Commitment to the Convention on Cluster Munitions

Policy

The Republic of Guinea-Bissau signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008 and ratified on 29 November 2010. The convention entered into force for Guinea-Bissau on 1 May 2011.

Guinea-Bissau’s initial Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 transparency report was due by 28 October 2011.[1] As of 25 June 2012, Guinea-Bissau still had not submitted the report.

Guinea-Bissau participated in some meetings of the Oslo Process that created the convention, including the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008, where it supported other African states in opposing efforts to weaken the convention text and joined in the consensus adoption of the text.[2]

Guinea-Bissau has continued to actively engage in the work of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It attended the convention’s Second Meeting of States Parties in Beirut, Lebanon in September 2011, where it made a statement on its efforts to conduct an inventory of stockpiled cluster munitions. Guinea-Bissau attended intersessional meetings of the convention in Geneva in June 2011 and April 2012. It did not participate in the Accra Regional Conference on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions in May 2012.

Guinea-Bissau is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty.

Guinea-Bissau has not yet made known its views on certain important issues related to interpretation and implementation of the convention, including the prohibition on transit, the prohibition on assistance during joint military operations with states not party that may use cluster munitions, the prohibition on foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions, the prohibition on investment in production of cluster munitions, and the need for retention of cluster munitions and submunitions for training and development purposes.

Convention on Conventional Weapons

Guinea-Bissau is a party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW). At the Fourth Review Conference of the CCW in November 2011, Guinea-Bissau joined 50 other states in a joint statement declaring that the chair’s draft text does not fully address the fundamental concerns and is unacceptable from a humanitarian standpoint, and therefore does not command consensus.[3] The Review Conference ended without agreement on a draft protocol, thus marking the conclusion of the CCW’s work on cluster munitions.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Guinea-Bissau has stated that it does not use or produce cluster munitions.[4] It is not known to have transferred cluster munitions.

Guinea-Bissau inherited a cluster munition stockpile of Soviet origin.[5] In June 2011, Guinea-Bissau declared that some stockpiled cluster munitions were held at an Air Force base in Bissau City.[6] RBK air-dropped cluster bombs and PTAB 2.5 bomblets were among munitions ejected by an explosion at the Paiol de Bra ammunition storage facility, located in the outskirts of Bissau City, sometime in 2000.[7]

The size and content of Guinea-Bissau’s current stockpile of clusters munitions is not known, but in June 2011, the director of Guinea-Bissau’s National Mine Action Coordination Center (Centro Nacional de Coordenção da Accão Anti-Minas, CAAMI) said that it was conducting an inventory into the numbers, types, and origins of Guinea-Bissau’s stockpiled cluster munitions.[8] In June 2011, Guinea-Bissau stated that international support and assistance would be required to review its stockpiled cluster munitions and plan for their destruction, as well as ensure safe storage facilities.[9] In September 2011, Guinea-Bissau confirmed that efforts to conduct an inventory of its stockpile were continuing.[10]

Under Article 3 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Guinea-Bissau is required to destroy all its stockpiled cluster munitions as soon as possible, but not later than 1 May 2019.