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Ethiopia
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
The current status of government policy on joining the Convention on Cluster Munitions is not clear. In June 2012, the Permanent Mission of Ethiopia to the UN in Geneva responded to a Monitor request for information with a statement on use and stockpiling, but did not mention the Convention on Cluster Munitions. (See Use, production, transfer and stockpiling section)
Previously, in 2010 and 2011, government officials said that Ethiopia is considering the Convention on Cluster Munitions and reviewing the positions of other countries in the region on it.[1] In October 2008, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official indicated that it was not a question of whether Ethiopia would sign, but rather when.[2]
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.[3]
Since 2008, Ethiopia has shown limited interest in the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It participated in a regional conference on cluster munitions in Pretoria, South Africa in March 2010. Ethiopia was invited to, but did not attend, either the convention’s First Meeting of States Parties in Vientiane, Lao PDR in November 2010 or its Second Meeting of States Parties in Beirut, Lebanon in September 2011. In April 2012, Ethiopia participated in its first meeting of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, when it attended intersessional meetings held in Geneva, but it did not make any statements.
Ethiopia is a party to the Mine Ban Treaty.
Ethiopia is not a party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW). Ethiopia attended the Fourth Review Conference of the CCW as an observer, but did not express its views on the draft text of a CCW protocol on cluster munitions. The Review Conference ended without reaching agreement on the draft protocol and with no proposals for continuing the negotiations in 2012, thus concluding the CCW’s work on cluster munitions.
Use, production, transfer and stockpiling
Ethiopia and Eritrea both used cluster munitions during the 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.[4] There have also been reports of Ethiopia using cluster bombs in other areas in the late 1980s and early 1990s.[5]
The Monitor and others have consistently reported that Ethiopia is still believed to possess cluster munition stockpiles, including British BL-755 cluster bombs, Soviet-era RBK cluster bombs containing PTAB submunitions, and Chilean CB-500 cluster bombs.[6] Additionally, it also possesses Grad 122mm surface-to-surface rockets, but it is not known if these include versions with submunition payloads.[7] Ethiopia is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions.
Ethiopia has denied using or possessing cluster munitions. Most recently, in a 13 June 2012 letter to the Monitor, the Permanent Mission of Ethiopia to the UN in Geneva said, “Ethiopia does not possess cluster bombs and did not possess them during the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict. 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 States 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.”[8]
In April 2009, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission in The Hague awarded Ethiopia $2.5 million “in respect of deaths and injuries, medical expenses and property damage resulting from the dropping of cluster bombs in the vicinity of the Ayder School in Mekele.”[9] Ethiopia claimed a total of 238 casualties in the bombing of Ayder School in Mekele.[10]
[1] As of June 2012, three of Ethiopia’s direct neighbors had signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions (Djibouti, Kenya, and Somalia), while Eritrea, Sudan and South Sudan had not yet joined. Telephone interview with Fortuna Dibaco, Director, Specialized Agencies and Intergovernmental Organizations Affairs Directorate, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 27 February 2011; and CMC meeting with Abebaw Felleke, Director, Head, Multilateral Cooperation Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia; and Fortuna Dibaco, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, New York, 21 October 2010.
[2] CMC, “CMC Newsletter, October 2008,” Issue 4, 17 November 2008.
[3] For details on Ethiopia’s policy and practice regarding cluster munitions through early 2009, see Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), pp. 201–202.
[4] For additional information, see Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), p. 201.
[5] Africa Watch, “Ethiopia: ‘Mengistu has Decided to Burn Us like Wood,’ Bombing of Civilians and Civilian Targets by the Air Force,” News from Africa Watch, 24 July 1990, pp. 16–17; and Africa Watch, “Evil Days: 30 Years of War and Famine in Ethiopia,” September 1991, pp. 241–242.
[6] The types listed are based on the unexploded submunitions identified by clearance organizations at cluster munition strike sites in Eritrea. See: Mines Action Canada, www.actiongrouplandmine.de, and Landmine Action, Explosive remnants of war and mines other than anti-personnel mines: Global Survey 2003–2004 (London: Landmine Action, 2005), pp. 60, 64–65; Landmine Action, Explosive remnants of war: Unexploded ordnance and post-conflict communities (London: Landmine Action, 2002), pp. 50–53; and Rae McGrath, Cluster Bombs: The Military Effectiveness and Impact on Civilians of Cluster Munitions (London: Landmine Action, 2000), p. 38.
[7] International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2011 (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 424.
[8] Letter 066/2012-A from the Permanent Mission of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia to the UN Office at Geneva, 13 June 2012.
[9] Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission, “Ethiopia’s Damages Claims Between The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia And The State of Eritrea,” The Hague, 17 August 2009, http://bit.ly/MGwdlH.
[10] According to the Commission’s report, “Ethiopia’s claim in the present case is based … upon the fact that Eritrean aircraft also dropped cluster bombs that killed and wounded civilians and damaged property in the vicinity of the Ayder School and the surrounding neighborhood in Mekele town. Ethiopia states that those bombs killed fifty-three civilians, including twelve school children, and wounded 185 civilians, including forty-two school children.” Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission, “Partial Award – Central Front – Ethiopia’s Claim 2, between The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and the State of Eritrea,” The Hague, 28 April 2004, p. 24, http://www.pca-cpa.org/showfile.asp?fil_id=147.
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