A conference on cluster munitions underway in Bali has called on countries in the Asia Pacific to sign and ratify a 2008 convention on the weapons.
Cluster Munitions, a coalition said during the two-day Regional Conference on the Promotion and Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) in Kuta on Monday.
"As the world's most cluster bomb-affected region, the Asia Pacific stands to gain the most from rapid entry into force of the Convention on Cluster Munitions," Thomas Nash, coordinator of the Cluster Munitions Coalition, said Monday.
He was speaking at the Regional Conference on the Promotion and Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Issued in Dublin, Ireland, in December 2008, the convention prohibits the use and stockpiling of cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians and secure adequate provision of care and rehabilitation for survivors and clearance of contaminated areas.
Cluster munitions are bombs, rockets and artillery shells that disperse small submunitions over broad areas that sometimes fail to explode initially, later injuring or killing noncombatants.
As of November 2009, 103 countries have signed the convention, 24 of whom have also ratified it.
Twelve of 40 countries in the Asia-Pacific region have ratified the convention, including Japan and Laos. Indonesia has signed it, but is still debating whether to ratify it, said Foreign Ministry Director General for Multilateral Affairs Rezlan Ishar Jeanie.
"Soon after signing the convention, we carried out activities to promote awareness of it among our national stakeholders," said Jeanie, who heads the Indonesian delegation to the conference.
"We continue to engage in dialogue with the military establishment and will similarly do so with the new members of parliament and other stakeholders."
Nash said states in the Asia Pacific played a significant role in eliminating the use of cluster munitions, which were widely used in places such as Afghanistan, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.
"Thirty ratifications are needed for the convention to become binding international law six month later," he said. "All countries in the region should show solidarity with their Afghan and Lao colleagues by following them on board the ban and joining the convention without delay."
At least 78 countries have stockpiles of cluster munitions, 12 of them in the Asia Pacific, including Indonesia, China, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and North Korea.
Australia has already destroyed its stocks and Japan is in the process of doing so. The United States, which used cluster munitions on a massive scale in Vietnam, has not signed the convention.
The two-day conference, attended by participants from 30 countries, is organized by the Indonesian Foreign Ministry with the support of the governments of Germany, Norway, Austria and Australia.
Support also comes from the UNDP, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Geneva International Center for Humanitarian Demining.
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