VFP members at Window Rock AZ IUFF Event

Veterans for Peace (VFP) – DU, Cluster Bombs, and Landmine Working Group

Our friends and colleagues from Veterans for Peace (VFP) support the fight against depleted uranium weapons in the U.S and have recently established a dedicated DU, Cluster Bombs, and Landmine Working Group.The VFP Working Group on Uranium Weapons was formed to look into depleted uranium munitions with regard to their hazardous effects from production to deployment and use. The Group includes medical, chemical and legal experts, and first hand witnesses to development, testing, production, handling and deployment of uranium weapons, as well as to onsite testing in former war zones of air, water, soil, spent munitions and destroyed equipment, etc. They also do campaigning to raise awareness about the harmful effects of these weapons and contact representatives and government agencies under the Freedom of Information Act (which is one of the few ways to receive up-to-date official information on depleted uranium weapons). Since the Spring of 2023, under the leadership of Damacio Lopez (one of the co-founders of ICBUW and member of the ICBUW Steering Group), whose home in Socorro (New Mexico) was adjacent to active test sites for decades, the group conducted research and convened weekly to examine documentation dating from four decades of research, development and production, involving more than fifty sites around the US, and including battlefield research from Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel.

The experts from the VFP DU Working Group regularly participate in ICBUW projects & events.

Co-Chairs of the group are: 

• Peter Barus
• John Wilkes

You can reach the group via the following email address:  duworkgroup@proton.me

Mission

This VFP working group condemns all use of antipersonnel mines, cluster munitions, and uranium weapons by any actor, under any circumstance.

Purpose

In furtherance of the Mission the Working Group works to:

• End production, sales, trafficking, storage, testing, and use of all landmines, uranium weapons, and cluster bombs – weapons known to have lasting harmful radioactive, poisonous, and explosive effects on public health and our living world, prolonging the effects of war indefinitely;
• Support and encourage banning of munitions made from radioactive and toxic heavy metals, landmines and cluster bombs;
• Raise awareness and knowledge of the nature and consequences of these weapons through any venue, e.g. conferences, public demonstrations, books, articles, pamphlets, discussion groups and the arts.
• Encourage all non-member States to accede to:
  • The (2008) Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM);
  • The (1997) Mine Ban Treaty (MBT);
• Promote and encourage states to support U.N. Resolutions on effects of the use of armaments and ammunition containing depleted uranium (latest Resolution was adopted in 2022).

This VFP Working Group will seek legal application of U.N. Humanitarian Law and military Rules of Engagement as a means to international oversight and enforcement, whether Convention signatories or not.