SEVENTY years after the spectre of soldiers blinded by gas during the First
World War led to an international ban on chemical weapons, the Red Cross is
campaigning for a ban on the use of battlefield lasers to blind the enemy.
This time around, says Louise Doswald-Beck, a senior legal adviser to the Red
Cross, it should not take a practical demonstration of the effects to convince
nations that they should be banned.
Blinding is one of the worst injuries a soldier can suffer, says Doswald-
Beck. She points out that 60 per cent of wounded soldiers recover. But laser-
induced blindness cannot be cured.
Moreover, she predicts that once laser weapons become commonplace on the
battlefield, terrorists and other criminals will have as little trouble
acquiring them as they do other types of weapons.
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British warships are reportedly already equipped with lasers designed to
dazzle the pilots of enemy aircraft (see 鈥淟asers designed to blind鈥�, New
杏吧原创, 8 August 1992). But Doswald-Beck says the prospect of laser
terrorism has spurred British government officials to tell her privately that
they will support a ban on antipersonnel lasers. 鈥淭hey think that the horror
of having these systems around outweighs any other use of them,鈥� she says The
Red Cross has proposed an amendment to the 1980 UN Weapons Convention, which
bars weapons that cause 鈥渦nnecessary suffering鈥�. The amendment would extend
this to a specific ban on the use of lasers as blinding weapons. It would not
ban other battlefield uses of lasers, such as in rangefinders.
A UN conference next autumn will consider possible modifications to the
1980 weapons convention, including restrictions on antipersonnel mines and sea
mines as well as lasers. The Red Cross says 13 countries have so far agreed to
support its proposal on lasers, including Sweden, Germany, Australia, Cuba,
Mexico, Iran, Spain and Portugal. Russia has said it will support the
amendment if the US does.
The US has not yet announced its position on the ban. Hayes Parks, the
Army鈥檚 special assistant for law-of-war matters, says: 鈥淐ategorically, the US
Army is not developing any antipersonnel lasers.鈥�
What the US Army does admit to having is the Laser Countermeasure System, a
device that can be clipped to the barrel of a rifle. The manufacturer has
delivered 10 prototypes of the device, known for short as LCMS or
鈥渓颈肠办别尘蝉鈥�.
The Army says the device is intended to damage sensors on enemy weapons,
not the eyes of enemy soldiers. But Doswald-Beck does not believe it; she says
it looks disturbingly as though it has been designed for spraying a laser beam
across a battlefield and blinding as many soldiers as possible. But even
though the LCMS is not intended for use against enemy soldiers, there is
nothing to prevent a general from using it that way, Parks admits. 鈥淲e have a
problem with saying a laser in the eye is worse than a bullet in the eye,鈥� he
says.