US bombers drop cluster munitions. (File Photo)

By Huang Bing

The US government announced in early July its decision to provide US$800 million worth of extra military assistance to Ukraine, including cluster munitions of mass destruction that have been banned by the US law, and that Ukraine have already used according to media reports in late July. Compared with regular munitions, cluster munitions are more likely to cause civilian casualties. The supply of them to Ukraine has triggered waves of protests within the US and widespread controversy and criticisms in the international community.

Cluster munitions are also known as cargo shells. One cluster munition can carry hundreds of submunitions that, once dropped, would be released in air over a wide expanse and detonate once touching the ground or afterwards. Some of them that fail to do so become duds that pose long-term threats to the civilians living around the area where they land.

According to the US Department of Defense (DoD), the cluster munitions supplied to Ukraine this time are launched by 155mm howitzers with a dud rate of no more than 2.35%. This notwithstanding, the supply in itself is a violation of US law, which prohibits the production, use or transfer to other countries of cluster munitions with a dud rate of more than 1%. The Washington Post reported that the cluster munitions supplied by Washington to Kyiv contain 72 bomblets each with a dud rate of around 6%. That means at least four bomblets would end up being duds per every such munition launched.

The US has used this kind of munitions in large quantities in the Vietnam War, Gulf War, Kosovo War, Afghan War and Iraqi War, causing immense civilian casualties.

During the Vietnam War, American troops used cluster munitions in multitudes in order to block the Ho Chi Minh Trail, an important route along which materials were transported from the north to the south of Vietnam. The munitions, statistics show, either killed or wounded thousands of civilians in Quảng Trị Province alone that sat on the south-north boundary. It has also been shown that the undetonated bomblets left during the War have cumulatively caused a death toll of over 42,000 people, with another 62,000 wounded, in the country, including many children.

As the Ho Chi Minh Trail passes Laos, the Xieng Khuang Province sitting on the Vietnam-Laos boundary has also been exposed to the damage of cluster munitions. From 1964 to 1973, the US dropped more than 270 million cluster munitions in Laos, of which around 30% didn't detonate, leaving approximately 80 million bomblets scattered and buried across the country, and only 1% of them have been cleared and removed since 1996. Most of the unexploded bomblets still remain on mountains, in rivers and forests, continuing to harm the locals for a long time to come.

During the 20-year-long Afghan war, the US killed at least 30,000 Afghan civilians by using weapons of mass destruction. Data from the Cluster Munition Coalition show that in 2001 and 2002, American forces dropped more than 1,200 cluster munitions in Afghanistan, containing over 240,000 bomblets.

Now the US is providing the same deadly weapon with long-lasting consequences to Ukraine, once again against the whole world's opposition. A US DoD official even said that the US has hundreds of thousands of cluster munitions at Ukraine's service. It's foreseeable that these cluster munitions will not only seriously threaten the personal safety of civilians, but also pose numerous obstacles to the homecoming of displaced people and post-war reconstruction after the conflict ends, with grave aftermaths in the long term.

Since the Ukraine crisis escalated last February, the US has provided more than 40 batches of military assistance to the country, amounting to well over US$40 billion. Washington's pouring oil on flames goes counter to the international efforts to facilitate peace talks and will only ratchet up tension and the intensity of the war, which will lead to tremendous casualties, including civilians, and property losses. No winner will come out of conflicts or wars. Dialogue and negotiation are the only right way out. The US should stop exacerbating the conflicts and keep the Ukraine crisis from further worsening.