Conference hears demand for action on Iraq bombs

Urgent action is required to prevent Iraqi civilians being killed or maimed by unexploded bombs dropped by US and British forces, a conference in Dublin was told today.

Cluster bombs and explosive remnants of war (ERW) in Iraq are of particular concern to international delegates and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) attending the Conference on Explosive Remnants of War organised by Pax Christi.

Cluster bombs are long containers dropped by parachute which open in flight to release between 160 to 200 "bomblets" which detonate just above ground. Between 7 to 16 per cent of these "bomblets" fail to explode and become lethal unexploded mines scattered across a wide area.

Mr Richard Lloyd, director of Landmine Action, said details on the number of civilian dead and wounded from cluster bombs in the latest war on Iraq were not yet available. He said NGO teams and experts from the UN were working with coalition forces to identify where these weapons were used and to find and destroy unexploded cluster bombs.

Irish Timesjournalist Lara Marlowe visited the town of Hilla is 100 km south of Baghdad, 40 km south-east of Karbala which was attacked by cluster bombs. More than 60 people were killed there in the first week of April, and the town was littered with unexploded cluster bombs.

To give an idea of the scale of the problem, Mr Lloyd used the example of Afghanistan where 139 civilians have been killed by cluster bombs between November 2001 and April 2002, a figure than is almost certainly an underestimation, he added.

Unlike landmines, there is currently no provision in international law which addresses the problem of cluster bombs and ERW. To address this, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has proposed that the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons adopt a new protocol by November this year.

This protocol would have as its central principle that responsibility for clearing up unexploded munitions falls on those who use them.

Mr Andrew Purkis, chief executive of the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund which is running the "Clear Up" campaign with Landmine Action against the debris of war, said those countries using cluster bombs are aware of the problems they cause. There are also serious difficulties about using these weapons under the Geneva Convention, Mr Purkis added.

The two-day conference is being hosted by the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin Castle. The Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Mr Dick Roche, said disarmament and arms control policy remain central to the State's foreign policy.

"Ireland strongly supports and wishes to contribute to the development of international controls to reduce the suffering caused by unexploded ordnance and other explosive remnants of war", he said.