Press release: Cambodia Announces Support for New Treaty Banning Cluster Munitions

Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An with members of the Cambodian CBL and Steve Goose of Human Rights Watch. Photo: courtesy of Kasia Derlicka.

Cambodia’s declaration comes three weeks after the launch in Oslo of a process to negotiate a new international treaty prohibiting cluster munitions that cause unacceptable humanitarian harm.

Governments, UN agencies and non-governmental organizations are gathering tomorrow, 15 March, at the first regional forum on the issue in Southeast Asia. The forum will take place in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, sponsored by the Nobel-prize winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC).

“Cambodia supports this Oslo appeal to ban cluster munitions which cause unacceptable harm to civilians, and will become an active participant in the process,” said Cambodia’s Deputy Prime Minister Sok An at the closing of a regional conference on mine action on 14 March. This is the first time Cambodia has publicly endorsed the new international process aimed at rapid negotiation of a binding treaty on cluster munitions.

“The people of Southeast Asia know all too well the horrible and long-lasting effects of cluster munitions,” said Steve Goose of Human Rights Watch, a founding member of both the ICBL and CMC. “The governments of the region should be playing a leading role in the effort to get rid of these weapons that have caused so much human and economic suffering in their countries.” Southeast Asia is severely affected by the use of cluster munitions. Millions of unexploded “bomblets” continue to maim and kill people in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam today, decades after they were used.

Of the 46 governments that agreed to the Oslo Declaration on 23 February to conclude a new international treaty on cluster munitions in 2008, Indonesia was the only one from Southeast Asia. “By holding the Regional Forum in Cambodia, a country affected by cluster munitions, we want to draw attention to the scope of the problem in Southeast Asia and the urgent need to find a solution,” said Denise Coghlan, Coordinator of the Cambodian Campaign to Ban Landmines. “It is essential that Cambodia joins the process at the very beginning. The new treaty is likely to result in increased international assistance for the victims of cluster munitions, and for clearance of cluster munitions, so the countries of the region stand to benefit greatly.”

Cluster munitions are weapons dropped from aircraft or shot out of artillery and ground rocket systems that can disperse hundreds of smaller submunitions (sometimes called bomblets or bombies). They pose unacceptable dangers to civilians at the time of attack because they spread indiscriminately over a wide area and cannot be precisely targeted. They also pose an unacceptable long term threat to civilians because many of the submunitions inevitably fail to detonate on impact, and remain scattered on the ground like landmines, ready to kill and maim when disturbed or handled.

Reports from humanitarian organizations have shown that civilians make up the vast majority of the victims of cluster bombs and children make up a high percentage in many countries. “Ten years after successfully negotiating the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, the international community again has a chance to prohibit a weapon that kills and injures far too many civilians. We call on all states to join the new cluster munition treaty process without delay,” said Stan Brabant of Handicap International, a leader of the ICBL and CMC.

The Regional Forum: Taking Action on Cluster Munitions will be held on 15 March, 8:30-16:00 at Imperial Garden Villa & Hotel in downtown Phnom Penh, 315 Sisowath Quay, Phnom Penh.

* For more information contact:

Denise Coghlan, Coordinator, Cambodian Campaign to Ban Landmines

e-mail: jrscam@forum.org.kh, Tel. (+855) 012 488950 (local media)

Simona Beltrami, Advocacy Director, ICBL

e-mail: simona@icbl.org, Tel. +39 333 7142251 (international media)

Background Information:

Handicap International has recorded 4,813 people killed or injured by cluster munitions in Laos, of which 40% were children, but the true number of civilian casualties is likely much higher. In Vietnam, the total post-conflict submunition casualties are estimated at 34,550 to 52,350, though casualty data is incomplete.

More than 70 countries around the world stockpile cluster munitions containing billions of submunitions, and 34 are known to have produced them. The weapon has been used extensively in recent conflicts in Lebanon (2006), Iraq (2003), Afghanistan (2001-2002), and Kosovo (1999). In Lebanon, more than 200 people have been killed or injured by unexploded submunitions since the ceasefire in August 2006.

Belgium became the first country to ban cluster munitions in February 2006. Norway, Austria and Bosnia and Herzegovina have announced national moratoria on use of the weapon. The Oslo Conference on Cluster Munitions was the first step toward a new treaty on cluster munitions. The Norwegian government hosted this international conference following the failure of talks within the framework of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons in Geneva last November.

On 23 February 46 states agreed in Oslo to a clear Declaration committing them to conclude in 2008 a new instrument prohibiting cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians. The group of the 46 states includes key users, producers and stockpilers of the weapon, and a number of countries affected by cluster munitions such as Afghanistan, Lebanon and Serbia. The states also agreed to a clear roadmap for the way forward with follow up meetings in this process in Lima in May, Vienna in November/December 2007, and Dublin in early 2008. ENDS//