The United States in sending banned cluster bombs to Ukraine as President Joe Biden is in great hurry is somehow ending the war in Ukraine by the end of this year as he now feels, further delay in it would have serious impact on his reelection bids next year.
Meanwhile, Geneva-based Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) in a statement said:
The Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) is appalled by the United States’ plans to transfer banned cluster munitions to Ukraine, as reported in the New York Times. The transfer of the weapon, prohibited under the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, follows repeated requests by Ukrainian officials for cluster munitions to counter the Russian invasion.
Since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine in February, Russia has used cluster munitions extensively, causing civilian harm, damaging civilian infrastructure, and contaminating agricultural land. Ukrainian forces have used cluster munitions on several occasions in the war according to the United Nations, Human Rights Watch and other reporting. Russia, Ukraine and the United States remain outside of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
“The Biden administration’s decision to transfer cluster munitions will contribute to the terrible casualties being suffered by Ukrainian civilians both immediately and for years to come. Russia and Ukraine’s use of cluster munitions is adding to Ukraine’s already massive contamination from explosive remnants and landmines”, said Paul Hannon, International Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Munition Coalition Governance Board Vice Chair.
The exceptional move was authorized by a presidential waiver allowing the US to transfer cluster munitions that have a greater than one percent unexploded ordnance rate.
States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions should oppose any transfer and use of the weapon, and urge Russia and Ukraine to not use cluster munitions due to the foreseeable harm to civilians.
Cluster munitions are delivered by artillery, rockets, missiles, and aircraft.
They open in mid-air and disperse dozens or hundreds of submunitions, also called bomblets, over a wide area. Cluster munitions not only kill at time of impact, they also leave a lethal trail of unexploded ordnance threatening lives for years to come.
The CMC calls for an immediate halt to transfers of the internationally banned weapon, and urges the United States, as well as Russia and Ukraine, to join the Cluster Munition Convention as soon as possible to guarantee protection of civilians and respect for international humanitarian law.
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Munition Coalition (ICBL-CMC) is a global network of civil society organizations working for a world free of landmines, cluster munitions, and other explosive remnants of war, where all lives are protected. A world where contaminated land is cleared and returned to local populations for productive use and where the needs of survivors, their families and affected communities are met and their human rights guaranteed.
The cluster munitions that the US government is considering sending are the so-called “dual-purpose improved conventional munitions, or DPICM”.
According to Laura Cooper, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, mentioned by CBS, these weapons would be “useful” on the battlefield, despite restrictions on their use imposed by domestic and international law.
“Our military analysts have confirmed that DPICMs would be useful, especially against dug-in Russian positions on the battlefield (…) The reason why you have not seen a move forward in providing this capability relates both to the existing Congressional restrictions on the provision of DPICMs and concerns about allied unity. But from a battlefield effectiveness perspective, we do believe it would be useful”, she said.
What makes cluster munitions so controversial and restricted is the detail that they contain a great number of small projectiles inside, which spread in the air after the shot, reaching a much higher number of victims than conventional weapons. There is, however, an even bigger problem, which is the fact that not all “bomblets” detonate at the time of attack, often falling in places far from the front and exploding sometime later, when touched by a civilian. This generates insecurity and unnecessary human suffering in the long term, mainly affecting innocent people without military involvement.
This decision of sending banned cluster bombs to Ukraine would certainly generate serious concern as we are aware that a large segment of western military hardware sent to Ukraine are getting disappeared and finally landing into the hands of underworld weapon market. What would happen once these banned bombs would be made available to militancy outfits such as Al Qaeda or Islamist State? What would even happen once Afghanistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir based terrorists succeed in buying these bombs from the black market? There is no doubt, Ukrainian forces would not limit only in using cluster bombs on Russian soldiers. It may even try to hit civilian thus resulting in death of hundreds of thousands of non-military innocent people. Moreover, for those exploded cluster bombs, there will be serious risk for anyone in Ukraine, as it would explode and cause tremendous destruction once it comes under human touch.
