VATICAN CITY (CNS): The Vatican has called for a moratorium on the use of cluster bombs, saying past and future victims of conflicts “cannot wait for years of negotiations and discussions”.
Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican representative to Geneva-based UN agencies, told government experts on September 1 that the maiming and death of tens of thousands of people as a result of the bombs’ submunitions necessitate immediate, concrete action.
“For that, a moratorium on the use of such arms is essential,” he said in his speech during an August 20-September 6 meeting in Geneva on the Convention of Conventional Weapons.
Cluster bombs eject multiple submunitions or bomblets, and their use during the recent war in Lebanon, Archbishop Tomasi said, “tragically demonstrates to us evidence of a humanitarian tragedy unfolding before our eyes”.
Meanwhile, a Vatican official has voiced his support for a campaign by Scotland’s Catholic bishops to persuade the British Government not to invest in a new nuclear weapons system.
