LIMA: Peru became the 76th country to ratify the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions and ban the use in military zones. Ana Maria Watson, Cluster Munition Coalition member and director of ISDH (Instituto de Seguridad y Derechos Humanos), praised the country's move. “This is a day of great joy. We welcome this final step which follows unanimous support of the Congress to approve ratification of the Convention on Cluster Munitions earlier this year. We hope this move serves as an example to other countries to ratify or accede to the Convention without delay,” she said. The terms of the Convention will become active in Peru on March 1, 2013 after the mandated 6-month waiting period, and at that stage Peru will be legally obliged to begin destruction of their stockpiled cluster munitions, stopclustermunitions.org reported. Although the exact status and composition of Peru's cluster munition stockpile is not known, research by the Cluster Munition Monitor shows that Peru possesses stockpiles of CB-470 cluster bombs of South African origin, BME-330 cluster bombs of Spanish origin, and RBK-500 cluster bombs of Russian/Soviet origin. Peru was one of the core group of nations that took responsibility for the Oslo Process that created the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, hosting an international conference on the unacceptable harm caused by the weapons in Lima in May 2007. Peru was one of the first countries to sign the Convention in Oslo on December 3, 2008 and has since continued to support the ban treaty.
