Civilians Not Protected From DU Exploitation
A new report entitled Hazard Aware explains that civilian populations are not being protected from exploitation caused by the use of depleted uranium munitions in war zones. Other studies show that radiation from depleted uranium use travels in the air and afflicts inhabitants of other countries.
For years world scientists have decried the dangers of depleted uranium contamination only to be ignored by governments which took a “strike first, clean-up later” attitude. One scientist, Chris Busby, was able to obtain documentation proving that the radiation caused by “shock and awe” in Iraq had traveled all the way to London and beyond.
In the mid-1970s, depleted uranium testing on solders at Fort Hood, Texas was conducted in secret by the military, to determine thresholds of contamination effect.
U.S. Department of Defense clean-up of contaminated areas after the first Gulf war proved impossible, according to personnel in the field.
The latest report, published by the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons, contains research done by IKV Pax Christi, which collected military manuals and guidelines on how to deal with depleted uranium contamination from six different armed forces and includes NATO guidelines.
The outcome, according to Wim Zwijnenburg, contains lessons learned from military field manuals on depleted uranium and how to move forward for civilian protection norms due to the potential negative effects on health and environment.
The report encourages the implementation of strict hygiene procedures to avoid DU exposure, with detailed instructions on how to deal with accidents that may occur during transportation and storage of DU.
Noted Zwijnenburg, “Considering the chemical toxicity and radioactivity of DU, this all makes perfect sense. Precautionary measures should be undertaken to keep exposure as low as possible.”
According to the report, “Centuries ago, armies were fighting armies on a battleground outside of civilian areas. But with new weapon technologies and change of conflict dynamics and battlegrounds, nowadays 90% of the victims of armed conflict are civilians. While soldiers have all sorts of means at their disposition to protect themselves during and after armed conflict, civilians are barely protected against the range of weapons deployed, such as depleted uranium (DU).”
The report published by IKV Pax Christi reveals this gap and provides civilian centered strategies for protection against exposure to DU.
“Not surprisingly, armed forces have strict guidelines. These have to protect troops against a range of explosive and chemical residues, including those resulting from the use of landmines, cluster munitions, unexploded ordnance’s (UXOs) and nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons in case they are deployed. The guidelines are drawn up to protect the troops against exposure and limit the potential harm posed by these weapons. Clearance operations during and after armed conflict are developed to remove these weapons from the battlefield, especially because of harmful effects on civilians living in areas where the weapons have been deployed. A majority of states have recognized these threats, hence the ban on landmines and cluster munitions and several conventions on chemical, biological, and toxic weapons.
“Quite interestingly, depleted uranium (DU) munitions are still considered legitimate conventional weapons. Despite ongoing debates in the UN, several bans on DU by states and an international campaign to ban DU weapons, little interest is shown to tackle this issue once and for all. The main reason given by states for this inertia is that a clear link between the use of these weapons and their potential effect on health and environment is not proven. Nonetheless, most of the armed forces operating in areas where DU has been used or suspected to have been used have guidelines in place to protect their troops against contamination with DU.”
Although guidelines exist for the military, “none of these guidelines are available for civilians living in contaminated areas that are likely to be exposed to these hazardous materials on a daily basis. Over the past 25 years, DU has been used in the Balkans and Iraq, leaving over 400.000 kg of DU in the soil, and contaminated scrap is stored inside populated areas.
“During the course of the last two decades, numerous reports from those areas expressed concerns amongst citizens over the potential effects of those weapons, linking it to an increased numbers of cancers and birth deformations in their communities. But what is lacking is research and work by affected states to clean up those areas, remediation measures for contaminated sites and scrap yards, and research on exposure of civilians to DU.
“Based on the military precautionary measures, IKV Pax Christi’s report provides civilian centered strategies for protection against exposure to DU and makes recommendations for further work on DU in affected area’s, basic procedures such as transparency over the locations where DU was used, assessment of the contaminated sites, clean up operations and awareness raising for the local population. Until today, on most of the sites in the Balkans and Iraq, few of these procedures have been implemented, resulting in continued exposure of civilians to toxic remnants of war, and an international community that fails to act.
“IKV Pax Christi strongly believes that DU is an unacceptable component of conventional weapons, and calls upon the international community to apply a precautionary approach to DU and ban these weapons as well as provide assistance to the affected countries in cleaning up DU munitions, hence minimizing the harm for civilians to exposure to DU in and after armed conflict.”
The report notes that uranium weapons release large volumes of fine particles into the environment when they are used. Uranium is a radioactive and chemically toxic heavy metal. It has a similar density to gold. This has made it an attractive choice for producers of armor-piercing weapons known as Kinetic Energy penetrators. The penetrator is a long dart of solid depleted uranium; it is neither a tip, nor a coating and weighs up to 4kg. Kinetic Energy Penetrators use their kinetic energy to pierce armour instead of a chemical explosive. Uranium’s other key property is that it is pyrophoric. Pyrophoric materials oxidize rapidly when exposed to oxygen, this means finely ground uranium powder burns when exposed to air.
It is this last property that is responsible for the generation of fine, radioactive and chemically toxic particles. Once released on battlefields and testing ranges, these particles can then be ingested or inhaled by civilians and service personnel alike. Rounds that miss their targets may also corrode in the soil and contaminate groundwater.
The problem is being documented in dozens of recently published peer-reviewed papers that have indicated that uranium can damage health through new and unexpected pathways.
Reports from hospitals in Iraq have linked uranium weapon contamination with a rise in the incidence of cancers often associated with environmental contaminants and radiation, such as leukemia, lymphoma, and breast cancer. Furthermore, the age at which Iraqis have developed cancer has been decreasing.
Dozens of veterans have tested positive for uranium exposure and have been seen to be exhibiting a range of symptoms. In Italy, the state has agreed to a 30m Euro compensation package for service personnel suffering from Balkan Syndrome, this was thought to be connected with uranium exposure. The decision was made all the more notable after an expert panel concluded that the burden of proof in these cases should be reversed and the military made to prove that sick personnel had not been exposed.
Although states that use uranium weapons have been unwilling to undertake surveys of contaminated populations, there is now sufficient data to request that governments take a precautionary approach and introduce a moratorium on the use of these weapons. A precautionary approach is also supported by the fact that uranium dust is almost impossible to remove from the environment once released.
For an extensive list of recently published peer-reviewed papers visit: http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/docs/58.pdf
For more information about depleted uranium, visit http://links.causes.com/s/clD3bq?r=Mlh3
It is thought that the United States and the United Kingdom are the only states to have used uranium weapons in active conflict, although questions remain over France’s use of uranium weapons in the Gulf War and Russia’s in Chechnya. They were first used on a large scale by U.S. and UK forces in the 1991 Gulf War, by NATO in the Balkans in the late 1990s and again by U.S. and UK forces in the 2003 Iraq War. It is suspected that they may have also been used in Afghanistan since 2001.
Uranium weapons are in use by at least 17, and as many as 20 countries. Some states have developed them independently while others have bought U.S. and Soviet-made munitions. The opacity of the arms trade has meant that this data is far from complete.
States thought to have uranium weapons include: UK, U.S., France, Russia, Belarus, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Egypt, Kuwait, Pakistan, Thailand, China, India, Belarus, and Taiwan.
ICBUW suggests that a uranium weapons treaty that will synthesize the impressive human rights and victim assistance text of the Cluster Munition Convention with environmental law and the Precautionary Principle – this would be a first for disarmament law and would have a huge impact on the wider issue of the use of toxic substances in warfare.
“A Uranium Weapons Convention would ban the use of uranium in all conventional weapons and armor, release money for environmental remediation and medical care and order the destruction of stockpiles.”
Two UN General Assembly resolutions, one highlighting health concerns and the other requesting the World Health Organization, International Atomic Energy Agency, and United Nations Environment Program to update their positions on uranium weapons. The resolutions passed by 126 to six and 141 to four respectively.
Four increasingly strong resolutions in the European Parliament, the most recent in May 2007 called for a moratorium leading to a ban and passed by 94% of MEPs.
A domestic ban on uranium weapons occurred recently in Belgium; they were also the first state in the world to ban land mines and cluster bombs.
