Week of Action to Ban Cluster Bombs

April 19th – 27th

Help join us in a call to action by signing the Austcare online petition. 

The following is taken directly from the Austcare website:

"It’s estimated cluster bombs have killed or maimed more than ten thousand people around the world. Often the victims are children or other innocent civilians. A cluster bomb works by opening in flight and covering an area with a series of smaller bomblets. Sometimes it’s the initial attack that claims unlucky residents, other times it’s disturbing a live bomblet that didn’t detonate on impact. Laws to ban cluster bombs are currently being developed and Australia will join the final negotiations in May. Whether our Government agrees to sign the treaty depends on us making a stand and convincing the politicians Australians want this devastating weapon outlawed."

and

"For almost 50 years cluster bombs have killed and maimed innocent civilians. While governments and organisations around the world are working to develop international laws that ban these devastating weapons, the Australian Government is in the process of buying a new artillery shell that many experts say is a "cluster". Cluster bombs are containers that are dropped from aircraft or fired from the ground and are designed to break open in midair, releasing submunitions and saturating an area that can be the size of several football fields. Cluster bombs were first used in World War II by German and Soviet forces. During the 1970s, the USA used massive numbers of cluster bombs in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. More recently, cluster bombs were used extensively in the Gulf War, Chechnya, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and in Lebanon in 2006. Because cluster munitions often fail to explode on impact, they continue to kill and injure men, women and children long after a conflict has ended. Those who survive are often left without their limbs and without their eyesight. Not only is this devastating for them, but it also hinders development in their whole community."

Help join us in a call to action by signing the Austcare online petition.