Cambodian survivors urge action on cluster munitions

By Lauren Crothers

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AA) – Landmine survivors in Cambodia have called upon their government to step up and be a leader on the issue of cluster munitions, which continue to claim lives around the world.

On Thursday, the Cambodian arm of the Cluster Munitions Monitor -- which released its global report in Geneva earlier that day -- quoted campaigner and landmine survivor So Not as saying that the continued use of the weapons, which release bomblets upon release but which don’t always explode immediately, must be stopped.

“It is outrageous that children should be maimed and killed by them in 2016,” he said. “Refugees are forced to flee from these deadly attacks and seek homes in other places.”

Not and fellow campaigner, survivor and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Tun Channareth continue to visit with survivors of landmines and cluster bombs in the country’s northeast -- one of the most heavily contaminated areas of the world.

“There, they witness the suffering of people still carrying injuries the cluster bombs dropped in the seventies. Kratie and Stung Treng are the most heavily contaminated provinces in Cambodia. Others include Rattanakiri, Mondulkiri, Prey Veng, and Kompong Cham,” the statement said.

The global report released Thursday found that cluster bomb remnants contaminate 27 countries, and that Cambodia is among the four most contaminated countries in the world, alongside Laos, Iraq and Vietnam.

Today, the deadly weapons continue to be used heavily in Yemen and Syria, the latter having been pounded at least 360 times with cluster bombs, the report said.

In Cambodia, the most recent known use of cluster munitions was in 2011, when “Thai forces fired artillery-delivered cluster munitions with M42/M46 and M85 type DPICM submunitions into Cambodia during border clashes near Preah Vihear temple,” a previously disputed plot of land that the International Court of Justice in 2013 ruled belongs to Cambodia.

Data show around “80,000 cluster munitions, containing 26 million submunitions, were dropped on Cambodia between 1969–1973,” the report said.

Cambodia was the site of illegal carpet-bombing by United States forces during the Vietnam War, when Washington intended to deprive North Vietnam of troops and supplies and provided backing to Cambodia’s Lon Nol government as it battled swelling ranks of Khmer Rouge guerrillas -- who took over Phnom Penh in April 1975.

Baseline studies indicate that around 334 square kilometers of the country were contaminated as of May of this year. Two casualties of cluster munitions were recorded in Cambodia in 2016.

In spite of this, Cambodia is still not a State Party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, “but joining the convention was urged by both [late] King [Norodom] Sihanouk and King [Norodom] Sihamoni,” the statement said.

“Cluster and mine survivors in Cambodia urge their government to step forward and lead on this issue as Laos has done.”

The Convention bans the use of cluster munitions.

On Wednesday, Foreign Policy magazine reported that U.S. company Textron announced it would cease production of the weapons.

Officials at the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority could not be reached for comment on the Convention Thursday.