Exactly eight years after the Mine Ban Treaty became international law some of the same players who helped the treaty gain acceptance are once again calling on governments to support another treaty to ban cluster munitions.

Mines Action Canada (MAC) held a (poorly attended) press conference and rally on Parliament Hill on March 1 and called on the Canadian government to declare a moratorium on cluster munitions and show more leadership on the issue.

Canada has been oddly silent on clusters; a far cry from former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy’s style of diplomacy that once galvanized the country around the landmine ban.

“We need Canadian leadership,” said Steve Goose, director of the arms division of Human Rights Watch, at the press conference. “Canada has the expertise but it has come to the table late and joined reluctantly. No other conventional weapon today harms as much as cluster bombs,” said Mr. Goose.

Canada did go to the recently completed conference on cluster munitions in Oslo, Norway, and in the end, was one of 46 states to sign the declaration to negotiate a treaty to ban cluster munitions by 2008.

For observers, however, it does not seem that the Canadian government’s heart is in it.

“Canada has a misguided love affair with the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW),” said Paul Hannon, executive director of Mines Action Canada and an expert on victim-activated weapons.

“Canada seems concerned about what our NATO allies are doing (vis a vis a possible treaty) and also seems concerned that the financial costs will be too high,” said Mr. Hannon.

NDP Foreign Affairs Critic, Alexa McDonough called on the government to support the moratorium.

The Oslo conference was organized after last year’s CCW conference failed to push the agenda forward.

As with the Mine Ban Treaty, many of the major players snubbed the conference including the United States, Russia, China and Israel.

Three countries that did go to Oslo – Japan, Poland and Romania – did not sign the declaration.

The problem with cluster munitions is the same problem as landmines – they are indiscriminate. They cannot tell the difference between an enemy combatant and a 10-year-old collecting firewood.

Unlike landmines, cluster bombs have a high failure rate at the time of deployment, meaning they do not always explode when and where they are supposed to. When they do land on the ground – in people’s backyards, in playgrounds – they become de facto landmines.

“We are not going to win the hearts and minds of people by using these weapons,” said Simon Conway, executive director of Landmine Action in the United Kingdom and a former British army officer.

At the rally in front of the Peace Tower, Mr. Conway told stories of his first hand experiences with cluster munitions. He described their military utility as negligible.

“Cluster bombs are like peas in a pod,” Mr. Conway said. “When they explode, they send fragments across an area equivalent to four soccer pitches.”

Not exactly a precision-guided smart bomb.

According to Nancy DeGraff, director of Handicap International Canada, 98 percent of recorded casualties of cluster bombs are civilian and 27 per cent of those are children.

Canada is one of more than 70 countries that stockpiles cluster munitions, however, according to a spokesperson for the Department of National Defence, Canada’s remaining stockpiles of cluster munitions are in the process of being destroyed.

At the rally, MAC called on people to sign a petition calling on the Conservative government to actively engage and support the negotiation of new international law to eliminate cluster bombs. People can sign the petition at www.minesactioncanada.org.