GENEVA - A global treaty to prevent deaths and maiming by
clearing up unexploded bombs in war-stricken countries came into
force on Sunday, but several powers such as Israel, which scattered
Lebanon with cluster bombs earlier this year, had not signed
up.
From Sunday, 25 signatory countries must start removing unexploded
shells, grenades, rockets and cluster bombs left over from
conflicts or pay for their removal, under the Protocol on Explosive
Remnants of War, signed in 2003.
'This is the first international agreement to require the parties
to an armed conflict to clear all unexploded munitions that
threaten civilians, peacekeepers and humanitarian workers once the
fighting is over,' the International Committee of the Red Cross
said in a statement.
All the world's main military powers took part in formulating the
document, the ICRC said. But key countries such as China, Russia
and the United States have not signed.
Also absent from the signatories is Israel, which came under
scrutiny over cluster bombs after its month-long bombardment of
southern Lebanon in July and August when it tried to crush
Hezbollah Shiite militants in the country.
Since the conflict, the clearing of unexploded ordnance has
progressed slowly because Israel has refused to give details of the
areas targeted by these devices. Unexploded cluster bombs in
Lebanon have killed 23 people and wounded 136 since the official
end of fighting.
The ICRC has said that 95 to 98 per cent of cluster munitions are
neither reliable nor accurate, while 10 to 40 per cent of the
bomblets scattered by a mother bomb fail to explode.
The start date for the new protocol coincides with a UN conference
to review another proposed treaty that would go one step further
than a clean-up by banning some types of munitions. The conference
runs in Geneva until Nov 17. -- AFP
