Red Cross urges destruction of clusterbomb stocks

GENEVA, Nov 6 (Reuters) The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) today called for an immediate halt to the use of cluster bombs in conflicts around the world and for countries to destroy their stockpiles.

The Swiss-based humanitarian body also said it would be calling a conference of experts next year to discuss a possible new global pact on the weapons -- canisters that can contain up to 650 small pellet explosives that spread over a wide area.

''The ICRC believes the time has come for strong international action to end the predictable pattern of human tragedy associated with cluster munitions,'' Philip Spoerri, a senior official of the body, told a news conference.

Years-long debate over the use of the weapon has intensified in recent weeks following their use by Israel in its war against Hezbollah in south Lebanon in July and August after the Islamist militia seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.

Spoerri said the ICRC would be issuing its appeal formally at a 10-day conference opening in Geneva tomorrow to review a 23-year-old international convention, the CCW, barring or limiting the use of especially injurious conventional weaponry.

''Sadly, the deadly legacy of these weapons (cluster bombs) is being demonstrated all too frequently, with additional states added to the list of affected countries every year or so,'' Spoerri, a director of the ICRC, declared.

In Laos and Afghanistan, he said, cluster bombs used in the 1970s and 1980s continued to kill and injure civilians, making farming dangerous in some areas and limiting reconstruction while diverting funds needed for social development.

Other countries and regions where the weapons had been used more recently included Eritrea and Ethiopia, Serbia and Montenegro, Iraq during the US-led invasion of 2003, and this summer in Lebanon.

Spoerri said that in southern Lebanon there was ''increasing evidence that the density of cluster submunition contamination may be unprecedented.'' ICRC representatives there had seen first-hand towns and farmland littered with unexploded submunitions, or bomblets, spread by cluster bombs and there had been reports of new victims each week since the August ceasefire, he added.

There were also reports that ''armed non-state actors'' -- a diplomatic formula covering guerrilla and insurgent groups non controlled by governments -- were getting access to the weaponry, raising concerns about its proliferation, he added.

REUTERS SP PM1935