killed and maimed innocent civilians. While governments and organisations around the world are working to develop international laws that ban these devastating weapons, the Australian Government is in the process of buying a new artillery shell that many experts say is a "cluster".
Cluster bombs are containers that are dropped from aircraft or fired from the ground and are designed to break open in midair, releasing submunitions and saturating an area that can be the size of several football fields.
Cluster bombs were first used in World War II by German and Soviet forces. During the 1970s, the USA used massive numbers of cluster bombs in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. More recently, cluster bombs were used extensively in the Gulf War, Chechnya, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and in Lebanon in 2006.
Because cluster munitions often fail to explode on impact, they continue to kill and injure men, women and children long after a conflict has ended. Those who survive are often left without their limbs and without their eyesight. Not only is this devastating for them, but it also hinders development in their whole community.
Cluster bomb duds in Southern Lebanon
Austcare's Ambassador for Mine Action John Rodsted filmed these M85 cluster bombs in Lebanon in 2006. These duds will lie, like landmines, ready to kill and maim until either they blow up when disturbed by local civilians or they are cleared.
Click here to see the Video on YouTube
©John Rodsted/Norwegian People's Aid.
Let's kill these weapons of war
Cluster munitions are now on the ground in more than 20 countries while billions of submunitions are in the arsenals of over 70 nations, as well as in the hands of non-state armed groups.
Cluster bombs kill and injure people by indiscriminately scattering explosives over a vast area. Difficult to control, they don't distinguish between those fighting and innocent bystanders. They lie unexploded in the ground and hanging in trees - waiting for somebody to disturb them - in more than 20 countries today.
But it won't cost YOU an arm and a leg to ban cluster munitions. In the lead up to the final round of treaty negotiations in Dublin in May 2008, Austcare has been calling on the Australian Government to take a leading role in the fight to stop this weapon of war destroying communities around the world.
Austcare is calling for a ban on the production, stockpiling, transfer and use of cluster munitions.
We are urging the Australian Government to keep up its support for an international treaty to ban cluster munitions by the end of 2008 and to develop domestic legislation that outlaws this weapon of war.
Right now, more than 100 governments are taking part in the Dublin Diplomatic Conference on Cluster Munitions, to finalise a new international treaty to ban cluster bombs.
According to Austcare Mine Action Officer James Turton, who is in Dublin for the conference, "We are confident that governments will make the right decision and adopt a ban with no exceptions, no loopholes and no delays. Australia has a rare opportunity to lead world efforts to create a strong treaty that will prevent more victims.”
To illustrate the number of people who are injured and lose their limbs to cluster bomb incidents, we collected photos of arms and legs from Australians who support the ban on cluster bombs. View the gallery here.
We will present a selection of these photographs on our website and deliver them to the Australian Government with the online petition.
Useful Links
Find out more about the recent Wellington conference
Cluster Munition Coalition Australia
International Cluster Munition Coalition
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