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Brazil not to sign treaty banning cluster bombs: FM

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-12-04 11:26

BRASILIA -- Brazil will not join the treaty prohibiting the manufacture, use and storage of cluster bombs, but may do so in the future "for humanitarian reasons," Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said on Wednesday.

A UN peacekeeper holds an inert cluster bomblet in the southern Lebanese village of Khirbet Silem. Some 100 nations began putting their names Wednesday to a landmark treaty banning cluster bombs, amid calls for major arms producers such as China, Russia and the United States to join them. [Agencies]

At a hearing in the Brazilian congress, Amorim acknowledged that such a weapon "is so inhumane" that the Brazilian government has decided to reconsider its position.

The cluster bombs contain munitions that will be scattered in an extensive area, but the danger is compounded because they will become a danger to the civilian population by a long time if they do not explode.

For the South American country, one of reasons it objected to the treaty was that the commitment to be signed in Oslo, Norway, on Wednesday was not negotiated in the framework of the United Nations.

Amorim also questioned the drafting of the treaty, saying it does not incorporate the type of bombs the main promoters such as France, Germany and Britain manufacture.

The Brazilian government could sign the treaty in the future if it includes a clause giving the producing countries time to adapt to the standards set in the document, Amorim said.