Serene Assir backs up her arguments against normalisation Based in New York, Venezuelan photographer Kike Arnal has worked in the Americas, Asia including Afghanistan, and the Middle East, often documenting stories that the mainstream media would rather forget. In the summer of 2007, he travelled to southern Lebanon for a project on the victims of cluster bomb explosions. The result is a series of black-and-white photographs and video-interviews that give a profound, unsettling impression of dignity and beauty, a dichotomy that has come to define the people of el-jnoub - historically a kind of surrogate Palestine as far as Israeli aggression is concerned - as south Lebanon is known throughout the country. Arnal's work shows the suffering these people have been enduring, not least as a result of the constant and ongoing threat posed by the thousands of unexploded cluster munitions that continue to litter the region's villages and fields. In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, Arnal said the experience of working in Lebanon made a very strong impact on him. He also emphasised the critical role of documentation in helping raise awareness of political realities today: "I believe that it was important to deliver the message to the international community that the war still hasn't finished for thousands of Lebanese civilians, who are one way or another still falling prey to these weapons, a reality that cannot be justified in any way, and that's in no way legally tenable..." Indeed, Arnal's work is not only a testament to the critical importance of the role of culture and the arts in exposing the suffering of victims of oppression and injustice, it also serves as a reminder of the fact that thousands of Lebanese continue to be subject to the consequences of the aggression the country suffered at the hands of Israel in summer 2006. With a ceasefire in the offing and within the last 72 hours before the end of hostilities, in an act described by the then-UN Humanitarian Coordinator and Under-Secretary General Jan Egeland as "immoral", Israel launched millions of cluster bomblets in missile and artillery attacks, leaving up to 1.5 million unexploded bomblets in their aftermath. Ever since, the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre for South Lebanon has located more than 950 cluster bomb sites in the south of Lebanon, and has taken concerted action to coordinate clearance. However, the heavily agricultural south continues to be unsafe, particularly as the areas most affected comprised the tough terrain of agricultural land. In addition, it is the people who have paid the economic price, as they have been unable, in many cases to this day, to safely access their fields. To date, there have been 255 casualties, including 71 minors. Counting both civilians and de-miners, 38 have died as a result of cluster bomb explosions since the ceasefire in August 2006.
