UK Cluster Bomb Ban can go one step further, says Fiona Hall MEP

10.00.00am GMT Thu 20th Nov 2008

North East MEP Fiona Hall, has called on all EU Member States to sign the UN Convention on Cluster Munitions, when the document opens for signatures in December.

The text of the Convention, which seeks to outlaw the use of all cluster munitions, was agreed by over 100 countries at a summit in Dublin in May this year.

However Fiona, is worried that since then some countries have backtracked on their support for the text.

In the past, the UK has actively looked to water down the Convention. Fiona has therefore welcomed news that the Government has recently confirmed its intention to sign and begin destroying its cluster bomb supplies.

Commenting after a European Parliamentary debate on the issue of cluster bombs, Fiona said:

"Because the small bomblets which form a cluster bomb are designed to litter wide areas, and do not always explode on impact, they can kill or main civilians long after conflict has ended. In Vietnam for example, people are still being blown up by cluster bombs, thirty years after the Vietnam war finished.

"Cluster bombs are designed to kill indiscriminately and cause as much bloodshed as possible. They do not distinguish between innocent civilians caught up in conflict and the armed forces. It is civilians who make up 90% of all bomb cluster casualties.

Fiona, who sits on the European Parliament's Development Committee, is also worried about the effects cluster bombs have on war torn developing countries and the development process.

Said Fiona, "Locating unexploded bombs after a conflict has ended, is both costly and time consuming and takes vital resources away from the post-war reconstruction and rebuilding process.

"I am very pleased that by signing the convention in December, the UK will show it's commitment to ending all cluster bomb use. But I now ask the Government to go one step further by openly encouraging all EU Member States to sign the Convention and see the benefits of banning cluster bombs. This act of unity would send a clear message to the rest of the world that the countries of the Europe Union will not tolerate cluster bombs."