Eliminate cluster bombs, urge 6 Nobel laureates

"While so many of the world's arms cause so much human misery, cluster munitions deserve to be singled out as an especially pernicious weapon of ill repute," Williams said.

"They have become synonymous with civilian casualties," the US Nobel laureate read from the statement signed by her and five women Nobel Peace Prize winners: Rigoberta Menchu (Guatemala-1992); Shirin Ebadi (Iran-2003); Wangari Maathai (Kenya-2004); Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan Maguire (Ireland-1976).

An international conference opening Wednesday will seek to ban the weapons.

"We applaud bold initiatives that tackle such issues -- and lend our full support to this new process determined to eliminate cluster munitions," Williams said.

Williams, whose work to ban landmines garnered the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, represents the Cluster Munition Coalition, which urged South America to follow Central America, which has already banned the weapons.

Representatives of more than 100 countries are expected in Lima for the conference that follows up on work begun February in Oslo, where 47 countries signed the Oslo Declaration seeking to ban the weapons.

Before the conference ends on May 25, plans are to hammer out an international treaty to ban cluster munitions in 2008.

Taking part are countries that store or have used or produced cluster bombs, including Britain, France and Germany.

Many countries shattered by their effects such as Afghanistan, Cambodia, Lebanon and Laos also were to be on hand.

Argentina, Brazil and Chile currently manufacture cluster bombs in South America. While Argentina and Chile have sent representatives, Brazil has not.

China, Russia and the United States, the largest manufacturers of cluster bombs, oppose the ban. Israel most recently used the bombs less than a year ago.