Family members speak out about victims of cluster bombs 09/25/2007

Family members speak out about victims of cluster bombs

By Tim Shenk

Sept. 24, 2007

AKRON, Pa. – Raed Mokaled is coming to the United States to speak about cluster bombs, the controversial type of weapon that mistakenly killed his five-year-old son.

Mokaled, a 42-year-old optician from southern Lebanon, is taking part in a speaking tour organized by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) to raise awareness about the civilian casualties of cluster bombs.

Cluster bombs are small, deadly explosives that have been widely used in recent wars, including in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon. MCC is participating in an international campaign to ban cluster bombs because they can lie dormant in the ground for years and kill civilians long after a conflict has ended.

Mokaled's son Ahmad was killed on his fifth birthday, Feb. 12, 1999, when he stumbled across a cluster bomb in a park in southern Lebanon. Mokaled says his son probably thought the cluster bomb was a harmless plaything, like a bottle, and it detonated when he picked it up.

Mokaled blames Israel for his son's death because the Israeli military has used cluster bombs extensively in southern Lebanon over the past 25 years. But he believes that the United States is even more to blame, because it supplies Israel with cluster bombs.

"The United States made it, and Israel dropped it," he says.

Three other participants, one from Lebanon and two from Laos, will speak about family members or neighbors who have been harmed by cluster bombs. The group will speak in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Virginia, Minnesota and Washington, D.C., from Oct. 15 to Nov. 6. Their schedule is available online at mcc.org/clusterbombs.

Titus Peachey, director of peace education for MCC U.S., says that there has been recent progress toward an international treaty on cluster bombs. This year, 81 nations agreed to sign a treaty restricting the use of cluster bombs by 2008.

These nations include Canada, Mexico, Lebanon and most of Europe, but not the United States or Israel.

Peachey encourages U.S. citizens to contact their elected representatives and advocate for a ban on cluster bombs. More information is available at mcc.org/clusterbombs and stopclustermunitions.org.

Tim Shenk is a writer for Mennonite Central Committee.

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Photo available: Raed Mokaled, a Lebanese optician, is coming to the United States as part of an MCC-sponsored speaking tour on the civilian victims of cluster bombs. (Photo by Titus Peachey)

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