WVCBL joins the U.S. Campaign to Ban Cluster Bombs To Call for U.S. to Reject \u00a0Any Possible Use of Cluster Munitions in Syria<\/b>\u00a0<\/b>Washington, D.C.\u2014<\/b> The<\/b>West Virginia Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Bombs joins the U.S. Campaign to Ban Cluster Bombs to call on the United States to refrain from using any form of cluster munition in possible military actions in Syria. The Campaign also supports the international Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) in its call on the 112 countries that have joined the Convention on Cluster Munitions to help ensure that these weapons are not used by the U.S. in Syria.<\/b><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/b>According to the\u00a0New York Times,<\/a>\u00a0several U.S. officials have said that Syria strike plans include use of Tomahawk cruise missiles launched by the U.S. Navy. Tomahawk cruise missiles can carry a variety of different kinds of warheads; one Tomahawk model has a capacity for a weapons payload of 166 BLU-97 cluster submunitions. <\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b>\u201cCluster bombs indiscriminately kill and maim innocent civilians\u2014the same civilians the U.S. is trying to protect,\u201d said Zach Hudson, coordinator of the U.S. Campaign to Ban Cluster Bombs. \u201cRegardless of whether you support or oppose U.S. intervention in Syria, cluster bombs simply should not be used. Their humanitarian toll far outweighs any military utility.\u201d \u201cAny conceivable use of cluster bombs is outweighed by the moral consequences\u201d says Nora Sheets, WVCBL coordinator. \u201cCluster munitions are unreliable and pose an unacceptable danger to civilians. <\/b>Especially tragic is the indiscriminate nature of these weapons leading to the destruction of innocent life, especially children, during and after wartime hostilities have ceased.\u201d<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b>The CMC has repeatedly\u00a0condemned\u00a0Syria\u2019s use of cluster munitions as have more than 100 states, including dozens like the U.S. who are not yet States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. In October 2012, the then-Permanent Representative of the U.S. to the United Nations, Ambassador Susan Rice,\u00a0said\u00a0that cluster bomb use by Syrian government forces was an example of \u201catrocities\u201d by the Syrian regime. In May 2013, the United States also voted for a UN General Assembly\u00a0resolution\u00a0that strongly condemned Syria\u2019s use of cluster munitions.<\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b>\u201cThe United States has condemned cluster munitions use by other countries like Syria,\u201d said Hudson. \u201cIt would be entirely hypocritical for the administration to now use this weapon.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b>The last reported use of a cluster munition by the U.S. was in\u00a0December 2009 in Yemen, when one or more Tomahawk cruise missiles loaded with BLU-97 bomblets struck the hamlet of al-Majala in the southern Abyan province. The strike killed at least 41 civilians and at least four more civilians were killed and 13 wounded by unexploded bomblets after the attack. Four years later, the site of the attack remains contaminated by cluster munition remnants. The United States also used Tomahawk cruise missiles with BLU-97 bomblets in strikes in\u00a0Iraq\u00a0between 1991 and 2003, in\u00a0Serbia\u00a0in 1999, and in Afghanistan and Sudan in August 1998.<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cWe call on all states that have joined the Convention on Cluster Munitions to urge the U.S. to explicitly rule out any use of cluster munitions in military operations in Syria,\u201d said CMC Director Sarah Blakemore. \u201cAny use of these weapons would contradict the purpose of the Convention on Cluster Munitions to prevent the suffering and casualties caused by cluster munitions.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b>Under Article 21 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, all States Parties have a legal obligation to discourage non-signatories from using cluster munitions. States Parties have repeatedly reiterated their obligation under the convention to \u201cdiscourage in every way\u201d any use of cluster munitions. <\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b>Neither the United States nor Syria is a States Party to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions.\u00a0The U.S. has joined the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, but Syria has not.<\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b>\u201cCluster munitions used by the Syrian regime have already caused numerous civilian casualties as they have done in every other conflict in which they have been used,\u201d said Blakemore. \u201cIt makes absolutely no sense to use banned weapons to retaliate for the use of another banned weapon.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b>Under the 2008\u00a0U.S. Department of Defense policy,\u00a0by the end of 2018 the U.S. will no longer use cluster munitions that result in more than one percent unexploded ordnance (UXO). The policy requires Combatant Commanders to approve the use of cluster munitions that exceed a one percent unexploded ordnance rate. The BLU-97 bomblet does not meet this criteria of a less than one percent failure rate. In addition, U.S. law requires that recipients of U.S. transfers of cluster munitions agree the cluster munitions \u201cwill not be used where civilians are known to be present.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0Nora D. Sheets\u00a0 <\/b>Coordinator\/WVCBL: West Virginia Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Bombs\/PSALM: Proud Students <\/b><\/p>\n