Wheelchair warrior fights cluster bombers

ROSS GIBLIN/The Dominion Post

BAN THE BOMB: Soraj Habib lost both his legs after picking up a cluster munition.

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Wellington

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Six years ago Afghan schoolboy Soraj Habib was walking home from a picnic in his home town of Herat when he picked up a bright yellow can lying on the footpath.

He tried to open it because he thought there might be food inside.

The can was a cluster munition and the blast tore off both his legs, killed one of his cousins and injured four other members of his family.

Yesterday, the 16-year-old was on the Wellington Town Hall stage delivering a plea to delegates from 122 countries attending a cluster munitions conference - ban the deadly devices.

He was so badly injured that one doctor recommended he be given a lethal injection. After a series of operations he survived. He is now a wheelchair-bound campaigner fighting the cause for thousands like him whose lives and communities have been blighted by appalling weapons.

"People laugh at me. They see me as a beggar. They pity me.

"I am asking you to work this week to ban the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of these weapons and to take action to help those affected."

He said his injuries had destroyed his dreams and prevented him from going to school and playing with other kids.

Disarmament Minister Phil Goff said the disarmament conference was the biggest to be held in New Zealand and was confident it would play a pivotal role in drawing up a new convention.

Mr Goff said unexploded cluster munitions - such as the millions fired into Southern Lebanon by Israeli forces in 2006 - were effectively landmines.

He expected the new treaty would be as effective as the 1997 anti-mine treaty.

Though the United States, Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan were not party to the treaty, he believed the stigma attached to cluster munitions would stop them from using them.

Human Rights Watch director Steve Goose, one of many non-government representatives at the conference, believed the treaty would help save thousands of lives. Cluster munitions are the most dangerous conventional weapons in use today and had been used in 30 wars. Billions of the weapons are still held in stockpiles around the world.

A strong treaty was crucial, Mr Goose said, but was concerned that some countries were trying to delay it or weaken it by exempting certain weapons.