Speaking Out Against Cluster Munitions

3. Speaking Out Against Cluster Munitions

In October 2007 I met two amazing women who explained to me what a cluster dud is and what it is like to find yourself under a cluster munitions strike: “The thing looks like a ball. I thought it was a toy”. “It is like finding yourself under the Niagara falls. Except that it is not water”. I believe that, beyond all technical definitions, the words of Rasha from Lebanon and Snezana from Serbia, in their harrowing simplicity, are the best argument to answer those who still ask why cluster munitions should be banned.

The Ban Advocates Team in Belgrade. Photo: HI

 

Experience gathered by Handicap International while producing its two reports on the human impact of cluster munitions (Fatal Footprint and Circle of Impact) suggests that women and men from affected communities are those who know better than anyone else what cluster munitions are, why their use must be prohibited and stockpiles destroyed, and how the victims should be helped. Therefore we decided that it was time to leave the floor to the very people in whose name the Oslo Process was created.

For the first time, during the Belgrade Conference of Affected States in October 2007, a group of women and men from Lebanon, Serbia, Tajikistan and Albania gathered to discuss their own experiences and to organize themselves as a team to influence the Oslo Process in a way that responds to their real needs. They have soon become the ‘Ban Advocates Team’. They aim at participating in the forthcoming international meetings of the Oslo Process and discuss with decision-makers in order to achieve – by the end of 2008 – a treaty that can radically improve their lives and those of their communities.

What my colleagues Stan, Loren, Firoz, Jelena and I learnt in Belgrade taught us a lot and went straight to our hearts. Having experienced violence, exclusion and poverty, victims of cluster munitions (survivors, their families and communities) are now determined to advocate for the respect and implementation of their fundamental human rights.

We will hear their voices in Vienna, and read about their stories and their engagement in the battle to fight cluster munitions on www.banadvocates.org next December.

- Patrizia Pompili, Handicap International

Rasha’ s story

Rasha was born in 1990 in South Lebanon. She comes from a small village close to Tyrc. Her parents do not work and the only source of income is the financial support they receive from the brother of her father.

During the Israeli strikes against Lebanon in July-August 2006, Rasha’s house was destroyed. When she came back she saw that there was no furniture left. Instead, there were cluster munitions all around. In January 2007 she found one toy, it looked like a ball. The ball was a cluster munition that exploded and took away Rasha’s left leg. By now she has been operated on more than 10 times. Today Rasha has a prosthesis. She thinks that cluster munitions incidents are normal. She knows lots of kids that were injured after the 2006 war. Rasha participated in the Belgrade Conference of Affected States in October 2007 as a Ban Advocate. When she grows older she wants to help NGOs that fight against cluster munitions.

(Excerpt of an interview given to Handicap International in Belgrade, 2 October 2007)

**Read more on the Belgrade Conference**