Fiji is participating in the first ever Meeting of State Parties to the UN Convention on Cluster Munitions (CMM) in Vientiane, Laos today.
Speaking from Vientiane, Fiji’s Foreign Minister, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola said “the meeting will determine how the Convention on Cluster Munitions can be effectively implemented and aims to chart a vision and determine measures that will translate the Treaty into action with a view to liberating humanity from the fear and misery of cluster munitions”.
The Convention opened for signatures at the CCM Signing Conference held in Oslo in December 2008 and the then Fiji’s Permanent Representative to the EU, now roving Ambassador, Ratu TuiCavulati signed the CMM Treaty on behalf of Fiji.
Fiji has since ratified the Convention along with only two other countries from Oceania, New Zealand and Samoa.
Ratu Inoke confirmed that Fiji does not manufacture, use, stockpile or transfer cluster munitions but fully supports the noble humanitarian goal of prohibiting them because of the unacceptable harm they pose to civilians.
“Fijian Peacekeepers are most vulnerable to these types of munitions and that is why Government has adopted a serious stance of ensuring a balance to be achieved, between the military necessity of using these weapons and international humanitarian law”, Ratu Inoke add.
“As an affected country by cluster munitions, Laos is an excellent venue to tell the reason why such a convention on cluster munitions is so important for humanity,” said Ratu Inoke.
For more than three decades now, the remnant and legacy of cluster bombs remain visible and devastating ever since.
Fifty thousand civilians felt victims of cluster munitions during this period of time and today about three hundred more are either injured or killed every year as a result of extensive use of cluster munitions and heavy bombardment during the Indochina war.
The First Meeting of State Party will end on Friday 12 November.
The Foreign Minister is being accompanied in Vientiane by the Permanent Secretary for Defense, Mr. Jale Fotofili and the Director Political and Treaty, Mr. Sainivalati Navoti.