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Announcement :: War and Militarism |
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Residents Take on Cluster Bomb Manufacturer on War Anniversary |
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by Middle East Crisis Coalition
Email: crisismiddleeast (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified!) |
03 Aug 2007
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The Middle East Crisis Coalition held a demonstration on Thursday, August 2nd in downtown Waltham to protest Raytheon's manufacturing of weapons designed to indiscriminately kill all living things in a wide area.
Raytheon, headquartered in Waltham, is the biggest missile manufacturer in the world, one of the world's leading manufacturers of cluster bombs, and ranks fourth in terms of military sales. |
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Cluster bombs scatter "bomblets" that frequently do not explode (like landmines) and remain lethal when moved. One bomb can strike carpet an area as large as 250 acres. Many children have been killed or severely injured by the shiny battery-sized bomblets long after the fighting has ended. They are designed to kill and maim people, not to destroy enemy targets.
Weapons that target civilians, like cluster munitions and landmines, meet the criteria for being banned by international law and the Geneva Conventions and their use can be called a "war crime". The United States won't support international efforts to ban their use, and is
one of the primary users, suppliers, and stockpilers of these horrendous weapons. They have been exported to at least 27 countries. They were used in Afghanistan and Iraq. American bombs were sent to Israel and used in Southern Lebanon in 2006, where millions of unexploded ordinances make much of the area uninhabitable. American
tax dollars pay for them.
Protest organizers are also calling for the US to: sign an international treaty to ban the production and use of cluster bombs; stop investment in cluster bomb manufacturers by US banks and investors; halt Raytheon's manufacturing of cluster bombs; and support legislation to prevent the use and export of these inhumane weapons.
The group is supporting the legislation introduced by Senators Dianne Feinstein (CA) and Patrick Leahy (VT) and passed 6/28 by the Senate Appropriations Committee and S594, the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act of 2007 and referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives. |
See also:
http://www.middleeastcrisiscoalition.org
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This work licensed under a
Creative Commons license. |
