AS SUMMIT APPROACHES, PUSH TO BAN CLUSTER BOMBS MUST BE KEPT UP, URGES MEP

8.25.00pm GMT Fri 23rd Nov 2007

If other countries are to be saved from the ongoing horror of cluster bombs which continues in southern Lebanon, the public must get behind the campaign for a worldwide ban in advance of the December Vienna summit, says a West Midlands LibDem Euro MP.

Liz Lynne MEP, Member of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and a leading campaigner against cluster munitions, recently co-tabled a European Parliamentary resolution calling for European and global action on cluster munitions which was adopted with a large majority.

Ms Lynne feels that if politicians are brave and particularly European politicians can speak with a unified voice, real progress in the Oslo process, towards ending the manufacture and use of cluster bombs, can be made. Speaking at an exhibition on cluster munitions and landmines at the European Parliament she said:

"Every year thousands of civilians, many of them children, are indiscriminately killed or injured by cluster bombs. Dreams are shattered and lives are destroyed.

"The European Parliament has laid down the gauntlet but it is now up to national governments to take up the challenge of stopping the use of these horrific weapons. Anything less on the part of the governments that still use, stockpile or manufacture cluster bombs would be an act of cowardice.

"The shocking fact is that cluster munitions are stockpiled in over 15 EU Member States and at least 10 EU Member States are producing them - France, Spain , Greece , Italy , the Netherlands , Poland , Romania , Slovakia , Sweden and Bulgaria . It is my view that these countries, as well as of course those who have used them, including the UK, have blood on their hands.

"Diplomatic manoeuvres by the UK Government and others to suggest there are "dumb" and "smart" cluster munitions must be given short shrift. They all kill and maim. The word 'smart' could not be more misleading or more inappropriate.

"Over eight years since the Ottawa treaty banning landmines, unexploded cluster bomblets are having much the same effect as mines used to. We need an immediate moratorium on the use, investment, stockpiling, production, transfer or export of all cluster munitions. All states which have used them must accept responsibility for their clearance."