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Bring it on

© DanChurchAid

I am dead tired writing this. The second anticlimax in two days is a bit of an emotional roller coaster. That coupled with jetlag and long working hours (that of course include also a fair amount of always work-related “pisco sour” and beer drinking) is a great recipe for one feeling completely knackered.

But the anticlimax today is more of a positive one than yesterday. It has to do with the fact that what we wanted to achieve was achieved and not much is left to be said tomorrow – except preparing the future ground.

The great battle that we were expecting with the countries crossing our “red lines” – self destruct mechanisms, reliability rates, non-dangerous vs. dangerous duds – did not really happen. We really expected some heavy fire based on some countries being so adamant on putting the issue of definitions forward. But the heavy fire was missing.

Cluster bombs are complex weapons. A short time before the bomblets are released from the plane, the cluster bombs begin to spin. The canister opens at an altitude between 100m and 1000m. The height, velocity and rotation speed determine what area will be covered by the bomblets. Read more about campaigning against the use of cluster munitions: www.stopclustermunitions.org .

So while we all were thinking “bring it on” at the start of the session discussing the definitions today, most punches were thus striking in thin air.

Because the other side had no real arguments. It still applied same vague concepts of “military necessity”, “military utility” with no real substance. No real proof of a necessity of the weapon that we think is ripe to be put in the cold war museum.

And we had substance in ours. Documented failure rates much greater than those proclaimed by the producers and the military achieved in the laboratory and controlled environments. Documented failures of 10% of clusters with self-destruct mechanisms in South Lebanon. 440 million submunitions dropped in the world since 1965, between 22 million and 132 million still scattered in 25 affected countries. 98 percent of victims civilians.

There IS NO JUSTIFICATION for keeping this weapon. No examples were given to us today by the countries arguing for “technical fixes” of instances where the weapon actually helped achieving the military objective, winning the war and or winning the hearts of the populations that are being blown up long after the conflict has ended. Not one example in more than 40 years of use. Would you buy the same goods from anybody for 40 years when what you were buying failed to deliver what it promised every single time? It all reminds me (I know I cannot keep animal references out of these blogs) of a gullible Wile E. Coyote.

It was so great to hear people actually using the words treaty and convention today. It is a real proof that it will happen and that we are on a real path to prohibiting this inhumane weapons. And it is bloody great to be part of the process.

You can help! Ban cluster munitions!

Cluster munitions are weapons that have killed and maimed tens of thousands of innocent civilians. Sign up now!