No cluster munitions to Ukraine!
US President Biden has promised Ukraine the delivery of cluster bombs, although these weapons are outlawed under international law. What are cluster bombs?
Each cluster bomb carries dozens of other smaller explosive devices that can injure or kill people for years to come. These explosive devices can spread over an area of more than three soccer fields. As a result, not only soldiers but also the civilian population come under fire. Whole areas of land are contaminated with unexploded ordnance, and children playing, farmers working in the fields or civilian workers would also be victims. That is why 111 states outlawed these bombs with the Oslo Convention.
Cambodia’s President Hun Sen, as a concerned party, has therefore strongly warned Ukraine against accepting or even using the U.S. “gift.” He wrote: “It would be the greatest danger for Ukrainians for many years or up to a hundred years if cluster bombs were used in the territories occupied by Russia, on the territory of Ukraine.” Hun Sen referred to his country’s “painful experience” from the cluster bombs dropped by the U.S. on Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam War. These explosive devices would have killed or maimed for life tens of thousands of people.
This example will show whether there is any residual reason or morality left in belligerents.
As an ARD television reporter during the Somali civil war 32 years ago, I experienced what hidden munitions – at that time mines – can do to the civilian population: With my camera crew, I filmed the mine victims at the entrance to the hospital in the town of Hargeisa, who were brought in there almost by the minute – children with torn open bellies, men with arms torn off, and women with their legs blown off – by the dozen. We could just run the camera through them. They were all victims of the hidden mines for years after the civil war. The use of mines and cluster bombs is the most cowardly and devious way of a warfare.
Ukrainian President Selensky said at the end of the NATO summit in Vilnius, “Germany saved thousands of lives with its defensive weapons to Ukraine.” True.
But the use of cluster bombs in Ukraine – by anyone – will cost thousands of Ukrainian lives. This use also has a high political and moral cost for the U.S. and for Ukraine. Therefore, no cluster bombs to Ukraine-primarily because of the people of Ukraine. They would be the victims.
Source
Franz Alt 2023 / Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
