Prime Minister of Cambodia Hun Sen warned Ukraine against the use of cluster munitions, writes Le Figaro. He recalled his country’s “painful experience” in which the U.S. used cluster bombs in the early 1970s. That is why he called the use of such bombs by Ukraine “the biggest danger for Ukrainians for many years, even for a hundred years.
The United States dropped millions of bombs on Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s, trying to hit Communist military bases. “Out of pity for the Ukrainian people, I urge the president of the United States as supplier and the president of Ukraine as recipient not to use shrapnel bombs in war, because the real victims will be the Ukrainians,” he said.
It’s been 30 years since Cambodia’s civil war, but it remains one of the most mined countries in the world. Over the past four decades, some 20,000 Cambodians have died by stepping on mines or unexploded ordnance. Mine-clearance work is still going on.
In January, a team of Ukrainian demining experts visited Cambodia’s minefields as part of an exercise.
Cluster munitions are banned in a number of countries, particularly in Europe. But the special convention of 2008 has not yet been signed by the USA, Ukraine or Russia. U.S. President Joe Biden called the decision to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine “very difficult,” but “correct,” Le Figaro writes.
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