A controlled detonation of 1,000
cluster bomblets leaves a thick
trail of smoke at Deir Qanoun |
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(Left) Hussein Tehine shows the scars he has from surgery that saved his
life after a cluster bomblet
exploded at his feet; (Right) in a
bid to regain normalcy, people have
risked everything to do their own
demining(photos by Serene Assir) |
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"Do you
want to see my scars?" asked 10-year- old Hussein Tehine
as he smiled and pulled up his shirt, revealing scars on
his abdomen from the surgery that saved his life after a
cluster bomb exploded at his feet. "My cousin Marwa and
I went out to play as soon as we came back from Beirut,
where we stayed throughout the war," Hussein said. "She
found a cluster bomb, picked it up, played with it a
little, and then dropped it at our feet. She was
injured. All my insides came out. It was horrible."
Since UN Security Council Resolution 1701 calling for a
cessation of hostilities came into effect 14 August,
there have been at least 104 casualties in Lebanon from
unexploded cluster bombs. At least 14 have been
confirmed dead by UNMACC.
Latest estimates indicate that there are at least one
million unexploded cluster bomblets in South Lebanon.
According to Dalya Farran, UNMACC media and
post-clearance officer in Tyre, the estimate includes
the number of unexploded bombs from rocket and artillery
strikes, but, assessments and information pending,
excludes the number that may have been launched in
aircraft cluster bombshells.
So far, at least 578 strike locations have been located
in South Lebanon where assessment and clearance work is
coordinated and supervised by UNMACC. Only around 20,000
bomblets have been cleared since work started following
the cessation of hostilities, the vast majority of them
in priority civilian infrastructure and areas including
homes, schools, roads and municipality buildings.
Agencies working on clearance say that it will take
between 12 and 15 months for the process to be completed
-- if, that is, funds remain available.
As a direct consequence of massive cluster bomb
contamination, life in the south for many people,
including children and agricultural workers, has been
brought to a near if not total standstill. "I can't
access my farm," said Ahmed Mahmoud Nassar in Aayta
Shaab. "Three families depend on this strip of land
alone. Until the land is cleared, I don't know what I
will do. I have never worked on anything but my chicken
and dairy farm."
The fact that 70 per cent of South Lebanon's economy has
depended on agriculture renders the need to clear
cluster bombs as quickly as possible all the more
pressing as recovery will be impossible if farmers are
unable to go back to their fields. "All we have done
ever since we returned from Beirut, after the war ended,
is look out onto our fields and lament the fact that not
only have we lost one harvest because of the war, but
that the banana trees that have remained will inevitably
die because we are unable to irrigate them," said Wafi
Al-Khishin, who owns a banana farm in Ras Al-Ain near
Tyre. "It might be a year before clearance is completed.
But it will take the land and the trees 10 years to
really recover from this disaster."
As for the children of South Lebanon, who were once
accustomed to having the open fields to play in, the end
of hostilities has brought little respite. According to
Farran, the contamination of fields with cluster bombs
has turned children into virtual prisoners in their
homes, their parents worried about the dangers they
could face if they go outside alone. It does not
suffice, in areas where contamination is heavy, to look
closely where one is stepping. The small size of cluster
bomblets makes it difficult to spot them in an often
rocky or sandy terrain. In addition, they have often
been found hanging from trees. Where they were dropped,
danger is everywhere.
Because the south Lebanese are eager to regain a sense
of normalcy in their lives as soon as possible, many
have started to do their own clearance, defying
plentiful warnings from the Lebanese government,
Hizbullah, the UN and non- governmental agencies who are
participating in raising awareness on the ground. In
Deir Qanoun, near Tyre, Bactec -- a clearance team on
contract with UNMACC -- found approximately 1,000
cluster bomblets, which villagers had clearly picked up
themselves, neatly packed up in wooden boxes. "We try
and dissuade villagers from coming anywhere near the
cluster bombs," said Simon Lovel, a team leader with
Bactec. "People must be patient."
Exercising patience is not easy, however. "People need
to get back to work," said Ahmed Hussein Khalifa, a
Palestinian refugee living in Rashidiyeh Camp on the
outskirts of Tyre who is now without work as a farm
labourer owing to the presence of cluster bombs. "I
don't have children, so I won't take the risk. But many,
many people are willing to take the daily wage of $8 to
go out into the fields, which more often than not will
involve picking up cluster bombs and putting them to one
side. It's very dangerous. But what else are they to
do?"
Israel has been under considerable international
pressure over the cluster bombs issue, particularly
after it was revealed that approximately 90 per cent
were fired in the last 72 hours of the war -- a time
when a Security Council resolution was at hand. The
Israeli government insists that its use of cluster bombs
was in accordance with international law. However,
admissions published by Haaretz newspaper of Israeli
army officers directly involved in the use of cluster
bombs beg that more pressure be made against the
government now. The Israeli daily quoted a commander in
the Israeli Army's Multiple Launch Rocket System unit as
saying: "In Lebanon, we covered entire villages with
cluster bombs; what we did there was crazy and
monstrous."
UN officials have described Israel's use of cluster
bombs in Lebanon as outrageous and as beggaring belief.
Nonetheless, it is also worth noting that while
Hizbullah came under fire -- not least by international
human rights watchdog Human Rights Watch -- for using
weapons that were non-discriminatory, the sheer
magnitude of Israel's use of imprecise weaponry has
received relatively little attention.
As for the fact that the majority were launched in the
last hours of the war -- hence by default derailing the
argument that Israel was not targeting civilians -- one
million hard facts on the ground in Lebanon serve as a
salutary reminder of what Israel really wanted to
achieve in a war that killed 1,189 Lebanese and turned a
quarter of the country's population into refugees.
* Serene Assir is a freelance
journalist based in Lebanon.
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