CONTACT CONGRESS TO BAN CLUSTER BOMBS, WAR’S DEADLY DEBRIS
Three young Cambodian boys were playing near their village when they found four small steel
objects that they picked up and used to play an impromptu game of marbles. Their newfound
toys, however, were actually "bomblets" left from a cluster bomb that had been dropped years
before. In the middle of their game, one of the balls was struck by another, triggering an
explosion. One boy died from massive abdominal wounds. The other two boys survived with
serious injuries.
A cluster bomb consists of a canister designed to open in midair
and disperse smaller
submunitions – bomblets that
can kill all living creatures within an area as large as several
football fields. Though designed to explode on impact, many bomblets initially fail to detonate,
leaving behind large numbers of hazardous explosive “duds” that are de facto landmines,
injuring and killing civilians and contaminating the land long after conflicts.
This April is the 33 rd anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, yet millions of unexploded
cluster bomblets litter the countries of Southeast Asia the
deadly garbage left from U.S.
bombing campaigns in the 1960s and 1970s. In Laos alone, more than 11,000 civilians, many of
whom were not born when the bombs were dropped, have been killed or injured by these cluster
bomblets. Stories like the one above are all too common in wartorn
areas countries
affected by
cluster bombs include:
Afghanistan
Albania
Bosnia & Herzegovina
Cambodia
Chad
Croatia
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Iraq
Israel
Kuwait
Laos
Lebanon
Montenegro
Pakistan
Russia (Chechnya)
Saudi Arabia
Serbia (including Kosovo)
Sierra Leone
Sudan
Syria
Tajikistan
Vietnam
Western Sahara
Cluster bomblet duds are killing and maiming civilians and US troops in Iraq; Lynn Bradach, the
mother of a U.S. marine who was killed in Iraq by a U.S. cluster bomb, has asked Congress to
honor the memory of her son by passing a ban on the weapon that killed him
Like landmines, cluster bomblets must be located and destroyed one by one, a dangerous, costly,
and timeconsuming
process they
have proven to be a serious and longlasting
threat to
civilians, soldiers, peacekeepers, and clearance experts.
B1
Lancer releasing cluster bombs
The United States has the largest stockpile of cluster munitions in the world and is a major user,
exporter, and producer of the weapon. The U.S. has a stockpile of about 5.5 million cluster
bombs that’s
728 million bomblets Aerojet, Alliant TechSystems, General Dynamics, L3
Communications, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and Textron Defense
Systems are all associated with the production of cluster bombs
Cluster bomblet.
The Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act (Senate Bill 594, House Bill 1755) is a step
towards mitigating the death and destruction caused by cluster bombs, one step towards ending
the horror of war. This legislation would:
(a) Immediately prohibit the use of cluster bombs in or near populated or urban areas.
(b) Require governments using U.S.made
cluster bombs to quickly clean up unexploded
bomblets.
(c) Prohibit the use, sale, and transfer of U.S. made cluster bombs containing bomblets
with a failure rate of more than one percent; as nearly all cluster bombs in the US arsenal
have a failure rate of more than one percent, this would essentially ban the use and sale of
cluster bombs.
Below are members of Congress who are considered potential ‘swing’ votes in supporting the
Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act. As veterans for peace we draw on our own personal
experiences to raise awareness of the true costs and consequences of war. We must raise our
voices and tell these members of Congress to support the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection
Act.
Senator Norm Coleman—MN
Senator Chuck Hagel*—NE
Senator George Voinovich—OH
Senator Gordon Smith—OR
Senator Arlen Specter—PA
Senator Susan Collins ME
Representative Jeff Flake—AZ
Representative Chris Shays—CT
Representative Jim Saxton—NJ
Representative Chris SmithNJ
Representative James Walsh—NY
Representative Walter Jones—NC
Representative Ralph Regula*—OH
Representative Steven LaTourette—OH
Representative Phil EnglishPA
Representative Joe Pitts*PA
Representative Ron Paul*TX
*Veterans
Offices, phone numbers, & email addresses can be found at www.senate.gov and
www.house.gov.
The Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act is a step towards the US joining the more
than eighty countries which support a treaty banning cluster bombs. The Cluster
Munitions Civilian Protection Act is a step towards ending one horror of war, one step
towards peace.
Cluster bomb victim
RESOURCES & INFORMATION
Human Rights Watch http://hrw.org/doc/?t=arms_clusterbombs
US Campaign to Ban Landmines http://www.banminesusa.org/
Friends Committee on National Legislation
http://www.fcnl.org/weapons/clusterlanding/clusters_landing9.htm
Article
compiled by Mike Felker, VFP Chap. 31 member, who served as a hospital
corpsman with the 1 st Marine Division in Vietnam in 1970 and cared for the victims of
landmines and other weapons, mfelker@cis.upenn.edu
