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GENEVA / CLUSTER BOMBS LAUNCH
STORY: GENEVA / CLUSTER BOMBS LAUNCH
TRT: 3.10
SOURCE: CH UNTV / UNMIS / UNTV / UNHCR
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE 16 NOVEMBER 2011, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / FILE
1. Wide shot, exterior Palais des Nations, Geneva.
2. Wide shot, sign for meeting outside the Palais des Nations
3. Cutaway, journalist at the Room III Palais des Nations, Geneva.
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Steve Goose, Director of the Arms Division at Human Rights Watch and Co-Chair of the international Cluster Munitions Coalition (CMC):
“Something unique, something unprecedented and highly disturbing is happening in Geneva. We have a situation where an international convention with very high standards, comprehensively banning cluster munitions entered into force a little over a year ago, became binding international law, and yet we have governments here, this week and next week, negotiating a new international treaty on cluster munitions, with much lower standards. This has never happened before in international humanitarian law, where you have a treaty that has been agreed by the majority of the world’s nations with very high standards and then states get together and try and negotiate an alternative treat with very low standards. We find this outrageous.”
4. Cutaway, journalist at the Room III
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Steve Goose, Director of the Arms Division at Human Rights Watch and Co-Chair of the international Cluster Munitions Coalition (CMC):
“We disturbingly had two incidences of use in 2011. First we had Thailand firing cluster munitions into Cambodia during their border conflict in February 2011 and then in April we saw Gadaffi forces using cluster munitions in the Libyan city of Misrata.”
6. Cutaway, Cluster Munitions Monitor Report
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Steve Goose, Director of the Arms Division at Human Rights Watch and Co-Chair of the international Cluster Munitions Coalition (CMC):
“We have a number of confirmed casualties globally through the end of 2010 which is just under 17,000, but we are convinced that that number does not mean a whole lot. We think that a huge number of casualties go unrecorded and that the more realistic figure is an estimate between 20 and 54,000 casualties. Casualties include both deaths and injuries. We hope as time goes on we have a clearer picture of what this number is. We have counted cluster munitions casualties in at least 29 countries and three other areas. Libya being added to the list this year with the new use in that country.”
8. Close up, journalists going through pages of the Cluster Munitions Monitor Report
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Steve Goose, Director of the Arms Division at Human Rights Watch and Co-Chair of the international Cluster Munitions Coalition (CMC):
“We do not have any evidence that Syria has used cluster munitions. There were some allegations a while back, but they did not seem to pan out, we could not find any evidence of use of cluster munitions. There are credible reports that Syria has laid landmines on the border with Lebanon just in recent weeks, but not cluster munitions.”
FILE - UNMIS - 25 NOVEMBER 2008, MALAKAL, SOUTH SUDAN
10. Med shot, “danger mines” sign
FILE - UNTV - FEBRUARY 2008, RAJAF REGION, SOUTH SUDAN
11. Zoom in, landmine
12. Close up, landmine
FILE - UNHCR - 26 AUGUST 2008, AITA AL JABAL, LEBANON
13. Various shots, searching for cluster bombs
14. Various shots, cluster bombs
15. Wide shot, de-miner climbing down from rubble
16. Wide shot, clearing of a cluster bomb and explosion
As diplomats from more than 100 countries gathered in Geneva this week to discuss plans for phasing out cluster bombs, the "Cluster Munition Monitor 2011" report was launched today detailing the progress made by Governments around the world in banning and destroying the indiscriminate weapons.
The report detailed how cluster munitions had caused casualties in at least 29 countries with Libya being added to the list this year.
It also showed progress made in implementing the international treaty banning cluster munitions which 111 countries have now joined but warned that cluster bombs remain stockpiled in 69 nations a year after an international law took effect to ban them. The Cluster Munition Coalition says 12 nations have destroyed part of their stockpiles, leaving at least 610,263 cluster bombs containing 101.5 million submunitions.
Campaigners are urging Governments to support an existing ban on the use of cluster bombs, and not create a new international law permitting use of these weapons.
Coalition co-chair Steve Goose of Human Rights Watch told reporters “Something unique, something unprecedented and highly disturbing is happening in Geneva. You have a treaty that has been agreed by the majority of the world’s nations with very high standards and then states get together and try and negotiate an alternative treat with very low standards. We find this outrageous.”
The United States and other countries are pushing for a new protocol that would allow the continued use, production, trade, and stockpiling of the cluster weapons. Most countries of the world, 111 in all, have already signed or ratified the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, which comprehensively bans the weapon.
Asked whether Syria had used cluster munitions, Goose said that there are "credible reports that Syria has laid landmines on the border with Lebanon just in recent weeks, but not cluster munitions.”
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