Pope urges ban on cluster bombs

(19 May, 2008) Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday said he hoped a conference on cluster bombs in the Irish capital Dublin will outlaw the deadly weapons by agreeing on a strong international convention. "I hope that, thanks to the responsibility of all the participants, a strong and credible international instrument can be achieved," he said after his midday ‘Angelus’ prayer in the north-western Italian port city of Genova. Representatives of more than 100 nations have gathered in Dublin on Monday to finalise an anti-cluster munitions treaty. Cluster munitions open in mid-air and scatter as many as several hundred "bomblets" over wide areas. They often fail to explode, creating virtual mine fields that can kill or injure anyone who comes across them. The U.N. Development Program says cluster munitions have caused more than 13,000 confirmed injuries and deaths around the world, the vast majority of them in Laos, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon. Referring to cluster bombs as "deadly weapons” Pope Benedict said "it is necessary to correct the errors of the past and avoid that they are repeated in the future". The pope said he was praying for the victims of cluster bombs and their families as well as for the successful outcome of the Dublin meeting.