Evidence of meeting #43 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was governance.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:40 a.m.
Bloc
Francine Lalonde Bloc La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC
Good morning. Thank you for the work you're doing. It is a job as admirable as it is necessary, because we observe not only that wars are terrible, but also that post-war situations become true nightmares for civilians. We've long had a number of examples, and, more recently, in Afghanistan. Radio-Canada reported that civilians populations and soldiers in that country were coping with fields mined by the Russians in 1980, which are still dangerous today.
First, would a convention require countries that have previously used fragmentation bombs to provide the maps of their bombardments? From what I understand, eliminating these bombs in the field is different when you have a plan.
Second, what process is planned? We're going to exercise pressure so that Canada is part of it. Can you give us the stages leading the signing of the convention?
9:40 a.m.
Executive Director, Arms Division, Human Rights Watch
On your first question, it may be a little early to predict precisely what will be in a treaty, but there was much discussion in Oslo about the need for this to be a comprehensive treaty that has an integrated approach and will, like the Mine Ban Treaty, deal with clearance issues, responsibility for clearance, transparency, and victim assistance. So I feel certain that the problem you're pointing to will be addressed in some fashion in a new treaty.
The other encouraging thing about Oslo, in addition to the fact that so many countries came and committed to a deadline for a new treaty, was that a process was also agreed to that will serve as negotiating sessions leading to the treaty. The first of those will occur in Lima, Peru, in May. Then there will be follow-on sessions in Austria, likely New Zealand, as well as Ireland.
Canada needs to get out front at the early stages of this, so the next key date by which they need to have moved their policy even further along--hopefully in a major leap forward--will be the meeting in Lima, Peru. So there's a timeframe established here.
9:40 a.m.
Executive Director, Arms Division, Human Rights Watch
It's May 23 to 25 this year. We're moving very quickly on this, as the humanitarian imperative demands.
9:40 a.m.
Bloc
Francine Lalonde Bloc La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC
There were a lot of fragmentation bombs and antipersonnel mines in Kosovo. A lot of money was invested to clean up the country. Do those bombs still pose a problem? Can you also name for us the countries that are fighting to remove mines from lands that otherwise could be cultivated or inhabited?
9:40 a.m.
Executive Director, Arms Division, Human Rights Watch
Do you want to take that one?
9:40 a.m.
Director, Landmine Action (UK)
Kosovo had probably the single-largest humanitarian intervention immediately after the conflict. Something like $30 million U.S. has been spent on clearance predominantly of cluster munitions. They are still clearing cluster munitions in Kosovo today. They're finding them where they were buried underground. They're being turned up by farmers plowing them up. They're finding them hanging in trees where people are going out to forage or gather wood or where they're going out for picnics.
The casualty rates have fallen, but huge amounts of money have been spent, and it's a small area. It's very problematic. Nowhere else has really experienced that level of funding for clearance, although a lot of money has been spent in places like Afghanistan and Cambodia.
As a former de-miner, the other point I would make is that, from the beginning of my job, we never distinguished between mines and other unexploded ordnance, or between cluster bombs. We cleared whatever was there that was posing a threat to the local population. We found ourselves clearing cluster munitions in Kosovo, we found ourselves clearing mines in Sri Lanka, and we found ourselves clearing cluster munitions in Eritrea. It depended on whatever was there. It was called mine action, but it involved the clearance of a range of items.
Clearing cluster munitions is difficult. They often have very sensitive fuses. You can't move them. You find them in unexpected places. You find huge numbers of them. These factors present a particular, specific problem for clearance agencies.
In June 1999 in Kosovo, I was present when two British Army officers died when they moved cluster bombs that had been found near a school in a place called Glogovac. We spent the morning trying to persuade them not to move them, but they ignored us, as is often the case, and they died.
As Steve was saying, 80 U.S. soldiers were killed by cluster bombs immediately after the first Gulf War. They killed more U.S. soldiers than the Iraqis did.
9:45 a.m.
Executive Director, Arms Division, Human Rights Watch
Could I add one small comment, Mr. Chair?
9:45 a.m.
Executive Director, Arms Division, Human Rights Watch
It is unlikely that a new treaty on cluster munitions would require any new expenditures for clearance on the part of Canada, even though it likely would have a provision about assistance with clearance. That's because Canada is already engaged in funding that kind of activity.
You don't distinguish between munitions. You don't go into a field and just remove anti-personnel mines because of an anti-personnel mine treaty; you go into the field and remove everything. Canada would just need to continue the activities that it's already engaged in with regard to clearance activities.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you very much, Mr. Goose.
We'll go to Mr. Goldring and Mr. Storseth, on a split.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Peter Goldring Conservative Edmonton East, AB
Thank you very much.
Certainly, unexploded munitions have been a difficulty. We know there are sheep mowing the grass at Vimy Ridge because of the danger from unexploded munitions from the First World War.
Your comment was that Canada has never used them, but we see a change in our military now where it is becoming more and more involved. We have tanks in theatre. So to say that Canada never will I think would be a decision of the military itself as to whether or not there's an expediency to saving military lives when it comes to using the munitions. This is always, I suppose, the argument about it.
On the comments about the cluster munitions and their hazard, there was a comment that this was mainly about the civilian risk subsequent to the bombing. You mentioned the failure rate on them. Are there also included in there not only the failure rate of the ones that are still there but a concern for the delayed action munitions too?
Just as a final comment before we hear the answer and I turn it over to my colleague, certainly they're useful for much more than just the civilian areas. My understanding is that they're useful for carpet bombing of airports prior to actions, and in many other scenarios. The newer cluster bombs from the United States are getting more and more intelligent. They actually come down and target multiple locations at the same time. So there is an evolution in their design.
But I'd like to know about the reliability of the number of actual failed ones by percentage, and what percentage of those might be delayed action.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you, Mr. Goldring.
Maybe we'll take Mr. Storseth's question, and then you can just answer both of them, if you keep track of what Mr. Goldring has asked.
Mr. Storseth, very quickly.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll try to make this brief.
I think the key to the argument, as Mr. Conway has put it forward, is that these munitions don't necessarily just target the military combatants. They target civilians for weeks, months, and even years afterwards, as I understand it.
I saw in your report—and it's an excellent report—the community of Nabatiya. One of the pieces of unexploded ordnance that was there actually had a date stamped on it of 1974. Is that a typical thing that we would find in theatre and in use, especially in Lebanon?
There's another question I have that I really think we need to have answered. From your experience, Mr. Conway, what kind of equipment are we talking about? What is needed to solve this problem of clearing unexploded ordnance, as it is obviously a little bit more difficult? Definitely different issues arise, from what we've seen with the land mines that were in Lebanon already. Do we have any idea of the death rate that has occurred in the civilian population in Lebanon since?
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
All right, let's begin with Mr. Goldring's question, whichever one of you wants to take that.
Mr. Conway.
9:50 a.m.
Director, Landmine Action (UK)
If I could look at the U.K. very briefly, we are in essence moving away from the use of cluster munitions. Our air-dropped submunitions, which spread 147 of these over an area the size of about two to four football pitches, are being replaced with something called Brimstone, which is a targeted unitary warhead. The thinking is that if there are some tanks or there is a group of vehicles, it is better, and in the long run cheaper, to use what may be individually more expensive—a unitary, targeted piece of equipment that will take out that tank—rather than just throwing a bunch of unguided stuff that will saturate the area.
There is a movement within militaries—and we have plenty of ministry of defence documents that we've received through freedom of information requests that indicate this—to move away from these kinds of saturation weapons and toward much more precise, individually targeted weapons. So I think we're going to see these weapons go out of service anyway. We are, in essence, riding the crest of the wave.
9:50 a.m.
Director, Landmine Action (UK)
In this case, these are individually targeted, so they're not clustered.
This is an issue for a definition that will come out during the process. If you want to go down that way, it is possible to exclude certain types of smart munitions from the definition itself.
9:50 a.m.
Director, Landmine Action (UK)
I'm not an advocate for the purchase of new weapons systems. That's not what I'm here for. In general, though, I think weapons systems should be smart and discriminatory, by which I mean guided. If there is a weapons system that can identify and lock onto a particular military vehicle due to some kind of algorithm and due to, let's say, the heat signature or whatever else, if that does not cause unacceptable humanitarian harm—and the big issues are whether or not it causes unacceptable humanitarian harm and whether or not you can use it in such a way that you protect civilians—then I don't have a problem with that. I can't speak for the entire NGO community on that, though.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
9:50 a.m.
Director, Landmine Action (UK)
We've heard arguments about how they will blow up if you put in self-destruct cluster munitions, and that you don't have a problem with clearance afterwards. What we've found in southern Lebanon is huge numbers of cluster bombs with self-destructs on them that didn't work.
Technical fixes, the kinds of actions you can take to try to improve these munitions, are very problematic. Often these weapons are tested in circumstances in which, of course, they always work in pristine testing areas. What we're finding in the field, after combat, is huge failure rates. The UN is talking about a 40% failure rate. I find that difficult to believe on one level, but that may mean there are something like a million unexploded submunitions littering southern Lebanon. A significant proportion of those will be fitted with self-destructs that did not work.