Norwegian official: Lebanon symbolizes need for cluster munitions ban
►http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2011/Sep-16/148890-norwegian-official-lebanon-symbolizes-need-for-cluster-munition
“There was a recognition that if we want to take this process internationally, then we must [first] rid ourselves of our own ammunition,” according to Gry Larsen, Norway’s deputy foreign minister, who is in Beirut this week to attend the Second Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
“There is no doubt that what happened in Lebanon contributed to [accelerating] the [convention’s] progress. What happened here became such an extreme example of what all this is about,” said Larsen, referring to the cluster munitions that killed or disabled around 400 people during and after the war with Israel in July and August 2006.
While in Lebanon, Larsen visited the south to see the effects of cluster munitions there.
“I was in southern Lebanon today. You stand there and look around you and you know that there are cluster munitions that have been dropped around the area … There is no doubt that what happened was on a grand scale,” she says.
Israel has said its use of cluster munitions in 2006 followed international humanitarian law. It also says most of the bombs were dropped in areas used mostly by Hezbollah fighters.
Larsen disagrees. “They are everywhere,” she exclaimed. “They are in populated areas. They are clearing cluster munitions from houses, from agricultural areas close to houses, where people move, [and] on roads.”