Sci-Afric Journal of Scientific Issues, Research and Essays Vol. 2 (10), Pp. 469-473, October, 2014. (ISSN 2311-6188)

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Research Paper

Psycho-environmental Tribulations Arising from Cluster Munitions in South Lebanon.

Aida Hoteit1 and Jawad Fares2*

1. Department of Architecture, Institute of Fine Arts, Lebanese University, Beirut, Lebanon. 2. Faculty of Medicine, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon.

*Corresponding Author’s E-mail: jyf04@mail.aub.edu , jyfares@gmail.com

Accepted October 24th, 2014

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ABSTRACT

Cluster bombs are detrimental weapons of extensive destruction on environmental, biological and psychosocial levels. However, the broader effects of sub-munitions’ presence on postwar recovery remain largely unexplored. A prospective study was performed in Lebanon to analyze and interpret the effect of sub-munitions on multiple environmental and psychosocial stages for the devastation wrought by them on local populations is severe. The study showed that 42% of South Lebanon was infected with sub-munitions. 92% of these areas are green areas covered with plantations and/or vegetations. These infected areas included cultural and historic monuments of great importance. A theory of “land detachment” is proposed to explain the way sub-munitions affect the biological and social qualities of the infected land. Cluster bombs are a main cause in the desensitization from one’s homeland. Laws and legislations should be passed to prohibit the use of such damaging weapons.

Key words: Cluster bombs, environmental effects, psycho-environmental effects, psychosocial effects, land detachment. INTRODUCTION

Cluster munitions are one of the most environmentally and socially destructive repercussions of war facing the world today. The Lebanese cluster bombs’ problem has transcended both human and sociological problems to bring about environmental damage. Cluster munitions are different from other forms of war weaponry because of their very insistent, undifferentiating and unobstructed nature. Unfortunately, it is also a cause for one of the least studied and documented environmental and urban problems discussed today.

The latest conflict between Israel and Lebanon, known in Lebanon as the July War, started on 12 July 2006 and continued until a United Nations (UN)-brokered ceasefire came into effect on 14 August 2006. Lebanese government estimates indicate that more than 700,000 of these people had returned to their homes by late August 2006—the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) puts the figure at around 550,000 [1] (Figure 1).

Figure 1: A map showing the Israeli bombings of Lebanon during the 2006 war.

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Cluster bombs are believed, along with landmines, to have killed more people than nuclear and chemical weapons combined. They are responsible for killing approximately 800 people and disabling another 1200 people per week [2], [3].

In Lebanon, cluster bombs have been extensively used by the Israeli army in the south. Israel has dropped more than four million sub-munitions in the 2006 war alone. One million of which remain unexploded threatening the lives of southern Lebanese citizens and preventing them from entering their lands [3] (Figure 2).

Figure 2: A cluster bomb containing undetonated sub-munitions (bomblets) in Lebanon In this study, we will explore the effects of cluster bombs on the land, the environment and the society of Lebanon. We will also

explain the interaction that occur between the environment and the human being and discuss how sub-munitions affect this interaction. MATERIALS

This study is founded on the evocative investigative approach that is based on collecting facts and data about the issue in hand. This approach was done by collecting and studying data to reach satisfactory generalizations.

The research was based on two types of data sources: library research and on-field research. Library research was conducted by studying data archives, government documents and census materials, and secondary sources such as books, studies, periodicals and newspapers to make a decisive evaluation of the materials in hand. On-field research, on the other hand, was based on direct observations and conducting interviews with to evaluate land accessibility, emotions and hardships caused by the presence of sub-munitions. Old houses and settlements were also examined for further evaluation. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

On physical and organizational levels, the July 2006 war caused an estimated one billion USD of direct financial damage to infrastructure [4]. However, it generated also significant indirect costs. The heavy destruction and loss of the capital and human resource base have resulted in a net loss in output. Nearly 1,489 buildings were destroyed or damaged, including the complete destruction of 30,000 housing units and the partial damage to more than 100,000 housing units, as well as 565 sections of road and approximately 100 bridges. Table 1 summarizes losses in districts of south Lebanon alone (Table 1). Table I: Destruction and damage due to the July War in South Lebanon [5]

South Lebanon Buildings damaged

Infrastructure and sections of roads destroyed

Agricultural fields damaged

Tyre District 401 251 342

Bent Jbail District 929 240 131

Marjayoun District 159 44 72

Total 1489 535 545

Fares and Hoteit 470 On a human level, 417 casualties were recorded. 54 reported to be dead and 363 injured. 221 suffered from injuries in the

upper extremities, 294 suffered from injuries in the lower extremities, 159 had injuries including both upper and lower extremities. 29 of the patients, suffered from head injuries. 83 cases were detected with member amputations: 27 in the upper extremities and 56 in the lower ones. Most amputees suffered from finger amputations.

The clinical results obtained before leaving the hospital, recorded 301 cases with functional disability and 55 with partial recovery. The psycho-social effect was significant, whereby 312 patients were suffering from its consequences [6]-[9].

One sector that suffered considerably was agriculture, the main source of income for 30–40% of Lebanese people [4]. About 42% of the area of southern Lebanon, which is equivalent to 12% of Lebanon’s area, turned out to be infected by unexploded sub-munitions. 92% of these areas are green areas covered with plantations and/or vegetations. About 82% of the people living in the area of these mines were unable to access their lands; almost 545 cultivated fields were rendered inaccessible due to damage or the presence of unexploded ordinance, such as cluster munitions [10]. In addition, 30% of the inhabitants showed unwillingness to return back to their lands [11]; farm animals and crops were being left unattended (Figure 3).

Figure 3: An undetonated sub-munition settled infront of an abandoned civilian house in southern Lebanon.

Cluster munitions accelerate environmental damage. We noticed, similar to what Leaning observed [10], that fear of the cluster munitions denied access to abundant natural resources and arable land; populations were forced to move preferentially into secondary and fragile locations in order to avoid the unexploded ordnances. This migration speeds depletion of biological diversity since it disturbs essential soil and water processes and causes an acceleration of ecosystem disruption land degradation [12].

We assert that cluster bombs cause multifaceted phenomena of land degradation across different temporal and spatial scales. Land degradation has been defined as a substantial reduction or loss of the intrinsic qualities or biophysical productivity and complexity of land due to land uses or processes arising from human activities. It denotes a drop in stature; and signifies the reduction, loss or change of features or organisms that are hard, if not entirely impossible, to replace [13]-[16]. The environmental repercussions can vary depending on the amount or the concentration of the bomblets (sub-munitions) in a specific area, the chemical composition and the toxicity of the bomblets and finally the previous uses of the land in the targeted area. However, the theory of land degradation does not attempt to explain the resulting interaction between the human being and the affected environment. Instead, it focuses only on the environmental features and the cause of the degradation without reflecting on the psychosocial and communal consequences. The psycho-environmental approach

The damage inflicted by cluster munitions and other unexploded ordnances of war do not have an environmental effect solely.

Quantitative social science research has shown that exposure to disaster increases the human risk of depression, anxiety, and somatic complaints, with various risk factors, such as female sex, prior psychiatric history, severity of disaster exposure, perceived lack of control during disaster and inadequate social support after disaster [17]. Yearly, millions of people are affected by disasters, including conflict, with the vast majority of affected persons living in resource-poor areas. Disasters can be either natural or human-made, and include conditions that surround political violence and displacement. No adequate measures exist to assess the full human cost of disasters, especially the social and non-pathological mental health effects [18]. After the 2006 war, 312 Lebanese patients, victimized by cluster munitions, showed psychological presentations.

In order to understand the psycho-environmental damage of unexploded ordnances and its relative consequences, we propose a new theory of “land detachment” by which the assessment of this damage is possible on environmental, biological and psychosocial levels. This proposed theory is based on the feedback that was collected from environmental, anthropological and psychosocial factors from affected individuals in the southern region of Lebanon. Land inaccessibility, damage to flora and fauna, toxicity and pollution, loss of yield and sensual and memorial desensitization are several ways by which cluster bombs can cause

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land detachment. By definition, the psycho-environmental effects of cluster munitions are the psychological vulnerabilities and environmental influences that shape the behavior of the sub-munitions victims and non-victims.

We believe that detachment occurs due to the excessive subjection of the human being to a negative stimulus. Eventually, the human will detach from this stimulus and won’t be affected by its consequences. In Lebanon, we observed that the farmers and the southern inhabitants were showing emotions of alarm and anxiety when dealing with lands infected with sub-munitions. This continuous feeling, which is often perceived negatively, made the inhabitants detach from the negative-feeling producing agent, which in this case, is the munition- infected land (Figure 4).

Figure 4: A map showing the locations of sub-munitions mines on Lebanese soil

Environmental and biological components of land detachment

We observed that damage to flora and fauna occurred at different ecological and biological levels. The impact of cluster munitions on biological diversity is considered to be a foremost environmental concern. As long as they receive enough stimuli to activate them, sub-munitions do not differentiate between human beings or other life forms [19]. They destroy vegetation cover during explosions and when animals fall victim. This way, plant and animal populations are threatened along with those of humans. In Lebanon, we observed that a lot of tobacco crops were burnt by such explosions (Figure 5). Knowing that tobacco is considered to be one of the main agricultural businesses of rural families in the south of Lebanon, many of the rural families were economically affected. Unfortunately, this area is one of which there is hardly any numerical data to determine how many individuals of a species or where and how they fall victims.

Figure 5: A sub-munition settled in a tobacco crop in Southern Lebanon.

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Furthermore, sub-munitions and other landmines cause toxicity to the arable land in the South. Sub-munitions are made of metal, timber or plastic casing and are filled with 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT), hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX or Cyclonite1) or tetryl. They can also introduce other non-biodegradable and toxic materials, such as depleted uranium. These compounds have been known to leach into soil and underground water as casings of the bomblets disintegrate [20]. Soil contamination with heavy metals was observed in Southern Lebanese areas surrounding the cluster bombs when the munitions explode.

Besides, during explosions, the primary layers of soil get disrupted and misplaced. We observed that these explosions caused damage to the soils’ constancy by deteriorating its structure. As a result, compaction and increasing the soil’s susceptibility to erosion transpire. This can result in long-term changes that have significant and sustained impacts on moisture availability, erodibility and productivity of the land [6]-[9], [21]. Psychosocial component of land detachment

Sub-munitions affect accessibility and resource productivity whether they have detonated or not. The inaccessibility to vital resources is defined, similarly to what Ribot and Peluso say [16], as the ability to derive benefits from resources. For their military purpose, cluster munitions guarantee that soldiers and their movements are channeled away from strategically major spots. But the use of cluster bombs is not by any means confined to military enterprises; in the 2006 war, cluster munitions were dropped over civilian areas in the South of Lebanon. The fear of presence of even a single sub-munition can deny people access to land that they dreadfully need for agriculture or water supply [9] (Figure 6). The notion that societies intentionally and unintentionally physically reconstitute nature is a substantial deviation from the more traditional concepts that societies merely physically engage nature [22], [23]. Along these lines, cluster munitions reconstitute the natural landscape because a primary objective is the purposeful disruption of access to land-based resources due to the threat of violent consequences. This then results in large abandoned agricultural areas that return to bush and forest, while un-mined agricultural areas become degraded due to overpopulation; this is a new kind of natural resource–conflict relationship [23].

Figure 6: An abandoned field in southern Lebanon due to the presence of mines and other unexploded ordnances post the 2006 conflict. CONCLUSION

In conclusion, cluster bombs are causing damage to the environment with all of its components and interacting factors. Exploding sub-munitions are killing and injuring individuals, degrading lands and eliciting fear in innocent civilians. Undetonated sub-munitions are causing land detachment by decreasing the productivity of the arable land and increasing the detachment between the land and its inhabitant. International laws should be enforced and the use of cluster bombs should be banned for the damage that this weapon can cause on all ecological, urban and sociological components.

Currently, the convention on cluster munitions (CCM) has been sanctioned by 77 countries and approved by another 34. Sanctioning countries are obliged not to utilize or be involved in actions that encourage cluster munitions employment. International laws should take into account the huge burden of these munitions on biological, environmental and psychosocial levels as this study demonstrate. Besides, the rest of world countries should follow those 111 countries that have already signed the

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convention and international humanitarian laws must prohibit the production and use of such inhumane weapons. References

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