European Religious Leaders Call for Ban of Cluster Munitions
NEW YORK, Nov 3 -- Religious leaders of different faiths, working together through Religions for Peace, the world's largest and most representative multi-religious coalition, committed to advance a ban on cluster munitions. The deadly weapons, like anti-personnel landmines indiscriminately kill and injure civilians. "To fail to sign the treaty banning cluster munitions is to fail humanity", said Bishop Gunnar Stlsett, Moderator of the Religions for Peace European Council of Religious Leaders (ECRL). "We cannot take away the sorrow of those affected, but we can accompany them in their hope for justice", he said.
Dr. Mustafa Ceric, Reis-I-ulema of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina and a Co-President of the Religions for Peace World Council, stated: "Banning cluster munitions is not a work to honour the angels that have lost their lives by this morally reprehensible weapon, but to protect those not yet born". Dr. Ceric and the Interreligious Council of Bosnia-Herzegovina hosted the European Faith Leaders Conference on Cluster Munitions last week. The meeting was co-sponsored by Religions for Peace International, Religions for Peace ECRL and Handicap International.
For more than 60 years, cluster munitions have killed and wounded innocent people-- many of them children-- causing suffering, loss, and hardship for thousands in more than 30 countries, the religious leaders said in a statement. "Cluster munitions continue to inflict injury and death for years-- sometimes decades after-- the end of a war. It is not peace when children cannot play safely in their playgrounds. It is not peace when farmers cannot cultivate their fields, nor fishermen draw their nets without fear. It is not peace when people cannot move freely in their local communities".
Secretary General Dr. William F. Vendley said: "Disarmament is central to the mission of Religions for Peace. Since its founding in 1970, we have worked to advance nuclear weapons non- proliferation and reduction. Religions for Peace is committed to responding to the changing threats of arms, including the threat of cluster bombs." The religious leaders committed themselves to work to ensure the implementation of a global treaty that bans cluster munitions. Religions for Peace has joined hands with other groups in the Cluster Munitions Coalition. Earlier this year, 60 religious leaders from Religions for Peace signed an international appeal advocating the ban.
A treaty was negotiated during the Dublin Diplomatic Conference on Cluster Munitions in May 2008 and adopted there by all 107 participating governments. It will be signed at a ceremony in Oslo, Norway, in December 2008. The central provision of the Cluster Munitions Convention is the ban on the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of cluster munitions. The treaty includes new and important obligations to protect and promote the human rights of cluster munitions victims and to ensure they receive the assistance they need to live full lives. The treaty also requires that unexploded cluster munitions are cleared within ten years.
Low Crop Prices Drive Kenyan Farmers to Marijuana
MIGORI (Kenya), Nov 3 (IPS) - Kenyan small-scale farmers have moved across the border into Tanzania to cultivate marijuana or ''bhang'', as the cannabis sativa plant is locally called. One of them is 25-year-old Steve Odhiambo. He believes that the international and local campaign against bhang harms only the small growers while the true profiteers get away.
For the past 10 years, Kenya's anti-narcotics unit has conducted a concerted campaign to eradicate cultivation and trade of bhang. Hundreds of hectares of plantations in the Mount Kenya regions of Embu and Meru are bulldozed or put on fire each year. Plans to kill the illegal crop, hidden in clearings amidst remote forests, with aerial sprays had to be put off because of opposition from environmentalists.
Of the 17,578 people arrested during from 2005 to 2007 on drug-related charges, more than 500 were the growers of cannabis. As a result, according to recent police estimates, Kenya's output of marijuana has come down to 80 tons per year with a street value of 15 dollars per kg. Yet, the country remains the biggest consumer of bhang in east Africa.
''The demand in the consumption market has not come down despite the curbs on production,'' says an official of the anti-narcotics unit, who estimates that the supply is almost double the local produce because ''wholesale and retail bhang dealers find other sources of acquiring the contraband. It's a constant battle we have to fight.'' A major front in this battle is the 769 km border with Tanzania. Most of the marijuana consumed in Kenya is grown in Tanzania and brought into the country across the largely unmarked border. It is impossible to police due to the cultural and linguistic affinity of people living on both sides, and the constant free movement of cattle and people.
Tanzanian farmers are not the only producers in the market. The police crackdown on Kenyan bhang farmers has forced many to rent land in the thick hilly forests across the border, mainly in the Arusha district. It was 10 years ago when orphaned Steve Odhiambo left his hometown Migori in the Nyanza province to rent a half-hectare piece of land across the border in Roria to grow bhang.
''I was just 15 years old and the first year of farming proved to be disastrous. The rain was good and the harvest was healthy but I had no experience of marketing the crop. I spent more money bribing people on both sides than I earned,'' Odhiambo told IPS.
Asked why he decided to take up farming of an illegal substance as his source of livelihood, Odhiambi said growing maize, sugarcane or other food crops on small farms brings no money. There is a lot of ''free land'' on the Tanzanian side available for farming for as low as 25 to 30 dollars per acre for a season.