All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
And it was funny just now I called England and I've never heard a telephone line sound so bad in my whole life, but it was just the luck of the circuit of the bad luck of the draw, but then I made it work and it sounds crystal clear.
Everything's good.
It's all going to work out.
And now, uh, on the line is Thomas Nash on that good line that we have now.
Uh, and he is an activist working on, uh, the convention on cluster munitions.
Welcome to the show, Thomas.
How are you doing?
Good.
Thanks.
I'm actually, uh, in New York at the moment, uh, in the UN building.
Oh, really?
It's good to join up.
Well, no wonder we have that bad line.
We had to go across the ocean and back again then.
That's right.
All right.
Well, cool.
Uh, and so I'm sorry for the vague introduction there.
Uh, you are the coordinator of the cluster munitions coalition, an umbrella body that has campaigned for the band since 2003.
And so, uh, tell us why, uh, or how you got started on this.
First of all, please.
Sure thing.
Well, the, many people will be aware of the international campaign to ban landmines, which won the Nobel peace prize in 1997 for its efforts to put an end to the suffering caused by anti-personnel landmines.
Well, uh, the, many of the people involved in that campaign decided in 2003 to, to launch a new campaign to deal with cluster bombs, which were not covered by that treaty.
And so we've been working hard for the last, uh, you know, six, seven years to get a new international treaty that bans this weapon.
And we had a breakthrough moment in 2008 where countries agreed to negotiate and sign a convention that is a complete prohibition on all cluster bombs, and it requires clearance of land assistance to survivors and destruction of stocks.
Uh, that, that treaty entered into force legally around the world on the 1st of August this year.
And the first meeting of the state parties to this convention is going to take place, uh, in, in just a few weeks time in Laos, uh, Southeast Asia, which is the biggest, um, which is the area most affected by cluster bombs in the whole world after suffering a massive, uh, bombing campaign by the US, uh, during the Vietnam war.
Yes.
I actually read, uh, recently that I believe it was over 700 Laotians are killed every year by, um, you know, so-called dud, uh, cluster bomb fragments.
It's impossible to say how many people are being killed and injured, uh, by cluster munitions, because the, there is systematic under-reporting.
Many of the people who are affected by these weapons in Laos, uh, are just, uh, you know, they're, they're, they're not able to get to a hospital.
They're not able to, to get treatment because they're in very remote areas.
And so very often we, we don't even hear about the deaths and injuries, but the problem is much, much wider than just deaths and injuries of, uh, of, of innocent people, uh, as you say, decades after the conflict, the problem is actually one, uh, even worse of, uh, socioeconomic deprivation and, uh, hindrance to general development, uh, in economic life, because these weapons prevent the safe use of land.
Uh, they prevent, uh, development in general, uh, and they make it extremely difficult for people to live a normal life.
And just to, to, to give you a very important point, the opportunity costs, not just the, the money wasted on them, not just the destruction caused by them, uh, back then, but over time, the good things that could have happened that didn't because of this problem, a very important point.
Oh, exactly.
I mean, just to, just to sort of bring it home to listeners.
I mean, uh, over, over nine years, uh, this, this secret bombing campaign that the U S waged over, over Laos, uh, dropped the equivalent of one B 52 load of full of cluster bombs every eight minutes for nine years, people were living in caves in Laos, trying to prevent themselves from being killed and injured from this incessant rain of death from American bombers.
And it's just shocking to think that 35 years, 40 years later, people are still suffering from, from, from this mindless use of, of, of, of cluster munitions and other bombs, uh, over, over, over Laos.
I'm picturing the mansion and the yacht and the fortune of the people who owned the company that had the contract with Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon to supply those bombs.
Yeah.
I mean, it's, it's, it's shocking really to think, uh, of what went on, but I suppose the message now is one of, of, of hope and expectation that this global treaty, uh, which has been signed by most of the world's nations, uh, will now provide a comprehensive response that allows, uh, the, all of the people in affected countries, not just in Laos, but also in Lebanon and other places that have been scarred by cluster munitions to put together a, uh, a real platform that will allow, uh, accelerated clearance so that nobody has to have these weapons on their land anymore, uh, expanded coverage of services to victims so that people can be rehabilitated, fully included in society, uh, and a real forum for providing, uh, assistance from donor countries in the rich world, uh, to, to assist with the projects that, uh, many of the affected countries, which all too often are also the poor countries in the world, uh, need to, to get, uh, to get beyond this, uh, tragic remnant from, from past conflict, uh, and, uh, and, and get back on their feet.
All right.
Um, everybody, it's Thomas Nash.
He is the coordinator of the campaign, uh, to push this convention on cluster munitions.
It did take effect on August the 1st, uh, August the 1st.
And, uh, I believe, uh, let's see, I'm looking at a UPI story here.
It says 108, 108 countries have signed the treaty and 39 countries have already gone so far as to ratify the United States, Russia, China, and Israel are among those who have not signed.
That's right.
Yeah.
I mean, we, we, uh, in our view, uh, this has already set a new benchmark in the conduct of armed conflict.
Those countries that have not signed, uh, are, will find themselves on the wrong side of history.
And we believe that they will, uh, have to take into account this new global norm that is emerging, uh, around cluster bombs that rejects them as a, as an unacceptable weapon that is, uh, never to be used, never to be produced.
And, uh, we believe that we'll, we'll soon see the same phenomenon that we have seen with anti-personnel landmines whereby even though the United States has not signed the treaty banning landmines, that's not used landmines since 1997.
They don't produce landmines anymore and they haven't been exporting landmines.
So what, what we believe is that yes, they need to focus on the countries that haven't signed.
But what's more important is to focus on the global stigmatization of the, of these weapons and the, uh, the, the humanitarian response, which you cannot argue with, uh, millions and millions of minds have been cleared since the treaty banning the weapon was, was signed in 1987.
We are now going to work, uh, extremely hard to make sure we see the same results through the convention on cluster munitions, whereby we will clear up all of the unexploded cluster bombs and will provide improved lives for those people who have already been affected, uh, and, and really, um, put an end to the suffering that this weapon continues to cause around the world.
And they really are horrible things too.
Um, anyone could go to YouTube and see videos of, uh, demonstrations of cluster bombs, uh, if you're lucky, you won't have to see video of them being used on people, uh, just out in the desert.
And that's really the thing about these cluster bombs is, you know, I guess you could argue they were designed for the way they were used in, in Laos during the Vietnam war, for example.
But I think the, at least public justification for a weapon like this would be to use against Soviet tanks, pouring through the folder gap into Germany and that we couldn't stop them without using weapons like this or even atomic bombs.
And yet those days are long over.
Now they're used in wars like Israel's war against Lebanon in 2006, where the New York times reported us in emergency export of bombs with wide blast, they called them, meaning one bomb breaks into, I don't know how many little bombs that blow up when they hit the ground and terror, whoever happens to be nearby to little pieces.
Hmm.
Yeah.
I mean, you're right.
I mean, these weapons, they're, they're, they were designed for a weapon that never, they were designed for a war that never happened.
I mean, they were designed for, you know, the day when the cold war went hot.
Right.
All right.
Hold it right there, Thomas.
Sorry.
We're up against this break.
It's Thomas Nash.
Everybody's trying to ban cluster bombs.
It's anti-war radio.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Wharton, a friend in the chat room just posted a link to a Wikipedia entry about a movie called bomb harvest, uh, put out in 2007 about attempts to clean up cluster bomb fragments and remains and so-called duds that are still hot.
Um, I don't remember where I got the number from, but, uh, I believe the last I thought I knew 75 million cluster bombs have been dropped on Laos.
And now, um, we're talking with Thomas Nash and, uh, he's the coordinator of the campaign to, uh, make cluster bombs illegal on the planet earth.
And, uh, you said the numbers earlier, uh, about how many cluster bombs were, uh, dropped on Laos in that, uh, so-called secret undeclared war during Vietnam.
That's right.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, as I think the, the figures that you're citing are the 70 million, there are around 280 million, uh, unexploded, well, 280 million submunition, the individual bomblets from within the bigger cluster bomb were dropped on Laos throughout that war.
And the estimates are that that's almost as many people as in America right now.
That's more than the population of the United States at the time.
Yeah.
And I mean, if you compare it to the population of, of Laos, then, uh, it's mind boggling the number of bombs that were dropped per person.
Then what they estimate is that, I mean, it's impossible to tell, but the estimates are that between 70 and 80 million unexploded, uh, submunitions, uh, remain on the ground in, in Laos, uh, threatening to kill and injure people every day.
Uh, so, and then, you know, that's just now.
So, I mean, we've got, we've got, we've got similar, not, not the same scale, but we have, uh, you know, problems, uh, in, in Lebanon, uh, we still have problems in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Uh, there are problems, uh, remaining throughout the Balkans, uh, from, from cluster bomb.
Yeah.
Mines is another problem that is, uh, you know, pervasive in a, in a, in a number of countries.
Uh, so there is a, there's a huge challenge out there to, first of all, stop people from using these unexploded, these, these unacceptable weapons.
And then second of all, to, to get the international community to pull together and, uh, and, and, and clear up the mess, uh, help the survivors, uh, and, um, and prevent this from ever happening again.
My God.
It sounds like a Iraq war sized project to clean up these bombs.
And, you know, I mean, I guess Iraq is a desert.
Afghanistan's mostly rubble of one kind or another gravel, um, cluster bomb units.
I can imagine, you know, at least the possibility of them being cleaned up, but the jungle in Laos, how do you clean up?
How does one harvest cluster bombs in Laos?
Yeah, well, it is, it is incredibly challenging.
And, you know, first of all, uh, the, the, the priority areas are obviously the areas that are being used for agriculture.
So part of the task of the local authorities who are in charge of, of cleaning up this deadly legacy in areas of priority, uh, areas of, uh, infrastructure and agriculture, uh, and then clear those up, um, and then move to, to, to other areas that can, that could be opened up, uh, for exploitation, um, by development, by agriculture, uh, by local communities, uh, to compound the problem you, you have after 40 years, many of these unexploded bombs have, have, have been buried.
Uh, and so you, you, you need to use, um, things called large loop detectors, which are able to, um, detect, uh, this, uh, these bombs, uh, subsurface, and this is very, very time consuming work.
And, you know, we, you were mentioning earlier the diversion of resources.
I mean, not only is this, uh, you're preventing development, preventing, you know, socioeconomic growth, but it's, it's also diverting resources that could be put into, you know, humanitarian protection and development, uh, and instead putting them into clearance work and, and be mining.
Uh, and so, uh, so the legacy is really, it's really shocking.
And what we hope is that, uh, you know, the United States as a, you know, the country that's responsible for this will increase dramatically its contribution, uh, to clearance.
And it should be said, uh, to be fair that the U S is the largest contributor to clearance, uh, of, uh, cluster munitions in Laos.
And that's obviously welcome, but we believe it's, it's not enough.
It's nowhere near enough.
And the increases that we've seen recently are positive from, from the United States, there's a group called legacies of war, which has been advocating, uh, from DC, uh, about, uh, the, the need for the U S to increase contribution.
And they've had some success with a hearing in the Senate this year on, on the problem of UXO unexploded ordinance in Laos.
And, uh, you know, I was talking to some of these guys here, here this week in New York, and, and there is a sense of hope now that, uh, this new administration may be more open to, uh, to come into terms with that history and to, to really stepping up to, uh, to provide a real support in a way that hasn't happened in the past.
So we're hoping that, that we'll be able to keep pushing through, um, these positive developments and really start to see, um, you know, the United States taking responsibility along with other countries, uh, to, to, to put an end to the suffering.
Well, you know, you're right when you say that it's all about the attitudes, even if you can't get Russia, China, and the United States to sign onto the thing yet, um, you can still get the recognition in, in people's minds, uh, of, you know, what's on this side of the line and what's crossing it.
And who knows nowadays in an era of torture and all that, but, uh, at least as far as I know, Thomas in world war two, during total war, uh, between the United States and, uh, the allies versus the Nazis in Europe, they didn't use poison gas as they'd used in the first world war.
Neither side did because it was just too horrible.
Let them kill each other with bullets and bombs, but man, poison gas is chlorine and mustard and all this.
It's just too much.
Let's not do it this time.
And we could have that same attitude about cluster bombs.
Lord knows we don't obey.
Then the United States government doesn't obey the international law anyway, but they can be made to obey certain mores, you know, as far as what is just going way too far, I think, I hope.
Yeah, well, that's right.
I mean, I think that you've hit the nail on the head there.
The point is that even war has limits and people have, have rejected poison gas.
People have rejected blinding lasers.
People have rejected exploding bullets.
So people have, have, have taken that further in recent years and rejected landmines and rejected cost of munitions.
And I think it's a, it's a positive sign that we as, as a, as a human race, uh, do recognize that there are some things which are just unacceptable.
And unfortunately, yes, we continue to, to fight and, and kill each other.
And I think most people would agree that that's, that's something we, we, we want to move away from.
Um, and, uh, and, and try to prevent and try to think of ways to solve our problems that don't involve violence.
And, you know, there are many communities in the world that that are making progress on this.
But what we, what we need to do is focus on when there is a conflict, uh, we need to stop civilians being caught in the crossfire and we need to protect people from being killed and injured, uh, indiscriminately.
Uh, and, and I think that's, uh, you know, that's, that's a, it's a positive sign that we've been able to achieve global treaties that ban landmines and bankrupted on, and, uh, you know, we need to, you know, we need to use these lessons, uh, to, to take, uh, take, take further steps.
I mean, nuclear weapons are still not illegal.
Yeah.
Oh boy.
There's all of the conversation and we're all out of time, Thomas, but everybody, that's Thomas Nash.
Give us a web address real quick.
Do you have one?www.stopclusterbombs.org.stopclusterbombs.org.
Thank you.
