Sowing Seeds of Death - US Cluster Bombs Use Exceeds Pentagon Claims

Ensula Nazarala is eight years old. He enjoys school and does well in his studies. One morning in October Ensula was particularly anxious to get to school. He was getting back a test on which he expected to have done very well. He and his cousin, Nabile, were hurrying to their schoolhouse in East Kabul when Nabile saw a small, yellow canister laying on the ground. He thought it contained biscuits and picked it up. It began to smoke. Panicking, he threw it in the air toward Nazarala. The US made cluster bomblet exploded with all the ferocity its makers intended, its casing fragmenting sending hundreds of pieces of torn metal casing in all directions. Nazarala was seriously injured.

The doctors it the hospital wanted to amputate both Nazarala’s legs and one arm. His father refused to allow his boy to be mutilated. He searched the hospital frantically for help, finally engaging the staff of a German relief group working in the hospital. The Germans quickly arranged to fly Nazarala to Germany for reconstructive surgery. Eight months later Nazarala runs around his Kabul neighborhood on two good legs, playing catch with both arms. Several of his wounds are still healing. Some continue to drain. But all in all Nazarala’s story had a happy ending. An all too rare happy ending in a land where unexploded cluster bombs are the newest deadly addition to a landscape peppered with landmines and unexploded ordinance.

During the US-led coalition airwar against the Taliban and al Quaeda in Afghanistan, the Pentagon insisted that cluster bombs were used very infrequently, not in populated areas and primarily against tanks and armored vehicles. British Secretary of State for Defense Geoff Hoon told the House of Commons on October 29^th that cluster bombs had been used on a "limited number of occasions." Pressed by Labor MP Ann Clwyd who was insisting that Britain (whose forces did not use cluster bombs) put pressure on the US to stop dropping cluster bombs on Afghanistan, Hoon added: "They are not used against civilian populations and the number of circumstances in which they have been used in Afghanistan has been extremely limited." Pentagon briefings during the same time period concur with Hoons characterization. Cluster bombs were hardly used in Afghanistan.

Dan Kelly tells a different story. Kelly serves as Program Manager for the United Nations Mine Action Program for Afghanistan (UNMAPA). His office oversees all management, control, funding, coordination and prioritization for all activities of all 15 partner nongovernmental organizations (NGO’s) charged with mine clearance in Afghanistan. According to Kelly, and based on Pentagon briefings provided to UNMAPA, there were 234 area strikes using between 2 and 16 cluster bombs. "They were all over the place," Kelly says. "These weapons are not surgical. Its an area weapon. They are much more dangerous than an antipersonnel landmine which takes your leg off. These things kill."

The latest version used in Afghanistan is the CBU-97. It stands about 6 feet tall and two feet wide. It contains 202 BLU’s or "bomb live units." The BLUs are dispersed prior to impact.

"Its what we call a ‘footprint’," says Kelly. "A 400 x 200 meter area. Now, when you drop two three, or more, and they overlap, you can see how the dispersal area gets pretty large."

But not all the BLU bomblets explode when they are dispersed. Many fail to detonate and lay unexploded, but live, on the ground. Based on the experience of cluster bombs used by the US in Kosovo, the BLU’s have a recognized failure rate of 7%. Kelly says the UN will be revising that figure upwards to a conservative estimate of 10%. De-miners working on the ground in Afghanistan consistently characterized the actual failure rate at between 15 and 20%.

While the Pentagon did provide UNMAPA with the location and number of areas hit by cluster bombs, they would not reveal the specific number of bombs used in an area. Using the Pentagon’s figures of 234 strike areas, and basing our calculations on the most conservative number of bombs used-two, with each bomb dispersing 202 BLU bomblets, we can calculate that a minimum of 94,536 BLU bomblets were dispersed over Afghanistan. Using the UN’s conservative failure rate of 10% we can estimate that 9,450 BLU bomblets lay unexploded across the Afghan countryside. The actual figure will in all likelihood prove to be much higher.

"I’d call it a significant use of cluster bombs," says Kelly. "Its caused us to change our whole operation. Between November and December we had to retrain 4,400 deminers to deal with this new threat."

Prior to the US-led bombing campaign in October, thousands of Afghans were at work clearing mines leftover from as far back as the Soviet war against the Mujahadeen in the 1980’s. More mines were sewn by the warlords during the bloody civil war that followed the Soviet departure lasting through the mid 1990’s. The Taliban too sowed mines during its recent battles with the Northern Alliance. For many years Afghanistan, has been regarded as one of the most heavily mined nations on earth. Nearly a million mines are estimated to remain today. In addition, unexploded ordinance(UXO)-bombs and shells fired but which failed to explode, and munitions dispersed when a depot was bombed-litter the countryside and lay buried under rubbled buildings in cities and villages across Afghanistan.

Deminers are given a flack jacket, a helmet with clear plexiglass face mask, and a 30 inch wooden stick. They are paid $130 per month to crawl inch by inch across field after field, poking the ground, probing for mines and UXO. When they find one, they mark it and retreat. Another member of the team then places a charge and fuse, retreats, and blows it up. Then the process is repeated. According to Dan Kelly, between one hundred and three hundred persons are injured or killed each month in Afghanistan by landmines and UXO.

The introduction of cluster bombs into Afghanistan’s existing situation has created new dangers for civilians and deminers alike. The unexploded BLUs lay atop existing minefields. They are more sensitive and less stable than landmines. They have three fuses. An impact fuse, a vibration fuse, and a crystal-electric fuse that detonates when the casing is contacted. They are a deminers nightmare of nightmares. Sometimes BLUs impact the ground and are buried just under the surface. When probed with a stick, unlike landmines, they can explode immediately. BLUs kill three different ways. A shape charge propels a golf ball size plug capable of blowing through armor plating. The plug is incendiary causing extreme heat and fire. Finally, the bright yellow casings, so attractive to children, are designed to fragment shredding everything in a 150 foot radius.

Because of this triple-kill capability, the introduction of cluster bombs into Afghanistan required demining operations to be revamped and new equipment fashioned to neutralize them. "It’s a new threat on the ground," says Kelly, "a new priority." As of June, some 5,000 BLU bomblets have been located and destroyed by deminers in Afghanistan. They estimate that at least another 5,000 remain.

-Dave Robinson, National Coordinator of Pax Christi USA and Catholic Peace Voice Editor visited Afghanistan in June as part of Sowing Seeds of Peace: An Interfaith Delegation to Afghanistan organized by Global Exchange.

One side is painted red, the other white. The colored rocks are used by de-miners in Afghanistan to indicate which side has been cleared of mines and which side is still sown with death. I found this image to be among the most striking on my recent trip to South Asia. In village after village the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) is helping families return from months, in many cases years, of exile. Although the fighting is over, upon their return they face the still-deadly remains of more than 23 years of war. Any parent can appreciate the challenge, indeed the horror, of retuning to a home where your 5 year-old child must navigate the two-foot path from village to road, always mindful, always careful, to stay on the white side of the rocks. Too many do not.

Afghanistan stands today as a testament to the ravages of war. The statistics are unbelievable: 2/3 of Afghani women are widowed; only 12% of Afghanis have access to safe drinking water; there is one doctor for every 50,000 Afghanis; six million of the nation’s 22 million people are internally displaced; a million landmines remain in the soil of this nation where only 15% of the land is farmable; there are no paved roads left outside the capital Kabul; in Kabul, 37,500 street children are begging, the majority of whom are the sole breadwinners for their families.

Traveling north from Kabul into the Shamali Valley, one encounters farming village after farming village completely destroyed. The painted rocks line miles-long stretches, their white sides facing the road, their red side facing away toward the fallow fields. Occasionally you spot a few people walking along the side of the road. Most stay on the white side. Some do not. Education is a critical step in the mine clearing process. Hand-painted signs using pictures explain the dangers to the illiterate.

Remarkably, there is great hope in Afghanistan today. Signs of rebuilding and rebirth are clear in the capital. One very hopeful sign was the loya jurga, or grand council, being held in Kabul during my stay. This assembly of representatives from all over Afghanistan gathered to claim a new future beyond war. Their task was daunting: create a new government and begin to chart a new course for this country literally sick and tired of war. But as during the 23 years of war that led to this point, the Afghan people today appear to remain an afterthought for outside forces pursuing their own policy priorities.

The United States initiated, supplied and supported the mujahadeen jihad against the Soviet Union in the 1980’s. This was done not to free the oppressed Afghani people as much as to "bleed" the Soviets. Former CIA Director William Casey conceived this plan. Following 10 years of US-sponsored jihad, the Soviets left. So did the US. That left a collection of warlords, each with a regional power base and private army to wage an even bloodier civil war for another 7 years. It was during this time that the destruction I witnessed in the Shamali valley was wreaked. So terrible was the civil war that after seven years the Taliban were welcomed as saviors, the only ones able to finally end the fighting and reign in the warlords.

The loya jurga attempted to chart a new course, free of the warlords thug-like "statesmanship." The credentials committee of the loya jurga made the decision to keep the warlords out. This lasted about three days. Under pressure for the US Envoy, Khalil Khliliazad, the loya jurga admitted the warlords-now to be known as "local commanders" and partners in the US’s war on terrorism. The US is depending on the warlords for intelligence and ground troops in its hunt for remaining al Quaeda fighters. Once again the US is manipulating the situation in Afghanistan to further its own narrow self interest.

The results of the US’s alliance with these "local commanders" is already becoming clear. Empowered by their US sponsor, as well as Pentagon payments for services rendered, the warlords are now consolidating their power. The three main cabinet posts charged with the nation’s security and foreign policy: Defense, Foreign Affairs and Interior, went to the three most powerful warlords. The night after the loya jurga ended five Chinese-made rockets were fired from the hills north of Kabul. The target was apparently the US Embassy, three blocks from the guesthouse where we were staying. One hit outside the Embassy compound. One hit an apartment building. Two landed randomly in the streets. One hit the house two doors up the street from us. Fortunately, all were duds. The UN collected and destroyed them the next day. But the message was clear. Not everyone is happy with the course charted at the loya jurga, and they know who is responsible.

As a peacemaker it was challenging to hear the expressions of appreciation for the US ouster of the Taliban through a sustained bombing campaign. In Kabul, that sentiment was predominant. A year ago, under the Taliban, it was illegal to laugh in public. But the US did not go to war to eliminate the Taliban. A year ago we gave them $43 million as a partner in the war against drugs. No, the Taliban were simply in the way. It was expedient to get rid of them. Now it is expedient to support the "local commanders." Its also important to remember that, at least in Kabul, the sentiment was similarly appreciative of the Taliban’s arrival six years ago. The people just want peace.

Just as the Taliban were accommodated by the US given their support for the war on drugs, now the warlords are accommodated given their support for the war on terrorism. Once the US concludes that the remnants of al Quaeda are neutralized, we will no doubt leave Afghanistan to fend for itself-again. For the people, that means living under the very warlords that all but destroyed their country. In all likelihood it means another civil war in the near future.

The painted rocks are not just a warning sign-they also indicate a choice. Go one way and remain safe. Go another and take your chances. All the people know is that either way the options have been established by someone else.

-Dave Robinson was in Afghanistan in June with an interfaith delegation organized by Global Exchange. For more on the delegation, visit the Pax Christi USA website, www.paxchristiusa.org.

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