BEIJING, July 12 (Xinhua) -- The recent U.S. announcement to bring the controversial cluster munitions back to battlefields as part of a military aid package to Ukraine has provoked an international backlash, which put its previous use of the lethal bombs under scrutiny.
The United States on Friday announced its decision to transfer to Ukraine cluster munitions, which are a type of explosive weapon scattering submunition over an area and widely banned by more than 120 countries.
Ironically, former White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a press briefing on Feb. 28, 2022, that if the reports of illegal cluster bombs used by the Russians were true, it would potentially be a war crime.
In fact, as a country with a bloody history of using cluster munitions, the United States should know better that the humanitarian consequences of cluster munitions for civilians can be severe and long-lasting.
According to a monitor, the United States dropped 413,130 tons of cluster munitions over Vietnam between 1965 and 1973. Concurrent with the Vietnam War, the United States dropped some 260 million cluster bombs on neighboring Laos, making Laos "the most heavily bombed nation in history."
Laos is hence contaminated by about 80 million cluster submunitions, affecting 17 provinces and resulting in 300 casualties per year, said a Red Cross report, making the country with the world's highest level of cluster munition contamination.
As the world's largest victim of cluster munitions, Laos "expresses its profound concern over the announcement and the possible use of cluster munitions," according to a statement issued on Monday by the Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the use of cluster munitions.
The Lao people have been victimized by the deadly cluster munitions since five decades ago and even today they continue to be affected by the unexploded ordnance as it continues to pose serious threats to the lives and livelihood of the local people, the statement said.
Laos calls upon any state or actor to refrain from all use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions as prescribed in the Convention on Cluster Munitions so that no one in the world would be victimized by such heinous weapons, it added.
Cambodia is also suffering from the adverse effects caused by the U.S. cluster bombs dropped half a century ago.
According to a Yale University report, the United States dropped some 230,516 bombs on 113,716 sites in Cambodia between 1965 and 1973. Landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) explosions claimed 19,821 lives and injured or amputated 45,205 others from 1979 to June 2023 in Cambodia, according to a government report.
The Southeast Asian nation had cleared 2,579 square km of landmines and ERW-contaminated land in the last 30 years, and it still has 563 square km contaminated with landmines and 1,322 square km contaminated with cluster munitions and other ERWs.
In his book titled "Hun Sen: 10 Years of Cambodia's Journey, 1979-1989", Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen wrote that the U.S. bombings on Cambodia caused "tens of thousands of civilian casualties because of this vicious undeclared war."
It will be "the worst danger" for the Ukrainians for decades or even centuries if those cluster bombs are used, said Hun Sen on Monday, urging NATO member states and U.S. allies to oppose the U.S. military aid plan.
Joseph Matthews, a senior professor at the BELTEI International University in Phnom Penh, said that because of U.S. bombs, many people have lost their lives or been maimed.
"I strongly believe that the U.S. is morally responsible for the suffering of these people and ethically and legally bound to adequately compensate the families of those who had lost their lives or were maimed by these unexploded ordnance and landmines," Matthews told Xinhua.
