U.S. Cluster
Bombs Killed Civilians
in Afghanistan
New Report Illustrates Dangers for Iraq
During
its air war in Afghanistan, the United States dropped nearly a quarter-million
cluster bomblets that killed or injured scores of civilians, especially
children, both during and after strikes, Human Rights Watch said in
a new report released today.
The 65-page report, Fatally
Flawed: Cluster Bombs and Their Use by the United States in Afghanistan,
says that although the United States made some efforts to reduce the
civilian harm caused by its cluster bombs in Afghanistan, the fundamental
problems of the weapon remained.
Human Rights Watch found
that the United States did not take all
feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties, as required by
international humanitarian law, when it used cluster bombs in or near
populated areas. U.S. cluster bombs also left an estimated 12,400 explosive
dudsde facto antipersonnel landminesthat continue to take
civilian lives to this day.
Human Rights Watch has previously
documented the harm to civilians from U.S. cluster bombs in the 1991
Gulf War and 1999 Yugoslav air campaign. The new Human Rights Watch
report found that the humanitarian side effects of cluster bombs were
less serious in Afghanistan than in these earlier conflicts, in part
due to the smaller number of bombs used.
As war looms in Iraq,
the United States should learn from the lessons of its Afghanistan air
war, said Bonnie Docherty, researcher in the Arms Division of
Human Rights Watch and the author of the report. It should not
use cluster bombs at all until the dud rate has been brought way down.
At the very least, it should never use cluster bombs near inhabited
towns and villages.
The new report presents the
findings of a month-long mission to
Afghanistan. It also compares recent use of cluster bombs to that in
the Gulf War and Kosovo.
In Afghanistan, the United
States restricted cluster bomb targets more than in the past and employed
new technology, notably the wind corrected munitions dispenser, to improve
the accuracy of these weapons. It also used fewer cluster bombs, dropping
1,228 cluster bombs, which contained 248,056 bomblets, in Afghanistan.
Allied forces dropped 61,000 bombs with 20 million bomblets in the Gulf
War and 1,765 bombs with 295,000
bomblets in Yugoslavia.
But the same problems were
found in Afghanistan as in other instances of cluster bomb use: lack
of accuracy in targeting during attacks, large numbers of explosive
duds remaining after attacks, and difficulties in clearance. These problems
suggest that this weapon has fundamental flaws and should be specifically
regulated under international law.
We are not arguing
for a ban on cluster bombs, said Docherty. What we want
is better targeting and technology in order to reduce the humanitarian
side effects.
States parties to the Convention
on Conventional Weapons met in Geneva last week at a United Nations-sponsored
conference and agreed to negotiate on general issues related to explosive
remnants of war, such as clearance and warnings to civilians. They refused,
however, to enter into specific negotiations on cluster bombs or other
submunitions.
In Afghanistan, the United
States ignored a critical lesson of past wars by using cluster bombs
in or near populated areas. Use in populated areas poses dangers to
civilians because of the difficulty in accurately targeting cluster
bombs and their bomblets and the wide and imprecise area they cover.
The Human Rights Watch report
analyzes three examples of such strikes, during which at least 25 civilians
died and many more were injured. At least 12 civilians died and many
more were injured when five cluster bombs landed on the village of Ishaq
Suleiman, near Herat. The United States had used older, less accurate
munitions to attack a nearby military base.
Cluster bombs continue to
endanger civilians long after being dropped. Many of the bomblets did
not explode on impact as designed but were still volatile and ready
to explode when touched. They have caused casualties among shepherds,
farmers, and other civilians and have interfered with the country's
agriculture.
As of November 2002, the
International Committee of the Red Cross had identified 127 civilian
casualties to cluster bomb dudsa number it stressed was only a
partial tally of the total killed and injured since many go unreported.
An astonishing 69% of the casualties were children.
The clearance of cluster
bomblets in Afghanistan has moved relatively rapidly, but explosive
duds remain in several regions of the country. Human Rights Watch said
that the United States could have contributed more effectively to clearance
because the list of strikes it provided the United Nations was both
inaccurate and inadequate.
Countries that use
cluster bombs bear a special responsibility to clear bomblets,
said Docherty. Otherwise, they will be causing casualties for
years to come.
(Washington, D.C., December
18, 2002)
The report is available at:
http://hrw.org/reports/2002/us-afghanistan/