radiofree.asia

Green MP spots banned cluster bombs at London arms fair

Green MP Sian Berry has spotted banned cluster munitions at the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair in east London. Berry visited the arms fair on 11 September, only to find the articles on display in a glass cabinet.

She tweeted that they since been removed by event organisers, asking “but what else remains”:

Defend our Juries reposted Berry’s pictures, referencing the recent mass arrests of anti-genocide activists:

Arms Dealers can display illegal cluster munitions components at an arms fair in London without repercussion. Seven words on a piece of cardboard gets you an arrest for a ‘terror offence’. Make it make sense.

But this isn’t the first time cluster bombs have found their way into DSEI, an event one BAE official recently called the “superbowl” of the global arms trade.

DSEI is a repeat offender with cluster bombs

According to the Stop the Arms Fair website, similar bombs were being peddled at DSEI in 2003, 2005, and 2011.

And armed violence monitor Article 36 said of the cluster bombs on display in 2011:

Cluster munitions are banned under the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, to which the UK is a party, having enacted national legislation prohibiting the weapons in early 2010.

The Arms Control Association (ACA) says:

Cluster munitions, also called cluster bombs or CBUs, are gravity bombs, artillery shells, and rockets that fragment into small bomblets or grenades.

According to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, “Cluster munition” means a conventional munition that is designed to disperse or release explosive submunitions each weighing less than 20 kilograms, and includes those explosive submunitions.

Military news website We Are Mighty explains the ban on two grounds: that cluster bombs kill indiscriminately, and that they are a long-term danger to civilians because not all bomblets detonate immediately.

The UK is itself signed up to the convention which promised to have destroyed any cluster munition stockpiles.

Featured image via X/Sian Berry

By Joe Glenton

This post was originally published on Canary.