Debates - Thursday 28 October 2004 - Tobias Pflüger

Pflüger (GUE/NGL). –(DE) Mr President, the first time I gave any serious attention to cluster bombs was in 1999, when NATO was waging a war of aggression on Yugoslavia, in which cluster bombs were deployed. In Germany, this war was supported by all the political groupings apart from the PDS, particularly by the Social Democrats and the Greens, and the consequences are still tangible. It is reported that between 30 000 and 50 000 stray cluster bombs are still to this day contaminating whole tracts of land in Kosovo.

We have to speak plainly here: most of the firms making profits from cluster bombs are European, the German firm of Rheinmetall being one example. It is evident that large-scale bombardments with cluster bombs are regarded as part of waging war. The Americans and the British used 13 000 such projectiles in their war on Iraq, and so the only right response is an outright ban on cluster bombs. If we are to have that, we must be outspoken in our criticism of the weapons industry and of the armed forces that use these weapons.