February 4, 2004
Karen Parker: Fighting to stop the use of illegal weapons
by Stephanie Hiller
"I think since we've raised
this issue at the UN as vocally as we have, it has had a
nonproliferation effect."
Karen Parker is a human rights lawyer who specializes in armed conflict law; she has been an advocate for victims of rights abuses including Ugandan refugees, World War II comfort women of Japan, and child slavery in Saudi Arabia. She is responsible, in part, for the evolution of international law in such areas as economic sanctions, weaponry, environment as a human right, and the rights of the disabled. She is currently the chief delegate for International Educational Development - Humanitarian Law Project, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) accredited by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). In 2001, Ms. Parker and her colleagues lobbied successfully for the appointment of a special rapporteur on depleted uranium during the annual session of the Subcommission on the Prevention of Discrimination Against Minorities. A graduate of the University of San Francisco Law School, Karen lives in San Francisco.
Awakened Woman talked with Karen Parker via telephone a few days before Thanksgiving. I had just learned about the UMRC study (please see our story, "Scientists Discover Radioactive Trail in Afghanistan") regarding the high uranium levels in Afghan citizens, and I asked her for her view of it.
"I'm not a scientist, but I know Dr. Durakovich, having communicated with his organization for a number of years. And I have reviewed his material with others highly knowledgeable in the field, who concur that his findings appear to be verifiable and credible and his methodology is also credible."
Asked whether their study indicates that some other type of uranium weapons was used in Afghanistan, Karen said, "It's very likely. I think there will also be indications that something more than depleted uranium was used in Gulf War 2."
Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the nuclear process, whether military or for energy, and the US has huge piles of it. Though depleted, it is still highly radioactive. DU was introduced in weaponry during the first Gulf War. Initially, DU was used to form tank-penetrating rounds. These were about six inches long and had the feature of penetrating the heavy metal in tanks. Because of its density, depleted uranium was also used in tanks and protective armor for soldiers. Due to its relatively low levels of radioactivity, depleted uranium was considered fairly harmless (it is also used in golf clubs) and the Pentagon has repeatedly denied any danger from its use, even though its original research into the military application of du stated clearly the dangers to personnel.
However, when exploded, depleted uranium releases a highly radioactive gas; tiny alpha particles are easily inhaled into the lungs. When Gulf War veterans returned home, many of them became mysteriously ill, with symptoms highly suggestive of radiation sickness. Thanks to the work of Gulf War veterans like Doug Rokke and Dan Fahey, and many dedicated activists, the dangers of depleted uranium are now well known, but the Pentagon continues to defend its use.
Karen said that depleted uranium has been used in the nose cones of big bombs used in recent wars. "The daisy cutter is a big fuel air bomb, 15,000 pounds, and when they hit they create a mushroom cloud. They incinerate everything in an area the size of three football fields directly. Maximum bang for the buck!
"I have worked with the United Nations on evaluating these weapons. The weapons used in Afghanistan were more bunker busters and fuel air bombs which are called either daisy cutters or nicknamed Big Blu, more than the Abrams tanks and that kind of thing.
"The UN investigator has a lot of evidence that the bunker busters have DU nosecones and perhaps other radioactivity. It's kind of from inferences because the radiation tested doesn't match just DU, but there is possible plutonium contamination which according to scientists was more likely to give the kinds of readings that Dr. Durakovich (of UMRC) found."
Are they nuclear weapons?
"I think so. The UN has condemned the use of them…. They are illegal weapons, and they are illegal for more reasons than the depleted uranium. They're just indiscriminate weapons."
Whether these weapons are termed nuclear depends on which scientist you talk to, said Karen. For some scientists, nuclear refers only to fission-fusion. But they are certainly radiological weapons, "and as such are illegal by international law. It doesn't have to be shown to be a nuclear weapon to be illegal. It has to have the effects that illegal weapons have, and one of the effects of course is poison. It may be a great weapon but what does it do -- to people? Even people who are not combatants, three years later children are born with no arms. The child was not a target. It's on those grounds that depleted uranium is viewed as illegal.
"The other concern the UN has had about those daisy cutters is they're so big and they make such a bang, there are indications that they may have been responsible for subsequent earthquakes in the nearby areas. There have been two rather large earthquakes in Afghanistan, in areas that weren't all that active seismically, and there are some scientists looking into it but it's very difficult because control of the area is almost exclusively in the hands of the United States or United States controlled people."
These bombs, and the new generation of small nuclear missiles the Pentagon is currently developing, unlike the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, are not nuclear fission explosives, but they are chemically toxic and do release radiation that can be spread by wind, water, and even birds, affecting masses of people far beyond the target areas. The effects of exposure may not show up for years, and it's not easy to ascertain the exact cause of a birth deformity or a cancer that occurs 20 years later.
Karen has argued that these types of weapons are already illegal under the protocols of international laws of warfare such as the Geneva Convention, established just after the second world war, and the Hague Convention.
Weapons that keep killing when the war's over are all classed as "weapons of mass destruction" -- and they are illegal according to four rules of warfare:
1. Weapons can only be used in the legal field of battle.
2. Weapons can only be used for the duration of an armed conflict. Weapons can't "keep on giving" twenty years after the military incident.
3. Weapons may not be unduly inhumane. (A look at the pictures of birth deformities in Iraq will confirm that these weapons are not humane.)
4. Weapons may not have an unduly negative effect on the natural environment. In Iraq and Afghanistan, water and soil have been thoroughly -- and permanently -- polluted by these weapons. Radioactive uranium has a half-life of 450 million years!
What can we do about this? I asked her.
In Karen Parker's view, the strategy that seems to be working is nonproliferation.
Typically there are 30 to 40 wars around the world every year. "Governments that have DU weapons and could be using them, have not. The list includes France, Russia, Pakistan, India, Israel. It would be so easy for them to knock off those tanks with depleted uranium, but they're not.
"I think since we've raised this issue at the UN as vocally as we have, it has had a nonproliferation effect. I think it has also slowed the sale. So countries that already had DU and were sort of on track to buy some more could be deciding to put their bucks elsewhere. The US can try to fend off the legal consequences. Some of these other countries don't feel that they can."
Will the use of these weapons by the US liberate others to use them?
"I think the anti nuclear movements in some of these countries is so strong, I can't see that happening. I see a possibility of them ganging up on us and taking a more forceful, unified position against us, similar to the grouping around the steel embargo. Now with the contract-restriction issue raising its head, the EU countries, adding Russia and Canada and perhaps some others, are probably going to take a very strong and very unified action.
Through the UN?
"A lot of different ways. Through trade sanctions, etc."
Will that be effective?
"Well Bush backed down on the steel embargo issue -- and he had made a huge promise to a huge number of Americans that financially back him in a really big way. The way the WTO came down on him, he realized it was to his advantage to back down particularly in an election year.
"I think what they will do will be very forceful, and I think it will weigh on the depleted uranium issue as well, if they kind these kinds of ways to penalize the United States for what they view as 'wrong' then they'll find other ways.
"The US takes an extremely arrogant position on whether it can be hauled into court, defying the International Court. The international community tends to tear its hair, wondering how they're going to control the rogue elephant, particularly in light of this year and these kinds of actions."
Legal action by the victims of war demanding compensation is possible, Karen said. She was the attorney in a case brought before the Organization of American States (OAS) by Disabled Peoples International on behalf of the victims of the US bombing of the Hospital for the Mentally Retarded and Mentally Ill in Grenada.
They won their case, and the United States responded by building a state of the art hospital in Grenada.