Kosovo
“A Wasteland Called Peace”

1. J'ACCUSE

It is pursuing a military strategy which is criminally negligent and in direct contradiction of its stated aims to ensure the people of Kosovo can return safely to their homeland.

2. LANDMINES - OTTAWA, THE KLA AND NATO

a) UK position on anti-personnel Landmines - a contradictory legal position

There are two legislative documents which dictate the legal position of UK forces in relation to the use of landmines. One is international; the 'Convention on the prohibition of the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines and on their destruction' widely referred to as the Ottawa Convention. The second document is the UK domestic legislation which brought British law into line with the international convention; 'Landmines - A Bill to Promote the control of anti-personnel landmines; and for connected purposes' more commonly known as the Landmines Bill.

Article 1 - General Obligations of the Ottawa Convention is admirably clear and unequivocal, it says;

1. Each State Party undertakes never under any circumstances:

a) To use anti-personnel mines;

b) To develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer to anyone, directly or indirectly, anti-personnel mines;

c) To assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention.

Unfortunately the UK Landmines Bill is less transparent. The fact that the United States refused to be party to the Ottawa Convention gave the British government a problem. How could British forces fight alongside US forces, still fully committed to the wide-scale use of anti-personnel mines in battle, and comply with Article 1.c) of the convention? The solution chosen was to introduce exceptions into domestic legislation which could best be described as a Pontius Pilate approach to international law; a legal hand-washing exercise. Thus Article 2, Offences relating to anti-personnel mines, reads:

(1) Subject to sections 3 to 6, no person shall -

(a) use an anti-personnel mine;

(b) develop or produce an anti-personnel mine;

(c) participate in the acquisition of a prohibited object;

(d) have a prohibited object in his possession; or

(e) participate in the transfer of a prohibited object.

(2) Subject to those sections, no person shall assist, encourage or induce any other person to engage in any conduct mentioned in subsection (1).

Being found guilty of an offence under Section 2 of the Landmines Bill carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years. Sections 3 to 6, exceptions to Section 2, comprise three pages of tortuous legal jargon intended, in the main, to circumvent the problems arising out of the refusal of the United States to sign and ratify the Ottawa Convention. The ethics of ratifying a treaty having first introduced domestic legislation which undermines some of the treaty provisions are not complex - the fundamental principle of treaty law dictates that treaties are binding upon those states which are parties to them who must observe their obligations in good faith. The British government was under no international obligation to sign and ratify the Ottawa Convention, having done so it became fully subject to its provisions and to argue otherwise demeans the standing of international humanitarian law.

It is also worthy of note that, while the army have totally destroyed their stocks of anti-personnel mines, the Royal Air Force have not. The Labour government soon after coming to power, despite opposition from within the Ministry of Defence and from the manufacturers Hunting Engineering, agreed with the Landmines Campaign that the RAF's HB876 was an anti-personnel mine and would be banned. The weapon, a scatterable fragmentation mine, was part of the RAF's JP233 runway cratering and area-denial system and there are obvious concerns that the government are under internal pressure to reverse their decision which would explain the delay in announcing the destruction of RAF landmine stocks.

Given the role of RAF aircraft in the Kosovo conflict it would be reassuring if the government issued a statement confirming that the HB876 is banned and not available for use by NATO aircraft.

b) Anti-personnel mine use in Kosovo - breaking international law?

Serbian regular and irregular forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) have been using anti-tank and anti-personnel mines (APM) in Kosovo over a long period prior to the intervention by NATO. Civilians are reliably reported to have fallen victim to these mines and the KLA are known to have large quantities of landmines among their weapon stockpiles.

The government will not comment or respond to reports that British special forces are training KLA fighters and operating within Kosovo. Under the terms of the Ottawa Convention such training and co-operation would be illegal because the KLA are known to be using anti-personnel mines. In fact any assistance, encouragement, inducement or supply of arms to the KLA while it is using APM, would be a serious breach of the convention. Whether training or other assistance is directly related to landmine deployment or supply is of no consequence since any support by a party to the convention could be perceived as overall approval for KLA strategy which includes the use of anti-personnel mines.

It is clear that NATO is now supporting, and probably arming, the KLA. Even if it could be shown that the United Kingdom had no direct involvement in such activities it would still be in breach of the convention if any of its NATO partners were assisting, arming or training the KLA since British Forces are an integral unit of the NATO force under direct NATO command. Such circumstances preclude the possibility that UK can disassociate itself selectively from individual NATO actions - what NATO does Britain does.

Although the US Defence Department spokesman Kevin Bacon has denied allegations that US forces have deployed Gator anti-personnel mines (14.04.99) during the Kosovo conflict he did not rule out future use of the weapons. It is apparent that neither Britain nor its European partner states within NATO can overrule the use of a specific weapon by US forces despite the fact that their use of Gator or other APM would place them in breach of their obligations under international law.

The Prime Minister must clarify British and NATO involvement with the KLA and give a full assurance that the terms of the Ottawa Convention are not being contravened. He must also give an unequivocal commitment that NATO forces are not using, and will not use, anti-personnel mines.

3. NATO - CRIMINALLY NEGLIGENT AS DEFINED BY THEIR OWN AIMS

Why then, given the overwhelming priority for an expeditious repatriation, has NATO adopted a military policy which will make such a repatriation impossible and place at risk the lives of those civilians who remain in Kosovo? Why are NATO forces using cluster bombs in Kosovo?

The full range of cluster weapons being deployed by NATO is not known, but the use of two cluster bomb types is confirmed and, alone, justify the accusation that the British government and its NATO allies are guilty of criminal negligence in deploying a weapon type which will make a safe return to their homes for the people of Kosovo impossible.

a) The Weapons

• BL755 Cluster Bomb: The BL755 dual purpose cluster bomb is a product of the UK arms company Hunting Engineering of Ampthill, Bedford who boast that the weapon is "devastating over a wide area". There are two types of BL755 cluster bomb - the No.1 GP bomblet and the No.2 AAA bomblet - part of what Huntings have called the Advanced Weapon Family. 147 bomblets are packed in a Cluster Bomb Container incorporating a gas-operated system which splits the container outer casing into two halves after its release from the aircraft. Bomblets are then ejected at pre-set intervals. The bomblet is designed to explode on impact causing a combined anti-armour and anti-personnel effect, the latter consisting of a fragmentation blast containing in excess of 2000 metal fragments. Despite official denials it is widely accepted by experts that the BL755 has a probable design failure rate due to malfunctions as high as 5% which would increase substantially due to incorrect delivery. The bomblet is designed to strike the ground or the target vertically to ensure sufficient impact to crush the piezo-electric element, failures are high when bomblets land in soft ground or at an angle - both common occurrences. Eight NATO air forces are reported to be equipped with BL755 and Hunting Engineering claim to have exported the system to a total of seventeen countries. Perversely, one of these countries was Yugoslavia to whom the system was shipped just prior to the imposition of the UN arms embargo so it is possible that the Serbs have also used these British-manufactured weapons in Kosovo. It is believed that the BL755 exports to Yugoslavia were refurbished No.1 GP bomblets which Hunting advertised internationally as being available "competitively priced from UK RAF stock" .
• BLU 97/B Combined Effects Munition: This US bomblet is manufactured by Alliant Techsystems and delivered in a Tactical Munition Dispenser (TMD) designated as CBU-87/B. Each TMD carries 202 BLU97/B bomblets. The combined effects of the bomblet are threefold; a shaped charge which can penetrate armoured vehicles, a fragmenting anti-personnel jacket with a minimum effective range of 18 metres and an incendiary device which causes fires in the impact area. The weapon has been exported by the US to some NATO countries including Turkey. The system is notoriously inaccurate and prone to failure, especially when delivered from high altitudes, factors which made it one of the most common items of unexploded ordnance, after the Mk118 'Rockeye' (another cluster munition believed to be in use by NATO forces in the present conflict), during the post Gulf War clearance of Kuwait. The bomblet, having failed, is considered very dangerous even for ordnance experts. Its 'stab-sensitive' detonator is extremely sensitive to movement or any blow to the device and, having failed, effectively becomes a very powerful anti-personnel mine with an additional incendiary capacity. According to an official US document dated 15^th July 1997 prepared for use at the Ottawa Convention negotiations in Oslo; "When it (BLU97/B) fails to operate as designed and remains unexploded (it) can be detonated or exploded by the presence, proximity or contact of a person. And, when detonated or exploded, produces an effect similar to a traditional anti-personnel landmine"

Due to the threat of ground-fire and Scud ground-to-air missile attacks NATO 'planes are deploying ordnance from higher altitudes than required for the optimum performance of most cluster bombs, this is certain to result in a greater number of bomblets failing to explode and in a much increased footprint from each bomb - thus widening the potential threat to civilians and returning refugees.

Credible reports of civilian cluster bomb casualties have already been reported from Kosovo and, while all reports must be treated with caution until verified, it would be surprising if this was not the case given the intensity of NATO air operations and the high value placed on cluster bombs by NATO military commanders as a strategy to destroy Serbian ground forces, armour and equipment. This strategic view of the cluster bomb as an effective combat weapon is not, however, supported by history. The United States dropped an estimated 285 million cluster bomblets on Indo-China during the course of the Vietnam War - seven bomblets for every man, woman and child, and yet failed to achieve any of its military objectives in the region. It spent $6.9 billion on sub-munitions in Laos alone, largely in an attempt to close the Ho Chi Minh trail along which the North Vietnamese moved ammunition, supplies and reinforcements to their forces in the South. During nine years of bombing on an unparalleled scale the Ho Chi Minh trail was constantly widened and its logistic capacity increased consistently throughout that period . The real impact of the bombings came after the war when people tried to return to their homes and found their land covered by unexploded cluster bomblets. Twenty-six years after the bombing ceased the dangerous job of clearing those bomblets continues and will do so for many years to come. Every day the toll of dead and maimed cluster bomb victims increases in Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia - many of the victims were born years after the war finished. There is very little difference, other than cost, between the bomblets which fell on South East Asia and those being dropped by NATO planes on Kosovo - in fact the BLU97/B is part of a family of weaponry originally developed by Honeywell Defense and Marine Systems (now part of Alliant Techsystems) who also manufactured many of the cluster bombs used in the Vietnam war.

The UK government has no excuse for being unaware of this history - The Department for International Development (DFID), headed by Clare Short, an aggressive supporter and defender of the NATO bombings, funds UK charities involved in clearing unexploded cluster munitions in several countries including the most seriously affected, Laos. Nor, given the close relationship between the Labour Party in opposition and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines can Tony Blair and his ministers be unaware of the humanitarian concerns surrounding the use of cluster bombs and their well recorded impact on the repatriation of refugees.

When government ministers who intend to prosecute a military action involving such high stakes in human lives as the action in Kosovo fail to examine, or choose to ignore, widely available and relevant evidence and by doing so place countless innocent lives at risk there is only one way to describe their behaviour. It is negligence and, because it risks human life unnecessarily, it is criminal. Of course, if Tony Blair and his ministers did consider the evidence available before deciding, regardless, to allow the use of cluster bombs (and, thus, give, at least, tacit approval to the wide-scale use of cluster munitions by all NATO partners in the conflict) this would not be negligence, but something far worse.

The damage is already done - this country will be the cause of unnecessary deaths and maimings among the very people who we sought to help. But it is not too late to limit the damage - the use of cluster bombs by the RAF must cease immediately and the Prime Minister must insist that all NATO forces also stop using cluster bombs forthwith.

4. THE RECKONING

Nor should manufacturers feel secure in the knowledge that they merely supply the weaponry, and profit, not only from the original sale, but from the replacement of weaponry used during the conflict. Kosovo may prove to be the ruin of some arms manufacturers, especially those who make unreliable weaponry like cluster bombs. Product liability and actions based on the polluter pays principle are two legal areas ripe for investigation by lawyers representing disillusioned Kosovar Albanians who may find their land denied to them by unexploded NATO cluster bomblets. The companies who supplied the weapons are certainly more vulnerable to such actions than the governments who used them. .

Prosecuting war carries responsibilities far beyond those directly related to achieving victory and when a government adopts a strategy at odds with its declared aims in going to war it must expect to be held fully accountable. It is impossible for the British government to justify its use of cluster weapons in the light of its oft-repeated war aim of ensuring the safe and expeditious return of Kosovar refugees to their homes - the position is obscenely contradictory.

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Posted 30/6-99