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Blood money: world banks invest in cluster bombs
Published: 17 November, 2009, 09:38
Edited: 17 November, 2009, 20:32
TAGS: Arms, Military, UN, Protest, Human rights
Over 90 countries have pledged to ban cluster bombs, which claim thousands of lives even years after a conflict. Activists say change is unlikely, as long as major world banks continue to invest in weapons development.
Cluster bombs kill and maim indiscriminately and are hard to detect. They open mid-air and scatter hundreds of smaller explosives over a wide area. They can remain dormant for years, eventually striking innocent civilians as they go about their daily lives.
“One bomb can cover a couple of football fields in one shot and so many of them fail to explode,” said Thomas Nash of the Cluster Munition Coalition. “You end up with basically fields of land mines that can remain for decades, killing and injuring people long after the conflict.”
Despite global calls for a ban, banks continue pumping billions into cluster munitions, including two of Britain’s biggest names: HSBC has underwritten $665 million bonds for Textron, the US firm which claims its products leave a “clear battlefield.” Barclays Bank lent $222 million, as well as funding Lockheed Martin.
While nations sign up to a convention to outlaw clusters, lenders are dodging the detail.
”The convention itself does not explicitly ban investment in cluster munitions,” said Roos Boer of IKV Pax Christi organization for peace. “It does however contain one prohibition on assistance on production. We feel very strongly that assistance on production means investing. If you invest in a company you assist [in] the production of these deadly weapons.”
There are currently 77 nations who stock cluster bombs.
With 31 countries still polluted and suffering the after effects of the munitions.
98% of cluster bomb casualties are civilians.
And 30% of those are children.
That's according to Handicap International.
“They have customers worldwide who have given their trust in these companies and we feel it is up to these banks to end this involvement because these customers do not want their money to be invested in these producers of cluster munitions,” said Esther Vanderbroek of Netwerk Vlaanderen.
The activists’ protests demanded answers from London’s banks. Only Barclays responded, touting its anti-cluster policy, but admitting it lent money to Textron as a “broad-based weapons manufacturer.”
90 countries have committed to banning clusters by next year, but only a quarter have so far made it law. The US has not even signed up. Israel used them against Lebanon in 2006, and they have been used in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Governments and weapons manufacturers undoubtedly have blood on their hands over cluster munitions. But although lawmakers may be in charge, it is the banks which hold the keys to the cash. Campaigners say that, until they work together, there is little to stop the trade in gruesome, horrific death.
17.11.2009, 09:01
2 comments
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One can blame the USA for not signing a document or even keeping on producing those "cluster-bombs" but if you investigate correctly, you will see how many supposed to be respectable countries, financial institutions and well known notorieties are making a lot of money in that insane business. I suggest than when a person get killed or mutilated, the producer and the original country from where the armament was produced to be published. One example of how cynical and deceitfull a country and its leaders can be: Misters Mitterrand and Badinter,in France, abolished the death penalty under the pretext of humans life's respect. At the same time, they condamned to death, children, women and young soldiers who had not done any arm to anyone in France, but had the bad luck to be in the trajectory of our marvellous french armaments sold under the direction of those politicians who got financially well rewarded. Their excuse is simple: everybody else does it ! Now, you can appreciate how sick is mankind and how great will be the job for rééducating those money' slaves and creepy decisions-makers. Sorry Future Generations.. Sincerely. Jean-Claude Meslin
War is horrible no matter how it is carried out or the method of killing. You cannot kill someone nicely. Killing is a grusome thing and the dead should be called dead, not casualties. Casualty is a "POLITICALLY CORRECT TERM". If you happened to be the dead or maimed victim it would not be a casual thing to you, but to the POLITICIANS who never have to go in harm's WAY it is just "CASUAL".. The conventions of war should be revised to require any nation that goes to war to put their leaders in their army and require them to serve in combat on the front lines. This would put an end to countries going to war under false pretenses or for politically correct reasons. The POLITICIANS who start the wars almost never participate in the combat action on the battlefield. Even the worst dictators of history were personally little cowards who never put their deeds where their mouth was. They all talk a good war but never put themselves or their children in the middle of the bloody mess. PRESIDENTS, CONGRESSMEN AND HIGH OFFICE APPOINTEES SHOULD NOT BE COWARDS.