Georgia
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Policy
Georgia has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Georgia last provided its views on the convention in an April 2010 letter that stated: “The Georgian government has expressed its support to the spirit of the Mine Ban Treaty and the Cluster Munitions Convention, but the bitter reality on the ground with reference to the security situation in the region didn’t allow us to adjoin the mentioned conventions. Unfortunately the situation has not changed much and has even worsened security-wise that does not leave us any option other than to stay reluctant to join the conventions until the credible changes occur in the security environment of the region.”[1]
Georgia participated in some meetings of the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[2]
Since 2008, it has attended two meetings related to the convention: an international conference on the convention in Santiago, Chile in June 2010 and the convention’s Third Meeting of States Parties in Oslo, Norway in September 2012. Georgia did not make any statements at these meetings.
Georgia has voted in favor of UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions condemning the Syrian government’s use of cluster munitions, including Resolution 68/182 on 18 December 2013, which expressed “outrage” at “continued widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights…including those involving the use of…cluster munitions.”[3]
Georgia has not joined the Mine Ban Treaty. It is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Use, production, transfer
Georgia is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions.
Georgia acquired Mk-4 160mm surface-to-surface rockets equipped with cluster munition payloads (each rocket contains 104 M85 submunitions) from Israel in 2007.[4] Georgian forces used these weapons during their conflict with Russia in August 2008; the Ministry of Defense said Georgia launched 24 volleys of 13 Mk-4 rockets each.[5]
On 31 August 2008, the Ministry of Defense acknowledged that the Georgian Armed Forces used cluster munitions against the Russian forces near the Roki tunnel.[6] However, remnants of Georgian cluster munitions were also found by Human Rights Watch (HRW) in civilian areas in the north of Gori district, south of the South Ossetian administrative border.[7]
Stockpiling and destruction
Georgia inherited a stockpile of air-dropped cluster bombs from the Soviet Union.[8]
In July 2011, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the UNDP began a project to destroy obsolete weaponry, including 844 RBK cluster bombs and more than 320,000 submunitions, as listed in the following table.[9] The last of the RBK-type bombs and other weapons project were destroyed by open detonation at the Vaziani military firing range, 20 kilometers outside of Tbilisi, on 12 July 2013.
Cluster munitions destroyed in Georgia[10]
|
Type |
Quantity of munitions |
Quantity of submunitions |
|
RBK-250-275 AO-1SCh, each containing 150 submunitions |
179
|
26,850 |
|
RBK-250 PTAB-2.5M, each containing 30 submunitions |
8
|
240 |
|
RBK-500 SHoAB-0.5, each containing 565 submunitions |
469
|
264,985 |
|
RBK-500 AO-2.5RT, each containing 108 submunitions |
99
|
10,692 |
|
RBK-500 PTAB-1, each containing 268 submunitions |
61
|
16,348 |
|
RBK-500 PTAB-2.5, each containing 50 submunitions |
21
|
1,050 |
|
RBK-500 PTAB-10.5A, each containing 30 submunitions |
7
|
210 |
|
Total |
844 |
320,375 |
[1] Letter No. 8/37-02 from Amb. Giorgi Gorgiladze, Permanent Mission of Georgia to the UN in Geneva, 30 April 2010.
[2] For details on Georgia’s policy and practice regarding cluster munitions through early 2009, see Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), pp. 205–207.
[3] “Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution 68/182, 18 December 2013. Georgia voted in favor of a similar resolution on 15 May 2013.
[4] The transfer of the launchers was reported in, Submission of Georgia, UN Register of Conventional Arms, Report for Calendar Year 2007, 7 July 2008.
[5] “Some Facts,” attachment to email from David Nardaia, Director, Analytical Department, Ministry of Defense, 18 November 2008. The rockets would have carried 32,448 M85 submunitions.
[6] Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Response to Human Rights Watch inquiry about the use of M85 bomblets,” 2 September 2008.
[7] For more information see HRW and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), p. 206; and HRW, “A Dying Practice: Use of Cluster Munitions by Russia and Georgia in August 2008,” April 2009, p. 57. The Ministry of Defense of Georgia said in February 2009 that it is investigating the possibility of “failure of the weapons system.” During the conflict, Abkhazian and Russian forces moved into the upper Kodor Gorge and retook it from Georgian forces. Abkhazia has asserted that Georgia fired large numbers of cluster munitions with M095 submunitions from LAR-160 rockets in the Kodor Valley. Email from Maxim Gunjia, Deputy Foreign Minister of Abkhazia, 24 August 2009. The deputy foreign minister provided photographs of submunitions and containers. The M095 is described as an M85-type submunition. The Monitor has not been able to independently investigate and confirm this information.
[8] In 2004 and 2007, Jane’s Information Group reported that the Georgian Air Force had KMGU and RBK-500 cluster bombs, both of which can carry a variety of submunitions. The Ministry of Defense of Georgia told HRW in February 2009 that it still has RBK-500 cluster bombs and BKF blocks of submunitions that are delivered by KMGU dispensers, but that their shelf-lives have expired and they are slated for destruction. First Deputy Minister of Defense Batu Kutelia said its air force planes are not fitted for delivering these air-dropped weapons. See HRW and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), p. 207.
[9] While originally slated to destroy 1,085 bombs, a subsequent inventory of the stockpile resulted in the destruction of 1,288 bombs. Email from the Press Office of the OSCE Secretariat, 3 May 2014.
[10] “Time schedule for cluster bomb disposal: Attachment 1.4,” undated but provided by the Press Office of the OSCE Secretariat, 7 May 2014. The weapons destroyed also included 99 RBK-500 ZAB-2.5SM and 35 RBK-2050 ZAB-2.5 incendiary bombs as well as 310 BKF cartridges containing PTM-1G scatterable antivehicle landmines.