Bomb victims look to Canada
Cluster bomb victims such as Raed Mokaled are calling on Canada to ratify the international convention that would ban the deadly weapon.
GENEVA — The last day of Ahmad Mokaled’s short life dawned on a sunny spring February morning in the southern Lebanon town of Nabatieh.
Feb. 12, 1999, was Ahmad’s fifth birthday. So his father, Raed, pulled him out of school for an impromptu celebration with Ahmad’s older brother, Adam, at a bustling public park where the boys sprinted into a growing throng of children.
Fifteen minutes later, an explosion silenced the revelry, killing Ahmad instantly. Adam, then 8, would become a traumatized witness to his brother’s sudden death from a dormant cluster bomblet — a lethal remnant of a long- ended conflict.
Look to Canada
Cluster bombs are anti- personnel weapons designed to scatter smaller, baseball- sized bombs over a wide area. Some do not explode immediately and, instead, lie in wait for an unwary passerby, claiming innocent civilians and children.
Cluster bomb victims like Raed Mokaled are calling on Canada to ratify the international convention that would ban the weapon. But like the International Committee of the Red Cross and Norway, they are concerned about Canada’s pending ratification bill, one they say allows Canadian Forces personnel to transport or stockpile the banned bombs during joint operations with the U. S., which has opted out of the convention entirely.
“It’s a small message to the politicians, all the politicians in Canada and to the government,” Mokaled said in an interview in Geneva, where he was recently attending a major international meeting on the cluster bomb convention.
“Think of the children around the world like you think of your own children. That’s it.”
The international campaign to ban the weapons has been gaining momentum since the adoption of the Convention on Cluster Munitions in 2008.
Canada signed the convention in 2008, but the legislation to ratify it was only introduced last year and is still before the House of Commons after passing through the Senate last fall. It does not appear that the ratification will be completed before Parliament rises for the summer in the days ahead.
New Democrat MPs Paul Dewar and Helene Laverdiere pressed the government in question period Tuesday to work with the opposition to amend the bill and close what they called “loopholes” in the “flawed legislation.”
Request brushed aside
Deepak Obhrai, the parliamentary secretary to Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, brushed aside the request and reiterated the government’s position, that the pending legislation “strikes a good balance between humanitarian obligations while preserving our national security and defence interests.”
Moaffak Alkhafaji, a one- time Iraqi soldier turned activist, has a strong message for Canada as it strives to preserve its military interoperability with the U. S.
Alkhafaji felt the full force of a U. S. cluster bomb in 1991, when he was part of Saddam Hussein’s army. He lost his left leg in a cluster bomb blast as he and his comrades were strafed by U. S. warplanes in southern Iraq. “It’s not good that Canadians collaborate with other countries like the United States on support, or use or produce or transfer cluster munitions because it’s against the humans all over the world,” Alkhafaji said in a recent interview in Geneva.
Iraq formally ratified the convention May 14, becoming the 83rd country to do so. A total
Think of the children around the world like you think of your own children.
RAED MOKALED
VICTIM’S FATHER
of 112 countries have signed the convention, and 29 of them, including Canada, have yet to formally ratify it.
Bombs were used
Along with the U. S., major military powers such as China, Russia and Israel have also steered clear of the convention. The U. S. used cluster munitions on Iraq twice — during the 1991 and 2003 conflicts. British bombers joined the Americans in dropping cluster bombs 10 years ago, as they battled insurgents between May and August 2003.