Policy

The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Ethiopia last made a public statement on cluster munitions in April 2013, when a representative attending intersessional meetings of the convention in Geneva said that Ethiopia was participating in order to learn more about the convention.[1] In 2010 and 2011, government officials also said that Ethiopia was considering accession to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[2] In 2008, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official indicated that it was not a question of whether Ethiopia would sign, but rather when.[3]

Ethiopia attended a few meetings of the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but participated only as an observer in the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008.[4]

Since 2008, Ethiopia has shown some interest in the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It participated in a regional conference on cluster munitions in Pretoria, South Africa in March 2010. Ethiopia has not attended any meetings of States Parties to the convention, such as the Fourth Meeting of States Parties in Lusaka in September 2013. In April 2012 and 2014, Ethiopia participated in intersessional meetings of the convention in Geneva, but did not make any statements.

Ethiopia has not condemned the Syrian government’s use of cluster munitions.

Ethiopia is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. Ethiopia is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

In April 2013, Ethiopia stated that it has never produced or used cluster munitions.[5] In a June 2012 letter to the Monitor, Ethiopia stated that it “does not possess cluster bombs and did not possess them during the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict.”[6]

Ethiopia and Eritrea both used cluster munitions during their 1998–2000 border war. Although Ethiopia has denied it, there is ample evidence that it attacked several parts of Eritrea with cluster munitions. The Mine Action Coordination Center of the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea has identified approximately 30–40 cluster munition strikes inside Eritrea.[7] There have also been reports of Ethiopia using cluster bombs in other areas in the late 1980s and early 1990s.[8]

In its June 2012 letter, Ethiopia claimed that “cluster munitions from the former military regime era were left at the former Ethiopian Air Force base in Asmara, Eritrea. The Eritrean regime used some of these cluster bombs to attack an elementary school in Ayder, Tigray National Regional State on 5 June 1998 during the Ethio-Eritrean conflict. The remnants of these cluster munitions are still found in the area, some of which were presented as evidence to the Ethiopia-Eritrea Claims Commission in The Hague.”[9]

In addition to evidence of cluster munition use in the Ethiopia-Eritrea War, cluster munition remnants were recently discovered near Somalia’s border with Ethiopia and the area is being surveyed to determine the extent of contamination.[10] According to available information, dozens of dud PTAB-2.5M and some AO-1SCh explosive submunitions have been found within a 30 kilometer radius of the Somali border town of Dolow. The contamination is believed to have occurred during the 1977–1978 Ogaden War between Somalia and Ethiopia, but it is unclear who was responsible for the use.[11]

The Monitor and others have consistently reported that Ethiopia is still believed to possess cluster munition stockpiles, including British BL755 cluster bombs, Soviet-era RBK cluster bombs containing PTAB submunitions, and Chilean CB-500 cluster bombs.[12] Additionally, it also possesses Grad 122mm surface-to-surface rockets, but it is not known if these include versions with submunition payloads.[13]