Lebanon hosts Conf on cluster bombs

Tue Sep 13, 2011

The delegates from more than 100 countries are participating in a five-day conference on cluster munitions with aim to eradicate the inhuman weapon.

Organizers have said that hundreds of thousands of unexploded cluster bombs remain in Lebanon after being dropped by Israel during the July 2006 war, The Daily Star reported on Tuesday.

“These bombs have until today disabled or killed more than 400 victims, therefore constituting a form of occupation [of the country],” Lebanese President Michel Sleiman said on Monday in his inaugural address in Beirut.

The conference will last through Friday.

Sleiman added, these weapons “still threaten our citizens' lives on a daily basis while we have not yet completely removed them and obliterated their impact.”

More than 200,000 unexploded cluster bombs have been found and made harmless since 2006, but millions still remain unfound in southern Lebanon.

The president said the primary reason the conference is being held in Lebanon because the country has suffered severely because of this inhuman weapon.

The UN investigations in southern Lebanon show that Israel dropped over four million cluster munitions during the last days of Tel Aviv's war on the country in 2006.

Sleiman went on to say that the legacy of the Israeli war machine throughout its aggression against Lebanon, especially during the month of July 2006, has caused huge devastation, claimed hundreds of innocent lives, and inflicted physical and moral suffering upon the Lebanese people.

An international convention on cluster munitions has been in force for over a year that requires signatories to give up the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of the weapons.

All the countries, which are participating in the Lebanon conference, have joined the convention.

The United States, Israel and Russia manufacture and stockpile most of the world's cluster munitions. They are among countries who have not signed the treaty.

International researchers say the US has transferred hundreds of thousands of cluster munitions, containing tens of millions of bomblets, to 28 countries in the world.

The worst affected countries are Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/198994.html.