Cluster Bombs - Why the World Needs the Ban

News that Sri Lanka's last functioning hospital in the country's northern war zone has been hit by cluster bombs is a grim reminder of why the world needs to implement the treaty signed in Dublin last year banning the production, transfer, stockpiling and use of cluster munitions.

Reports of the bombing of the hospital in the area of Puthukkudiyiruppu were communicated by U.N. spokesman Gordon Weiss who said that despite the earlier evacuation of the hospital, 15 U.N. staff members and 81 members of their families were apparently trapped in the immediate area, which is one of the last regions of Sri Lanka to remain under control of the Tamil Tigers movement. Tamil fighters have been fighting for an independent homeland in the north of Sri Lanka for over 25 years. Casualty figures for this latest attack are currently unknown.

Disputed video footage from an alleged earlier cluster bomb attack in Sri Lanka appears to show fragments of munitions with cyrillic markings, indicating a possible Russian source to the cluster bombs allegedly owned by the Sri Lankan military.

The 2008 Dublin agreement was signed by 111 countries despite the absence at the conference of the major producers of cluster bombs - the United States, China, Russia, Israel, India and Pakistan.

Cluster bombs scatter smaller munitions across a wide area on impact, causing widespread destruction. Such weapons also cause a long-term danger to civilians, especially children, who may pick up unexploded bomblets by mistake.

The government of Sri Lanka publicaly denies using cluster munitions in its long campaign against the Tamil seperatist movement. Sri Lanka is not a signatory to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions.

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The Ethics of Importing Stray Dogs from Sri Lanka

The news that three British people have been bitten by a rabid dog held in quarantine in Essex was disturbing enough. To then learn that the infected dog was a stray which had been imported, along with (wait for it) THIRTEEN other strays from the streets and rubbish tips of Sri Lanka was a detail too far.



What on earth are people doing importing these hounds into the UK? The claim is that they are "rescuing" them from the admittedly brief and miserable lives that they endure in their native Sri Lanka. But, seriously, has anyone stopped for a moment to question or challenge the whole idea of importing stray dogs?

Consider the following:

• a single dog costs hundreds (if not thousands) of pounds to transport into the UK from Sri Lanka by air, not to mention producing several tons of CO2 in the process
  
• Additional costs include veterinary fees, medicines and kenneling as well as the cost of flying people from Britain to Sri Lanka to round up the hapless mutts in the first place
  
• Many of the dogs thus imported die in quarantine. The BBC reports that 5 of the 13 recently imported and brought to the Chingford centre have been put down since their arrival

Animal SOS Sri Lanka, the organisation responsible for the misguided practice of importing rabid dogs, is a registered charity in the UK, enabling it to claim significant tax relief on donations made by the pet loving British public.

Their web site is full of emotional stories of animal suffering, which, all things being equal, I'm sure we would all prefer not to be happening.

The trouble is that all things are not equal. 22% of the population of Sri Lanka live below the poverty line. The country has a Gross Domestic Product of $4,100 per head of population, ranked 144 in the world. Infant mortality is 19 per 1,000 live births, more than three times higher than that of the UK or USA. The presence of so many diseased, abandoned and neglected animals on the streets is simply a symptom of grinding human poverty, which SOS seems altogether quiet about.

How can it possibly be just to spend thousands of pounds on dogs instead of on human beings whose life prospects are often no better than the animals they live among?

To me, the most disturbing feature of the web site is the story of the Cat Lady of Sri Lanka. This desperate woman, abandoned and living in squalor next to an open sewer, is presented on the site as a model of compassion for animals. The writer virtually passes over the nauseating state of the woman's physical and mental health to describe the fact that "she was not concerned about her own health and squalid living conditions. Strangely, she seemed resigned to her fate. But, she was concerned about her pets and keeping them as healthy as she could, with no funds."

Resigned?!

"Inspired" by her example, the misguided SOS team draw their sentimental conclusion:

When human companionships are lost,
animals are still there for us.
They always will be and that is why they
are so special.
It is a unique bond that few in this world
will ever understand. For their loyalty
and devotion to us humans, we owe them
a duty of care.

So, at the heart of this nonsense is a sentimental conviction (which, incidentally, few in this world will understand) that diseased dogs should have thousands of pounds spent on flying them round the world to die in kennels in Essex.

Well, I confess plainly that I am clearly among the many in this regard and am stepping into this river of sentimentality and shouting: "Save the human! Save the human! Save the human!"

For a more edifying story from Sri Lanka, read about the work and legacy of micro entrepreneur John Karunaratne here.

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