(Cambridge) July 7 – The Biden administration announced today its decision to provide cluster munition to Ukraine. Cluster bombs are known to cause grievous injury to civilians, particularly children, and are internationally banned under the The Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) established in 2008.
A cluster munition is a weapon consisting of a dispenser from which many bomblets are scattered over wide areas. Cluster munitions’ bomblets have the highest failure rate among all classes of weapons and many of them linger long after the conflict ends, only to detonate unexpectedly years later when stumbled upon by innocent civilians.
Massachusetts Peace Action’s Assistant Director, Brian Garvey, said, “President Biden should be helping to negotiate an end to this terrible war in Ukraine, not escalating it by sending even deadlier weapons into this conflict.”
“There’s a reason these weapons are banned – they’ve killed an estimated 56,000 to 86,000 civilians since World War II. Civilians, including children in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Lebanon, the Balkans and Laos, continue to suffer from incidents involving remnants of cluster munitions. They have also killed and wounded scores of American service members.”
“We cannot let history repeat itself. If we send cluster munitions to Ukraine, we will put Ukrainian civilians in danger – the very people we want to protect.”
“We urge our Massachusetts’ Congressional delegation to pass Reps. Sara Jacobs and Ilhan Omar’s amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to prevent the transfer of cluster bombs to Ukraine.”
