GENEVA (AFP) - Cambodia and Thailand, which were recently embroiled in a border spat during which cluster bombs were allegedly used, have announced plans to ratify the treaty that bans such weapons, activists said Friday.
The countries announced their intentions to join the Convention on Cluster Munitions during a four-day meeting in Geneva which brought together more than 80 states, as well as representatives of civil society, UN aid agencies and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
"This last week, most notably, both Thailand and Cambodia indicated their intention to join in the near future," said Steve Goose, who is from the Cluster Munition Coalition which groups over 350 non-governmental groups.
"This is significant and somewhat remarkable in that early this year Thailand was firing cluster munitions in Cambodia in their border dispute," added Goose.
This week's meeting in Geneva also heard delegations, including those of Australia, Britain, Mexico, New Zealand and Norway, condemn the use of such weapons in the ongoing Libyan conflict.
"We have a lot of countries who were condemning the use of these weapons especially by Libya ... including and most notably Spain who has provided those cluster munitions to Libya back to 2008," said Goose.
Some 109 countries have signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which entered into force on August 1 last year, and which requires signatories to stop the use, production and transfer of the deadly weapons.
Cluster munitions split open before impact and scatter multiple -- often hundreds -- of smaller submunitions, or plastic bomblets, the size and shape of a tennis ball or a table lighter over a wide area.
Many of them fail to explode immediately and can lie hidden for years, killing and maiming civilians, including children, even decades after the original conflict is over in countries such as Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.
However, China, Israel, Russia and the United States are among countries that have not signed the convention.
Those powers are thought to hoard and manufacture the bulk of the munitions, although the data is secret.
7 comments:
i supported this unprecedented move by both countries! also, i think since the three countries of cambodia, thailand and vietnam were historical enemies at some point in history, there ought to be an international treaty between these three states to ban the use of any type of cluster bomb, chemical/biological weapons, or any other illegal or banned weapons in these countries. i mean it is better for these three countries to talk, negotiate, etc etc then to fight with each other in this modern day and age, really! these three countries should sit down and talk things out without so much animosity toward each other; i'm sure they all have one toward each other. anyway, good initiative, here! keep up the good work, there ought to be a new era in diplomacy for these three countries, really! think about the benefit that overwhelm the antagonistic view or action against each other, really! this is a good way to foster permanent friendship and possibly an EU model for asean starting with these three historical enemies states by changes, really! stop treating each other like enemies if we do not want enemies, and start treating each other like friends if we want friends, ok!
let's hope the new thai administration wants to foster good friendly neighbors of mutual cooperation with cambodia or the three so-called countries mentioned above can become a reality in the near future! is it possible, only the gov't of each country can make it a reality!
the problem is these countries got to help each other out, not being greedy and breaking the law with each other nonstop again, ok! treat each other with mutual respect, that is the key to becoming good friends, you know!
it takes too much works for these countries to work cooperatively together for the common good, i think!
How about invading ban treaty?
The only problem is the Vietcong!
The 20,000 Vietcong troops and 6M.Vietnamese immigrants,can they
share with Khmer land.
Khmer people have two eyes,except
Hun Sen,they should look at Vietnam
because Yuon is more dangerous than
Thai.Khmer people should keep both
eyes on them.
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