By Ana Gomes - 16th November 2006
Ana Gomes MEP says the EU must use the weapons conference in Geneva to ban cluster bombs.
I have always said that the EU should take a leading role in fighting for global arms control and disarmament.
Much is expected from us, since no other major global factor has the resolve and the credibility to take these crucial causes forward.
This is why I and others expect so much from the third review conference on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW),
which takes place from 7 to 17 November in Geneva.
One issue of particular relevance, and one which will certainly figure prominently in the conference’s programme, is the issue of how to control cluster bombs.
Quite simply, many of us in the European parliament believe that these horrendous weapons should be banned altogether, and that this review conference is a perfect opportunity to do it.
The catastrophic effects of the use of cluster bombs by Israel in southern Lebanon are there for all to see and feel. Hizbullah also used them indiscriminately on Israeli cities, albeit not on such a massive scale.
For that reason I have joined fellow MEPs Beer, von Wogau, Neyts and Zimmer in a cross-party initia- tive to send a letter to the Finish presidency of the European council, asking for clarifications on what the EU’s position is
going to be in the review conference. We have three main concerns.
We would like to know what common guidelines and principles the EU has agreed upon for negotiations in the review conference.
We also asked if these guidelines would be developed into a binding EU common position.
And we asked if any common position would include support for a mandate to negotiate a complete and unambiguous ban of the production, stockpiling, transfer and use of all types of cluster munitions.
Is this a utopian position? Should it be abandoned for a more careful, tactical approach as some in the EU think? We do not think so.
The reason for the ultimate success of the Ottawa Convention on Antipersonnel Landmines was the simplicity of its principles (no more use, no more production, no more transfer).
The European Defence Agency, for example, which was created to help the member states of the EU think, act, buy and sell more collectively in the field of defence, recently produced a long term vision for European defence capability and capacity needs, where it clearly stated that in taking into account the nature of modern warfare, “serious thought needs to be given to the future utility of unguided munitions....as well as cluster bombs, mines and other weapons of indiscriminate effect.”
These weapons are wrong and immoral and they have to be banned once and for all, just like anti-personnel landmines were.
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