[PHNOM PENH POST]
Two banks with operations in Cambodia have been linked to companies that
produce cluster bombs, as humanitarian groups said yesterday that
clearing dangerous remnants of the internationally-condemned weapons
from Preah Vihear could take as long as a year.
According to a
report released yesterday by two European groups – Netherlands-based IKV
Pax Christi and Belgium-based Netwerk Vlaanderen – Australian bank ANZ
and South Korean bank Kookmin provide financial support to companies
involved in the production of the controversial weapons, which have been
banned under a treaty signed by more than 100 countries.
Based
on an analysis of publicly availably company documents, the groups said
ANZ has underwritten bond issues for Lockheed Martin, while Kookmin has
underwritten bond issues for Hanwha Corporation and retains ownership or
management of shares in Poongsan. Lockheed Martin, Hanwha and Poongsan
are among eight corporations the report said produce cluster munitions
or their component parts.
Denise Coughlan, director of Jesuit
Services, said yesterday that the report was meant “to encourage
governments and financial institutions to do all they can so that
investments in cluster munitions are not made”.
“The success for
us is not to be naming companies. The success for us is that cluster
munitions stop being produced, and that means they can’t get backing
from financial institutions.”
In response to pressure from
activists over the issue, ANZ revised internal policies in October last
year. But Esther Vandenbroucke, co-author of the report, said from
Brussels yesterday that the policy “doesn’t go far enough”.
The
bank stated last year that it “will not be involved with direct
financing or contract bonding related to the sale or manufacturing of
controversial weapons (specifically cluster munitions and anti-personnel
land mines)”.
ANZ said it would inform companies identified as
producers of cluster munitions or their components of the new policy and
seek assurances from those companies that they are either not involved
in the production of the weapons “or are in the process of winding down
these production lines within a reasonable timeframe”.
The bank,
however, “does not unequivocally say that it will stop dealing with a
company that does not abandon this production”, the NGO report states,
calling on ANZ to “exclude producers of cluster munitions from all its
financing”.
ANZ Royal in Cambodia has “zero involvement” in
financing for Lockheed Martin, CEO Stephen Higgins said in an email
yesterday, adding that he could not speak for parent company ANZ. A
spokesman in Melbourne could not be reached after work hours.
Jang
Ki-Sung, CEO and president of Kookmin Bank in Cambodia, said yesterday
that he could not speak for the South Korea-based institution.
Meanwhile,
demining groups said it would take between six months and one year to
clear cluster munitions from fighting between Cambodia and Thailand near
Preah Vihear temple in early February.
Cluster munitions are
shells that contain numerous explosive submunitions, or bomblets. The
shells are designed to split open before contact, dispersing bomlets
across a wide area. One artillery shell affects a roughly 70
metre-by-120 metre area.
Jan Erik Stoa, a programme manager for
mine action at Norwegian People’s Aid went on a two-day surveying
mission to Preah Vihear at the beginning of April. He estimated
yesterday that “at least 100” cluster munitions shells had been launched
by Thailand into 13 areas in Cambodian territory covering approximately
1.5 to 2 million square metres.
According to evidence from the area, the bomblets failed at a rate of about 20 percent – about double the usual rate, Stoa said.
Between
5,000 and 10,000 people in four different villages have been directly
affected, “meaning they will have small submunitions in between their
houses, which of course is dangerous for people living there”, Stoa
said.
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