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www.videonewsagency.com [Note: contains scenes some people may find disturbing] |
In this short film, MAG’s Chief Executive Lou McGrath OBE calls on signatories to the Convention on Cluster Munitions to fund clearance of unexploded cluster bombs that devastate civilian life every day all over the world.
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Along with some other members of staff from MAG’s Manchester HQ, Lou will be travelling to Lao PDR for the First Meeting of States Parties to the Convention, being held from 9 to 12 November.
There MAG will meet with government representatives, as well as many other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) who will be attending the summit, and will emphasise the need for signatories to honour the treaty’s obligations to support clearance of unexploded cluster munitions, as well as to ban their use, stockpile and manufacture.
Lao PDR was chosen to host the summit because it is the world’s most bombed country per capita.
Records show that more than 270 million cluster munitions were dropped there between 1964 and 1973, and up to 30 per cent of them failed to explode.
In 1994 MAG became the first specialist NGO to begin clearing these weapons, and since then MAG, alongside the national authorities and other clearance agencies, has cleared a huge amount of land and paved the way for thousands of the mostly rural population to grow crops and build homes in safety.
However, such is the extent of the contamination in Lao PDR that at the current rate it will still take decades before the deadly threat has been completely removed.
“Lao has been devastated by these deadly unexploded weapons for so many years, and now it needs the support of the international community, a genuine commitment, to rid this country of this threat,” said Lou.
“We want to see that those governments who have signed this treaty can put their money where their mouth is and get the cluster munitions finally cleared from this land,” he added.
MAG thanks the following donors to its Lao PDR operations: US Department of State; European Commission; UKaid (Department of International Development); World Vision.
8 November 2010
See also:
- The unexploded ordnance problem in Lao PDR: statistics
- Why does MAG work in Lao PDR?
- MAG welcomes ratification of Cluster Bomb Ban Treaty
- PHOTO GALLERY: Worldwide scourge of cluster bombs
- VIETNAM: Meeting the wife of a cluster bomb victim
- Official 1MSP website [external link]
- Donate to MAG online - more than 90 per cent of MAG's income is spent directly on clearance programmes
- Other ways to Get Involved - shop, run, walk, skydive, drink wine...
- Click on Tags below for related articles
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