However, criticism of cluster bombs has focused on what happens when these weapons fail to work properly. A 1,000 pound CBU 87 cluster bomb, which is the type U.S. planes have been dropping on targets and troops in Yugoslavia, breaks up into 202 small “bomblets.” These soda-can sized munitions float out over an area of several football fields and explode a short distance from the ground, covering the entire area in a shower of deadly shrapnel.

There are two ways these bombs can kill people other than the poor souls for whom they are intended. One is dropping the bombs over the wrong target. That happened on May 7, when NATO dropped cluster bombs on the central marketplace in Nis, killing at least 15 civilians. The other is when an unsuspecting person picks up an unexploded bomblet, a “dud.” For every cluster bomb dropped, a small percentage of the 202 bomblets released are duds. Bright yellow with red stripes and a little plastic parachute hood, these soda-can-sized death sticks have proven particularly attractive to curious children. Many are blown to bits and killed in the encounter, while others survive despite the loss of limbs.

There have already been reports of several such tragedies in Yugoslavia, though doubtless we hear of only a fraction of them. One story which did make the news, thanks to Paul Watson of the Los Angeles Times, was a case of five ethnic Albanian cousins who were killed in Kosovo when they picked up an unexploded cluster bomblet. A surgeon in Pristina claims he has treated hundreds of innocent victims, mostly for loss of limbs, since the beginning of the NATO campaign.

Such incidents of indiscriminate killing have led groups like Human Rights Watch to argue that “dud” cluster bomblets are, in effect, land mines, and should therefore be banned under the 1997 Anti-Personnel Landmines Treaty. The US has been widely criticized for being one of the few countries (and one of only two NATO countries) yet to sign the treaty. While the U.S. government claims it intends to sign, its reticence is largely due to that fact that, as it is presently worded, the convention could be interpreted to include cluster bombs.

The current draft of proposed U.S. legislation, which would ban the use of land mines by the year 2000, defines anti-personnel devices as “designed, constructed, or adapted to be detonated or exploded by the presence, proximity or contact of a person and that will incapacitate, injure or kill one or more persons.”

At a 1997 Pentagon briefing regarding the land mine ban, the Pentagon said that while it supports the land-mine ban, it would like to see the word “primarily” inserted at the beginning of the definition. They believe this would insure that cluster bombs would be exempted from the ban, since they are not “primarily designed” to function as land mines.

If “primarily” were not included, one Pentagon briefer explained, “that could knock out a number of systems that we really do need -- some of our runway and island munitions and that sort of thing, and that's what we're concerned about. We want to be sure that if we're talking about a land mine ban we're talking about land mines.”

Related Links

Drop Today, Kill Tommorrow
A rigorous report, with footnotes, on the impact of cluster bombs around the world. Overall a compelling argument for why these weapons should be banned. Put together by the Mennonite Central Committee.

Human Rights Watch: NATO Use of Cluster Bombs Must Stop
At the bottom of this press release is a link to the briefing paper of which the press release is only a summary.

Federation of American Scientists' "Dumb Bomb" page
A comprehensive list of the various types of cluster bombs. Click on each for pictures and a detailed explanation of each. The type being dropped on Yugoslavia is the CBU 87.

Photos of the victims
These are photos of civilians injured or killed by NATO bombs which struck a bus on May 3. Witnesses claimed the area was strewn with unexploded cluster bomb munitions.