[E-rundbrief] Info 463 - Israel/ Lebanon Conflict

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 463 - Haider Rizvi: HEALTH: Israel/ Lebanon 
Conflict Leaves Deadly Legacy.

Bad Ischl, 20.10.2006

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HEALTH: Israel/Lebanon Conflict Leaves Deadly Legacy

Haider Rizvi

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 18 (IPS) - The Israeli war against Lebanon was 
over soon after the United Nations brokered a ceasefire agreement 
last August. But while that may be true for outsiders, is not for the Lebanese.

At least three to four people are getting killed or maimed every day 
as a result of cluster bombs used by the Israeli Air Force during the 
war, according to a new study released here Wednesday.

Entitled "Foreseeable Harm: The use and impact of cluster munitions 
in Lebanon: 2006," the study points out that among those killed and 
wounded were numerous children under the age of 16.

In the final 72 hours before the ceasefire, which officially took 
effect Aug. 14, the Israeli military fired 1,800 cluster rockets on 
southern Lebanon, containing 1.2 million submunitions, many of which 
remain unexploded.

"Three days of indiscriminate cluster munition use have left a deadly 
legacy in southern Lebanon that will take years to clean up," said 
Thomas Nash, co-author of the 52-page study and coordinator of the 
Cluster Munitions Coalition.

"Because they do not work as intended, cluster munitions fail in huge 
numbers and there may be as many as one million unexploded 
submunitions littering roads, schools, wells, houses, gardens and 
fields," he added.

Nash and others at Landmine Action, a London-based group that carried 
out the study, said cluster munitions have seriously affected 
livelihoods by blocking water supplies, disrupting work to restore 
power lines and preventing excavation of rubble.

The research points out that due to the presence of cluster 
munitions, most farmers were unable to harvest in the summer and it 
would be hard for them to plant new crops in the winter.

U.N. officials at the Department of Peacekeeping Operations who are 
constantly monitoring the situation in south Lebanon agree with Nash 
and other researchers.

"This study reflects the reality on the ground," Justin Brady, a 
planning officer at the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations, told IPS. ò

Brady said that in collaboration with several non-governmental 
organisations, the U.N. has been engaged in demining operations in 
southern Lebanon since September, and that so far it has cleared over 
45,000 cluster weapons.

"We could be facing up to one million of them," he said, "but they 
are certainly in hundreds of thousands."

Alarmed by the devastation that cluster munitions have caused to 
human life and the environment in south Lebanon, Landmine Action and 
many other groups are now launching a campaign to ban such weapons.

Civil society pressure has already led to a ban on the use of cluster 
munitions by Belgium in February 2006 and similar national campaigns 
are underway in Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and 
elsewhere.

Groups have also called on Britain, one of the world's largest users 
of the weapons, to immediately stop the use of cluster munitions, 
destroy stockpiles and support an international ban.

An international meeting is due to take place in Geneva next month to 
discuss the use of cluster munitions, but activists said they expect 
certain states would try hard to block progress by arguing that they 
can be used in a precise or surgical way.

While a growing number of countries now acknowledge the humanitarian 
problems of cluster munitions, so far only Belgium and Norway have 
officially stopped their use.

But key states such as Israel, Britain, the United States and Russia 
claim that their cluster munitions are legal.

Activists argue that if that is the case, then the consistent pattern 
of civilian harm caused by these weapons, of which the casualty toll 
in Lebanon is only the most recent example, makes it clear that 
international law is inadequate.

"The claim that these faulty weapons can be used in a precise or 
surgical way is a lie. The evidence is there to see littering the 
ruined houses and olive groves of southern Lebanon," said Landmine 
Action Director Simon Conway.

"Every day, women and children are killed or injured as they sift 
through the rubble of their former homes by cluster munitions that 
failed to go off when they should have," he added. "If they were any 
other kind of product they would have been recalled. They should be banned."

Groups like Landmine Action accuse Israel of violating a 1976 secret 
agreement that restricted the use of certain U.S.-supplied cluster 
munitions. They say the repeated violations since the 1970s highlight 
the complete inadequacy of such bilateral assurances as a basis for 
civilian protection from these weapons.

Researchers note that despite repeated breaches, last year the United 
States granted a license worth over 600,000 dollars for the sale of 
1,300 M26 cluster rockets to Israel. Israel had requested speedy 
delivery of these rockets during the war, but the U.S. State 
Department was still considering the situation.

Various U.N. agencies had already endorsed the NGOs' demand by 
calling for a freeze on these weapons in 2003, the Peacekeeping 
Department's Brandy said, adding that he expected the same this time round.

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(END/IPS/MM/IP/HD/HE/HR/KS/06)

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