Japan Decides to Abolish Cluster Bombs

Tokyo, Nov. 28 (Jiji Press)--The Japanese government decided Friday
to scrap all cluster bombs held by the Self-Defense Forces and not to
acquire any types of the bombs thereafter.
Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone will fly to Oslo to sign an
international treaty to ban cluster bombs on Wednesday next week.

Japanese forces currently own four types of cluster bombs that will
be banned under the landmark treaty. As signatories of the treaty will be
required to scrap their cluster bombs within eight years of ratification,
the Japanese government will begin devising specific disposal means in
fiscal 2009.
Cluster bombs eject hundreds of smaller individual submunitions, or
bomblets, to kill enemies and destroy facilities in a wide area.
In May, the government decided to sign the treaty on humanitarian
grounds, as unexploded bomblets have killed and injured many civilians in
postconflict areas abroad.
Although the treaty will not ban new types of cluster bombs that
are less likely to remain unexploded, Japan gave up buying such weapons due
to high costs. The country will instead introduce the single-warhead,
precision-guided munitions of M-31 rockets and laser joint direct attack
munitions, or LJDAMs.
The Defense Ministry plans to request fiscal 2009 budget
allocations of 200 million yen for preparatory research for the cluster bomb
disposal and 7.3 billion yen for purchasing the precision-guided munitions.
The total disposal costs are estimated to reach 20 billion yen.