Four more nations joined the growing list of countries aiming to ban cluster bombs, munitions that disperse smaller bomblets with deadly results for civilian populations, during a two-day meeting of Latin American countries that adjourned yesterday in San José.
The 19 countries, along with a number of nonprofits, met to advance the so-called Oslo Process, a campaign launched earlier this year in Norway to ban the bombs, blamed for indiscriminant deaths of civilians.
Representatives of El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Uruguay added their countries to the list of 76 nations, including Costa Rica, committed to banning the weapons.
Argentina and Chile announced that they had discontinued production of the bomblets, many of which remain unexploded to later kill or maim innocents, especially children who are attracted by their color and form.
“We have strong statements of support for the Oslo Process from virtually every state here,” said Stephen Goose, executive director of munitions for Human Rights Watch. “The only country not fully on board the Oslo Process aimed at a new treaty banning cluster munitions is Brazil.”
Brazil, a major exporter of cluster munitions, declared at the meeting that it prefers to address the issue though a U.N. process under way.
“The fact that Brazil is participating at all is a major step forward,” said Hildegarde Vansintjan of the nonprofit Belgium-based Handicap International.
Also participating in the meeting as an observer was the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, which has donated $500,000 to help clean up cluster munitions that have been used extensively over the years in wars in the Middle East, the Balkans and southeast Asia and were used in Latin America only by the British against Argentina during the Malvinas/Faulklands conflict in 1982.
Two more preparatory meetings are planned to be held in Vienna, Austria, and Wellington, New Zealand, to hammer out a treaty that would be signed in Dublin, Ireland in May, 2008. |
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