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DUBLIN : Representatives from around 100 countries opened a 12-day conference Monday in a bid to agree a global ban on cluster bombs, one of the most lethal weapons facing civilians caught up in conflict.
The talks, at Dublin's Croke Park Gaelic sports stadium, are aiming for a wide-ranging pact that would completely wipe out the use, production and stockpiling of cluster bombs by its signatories.
"Governments have been talking about the dangers of cluster bombs for years," said Grethe Ostern, joint head of the Cluster Munitions Coalition (CMC) umbrella group, ahead of the conference opening.
"More delays mean more injuries and death for ordinary people. We have a unique opportunity to ban cluster bombs in Dublin. It is now or never."
Cluster munitions are among the weapons which pose the gravest dangers to civilians, according to the CMC.
Dropped from warplanes or fired from artillery guns, they explode in mid-air, randomly scattering bomblets -- ramping up the risk of civilians being killed or maimed by their indiscriminate, wide-area effect.
They pose a lasting threat to civilians as well, as many bomblets fail to explode on impact.
Cluster munitions caused more civilian casualties in Kosovo in 1999 and Iraq in 2003 than any other weapon system.
In the Middle East, Israel's widespread use of cluster bombs during the 2006 war in Lebanon caused more than 200 civilian casualties in the year following the ceasefire, the CMC said.
Under the draft treaty, signatories would never use, develop, produce, acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer cluster munitions. They would also have six years to destroy their stockpiles.
The draft also includes provisions for the welfare of cluster bomb victims and for cleaning up affected areas.
But some countries, particularly Britain, are looking to water down the wording, the CMC said.
Britainis reportedly seeking exemptions for two types of weapons which they say are still needed to protect troops on operations against possible enemy advances.
In contrast, nine senior retired British military figures including former professional head of the armed forces Lord Edwin Bramall called for "the strongest possible ban" to be agreed, in a letter to the Times newspaper.
Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland are among other states seeking amendments.
Some want exemptions on certain types of cluster weapons, more time to dismantle their arsenals, looser language on assistance -- for example in joint military operations -- or transition periods in which they could still be used.
Campaigners hope a ban would stigmatise the use of cluster munitions by non-signatories -- as has happened with landmines -- so increasing pressure on those countries to reduce or stop using them themselves.
Notably absent from the conference include China, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia and the United States -- all major producers and stockpilers.
The Dublin gathering, which follows meetings in Lima, Vienna and Wellington, New Zealand, aims to secure an agreement that would be signed in Oslo on December 2-3. Signatories would then need to ratify it.
The process, started by Norway in February 2007, has taken the same path as the landmark 1997 Ottawa Treaty ban on anti-personnel landmines, as it goes outside the United Nations to avoid vetoes and seal a swift treaty.
- AFP /ls
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