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Egypt
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Policy
The Arab Republic of Egypt has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Since assuming office in June 2014, the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has not made any public statements regarding Egypt’s position on joining the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
In its last statement on the matter in September 2011, Egypt informed States Parties that it “supports all efforts aimed at protecting civilians and supporting victims of cluster munitions” but asserted that the convention’s negotiation “outside the framework of the UN will produce a deficient legal system that will be abused to use cluster munitions.” Egypt repeated its long-held arguments that the Convention on Cluster Munitions “will not hold states which are using cluster munitions responsible for their acts, or will not hold them to account for clearing contaminated areas.”[1]
When the Convention on Cluster Munitions entered into force on 1 August 2010, Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement expressing its hope that these and other concerns would be addressed by the convention’s First Review Conference in 2015.[2]
Egypt participated in the Oslo Process that created the convention and engaged in the negotiations in Dublin in May 2008 as an observer but did not attend the Oslo Signing Conference in December 2008.[3] Despite its engagement, in October 2008 Egypt expressed concern with both the “substantive content” of the convention and “the process which led to its conclusion outside the framework of the United Nations.”[4]
Egypt has participated in some meetings related to the Convention on Cluster Munitions since 2008. It participated as an observer in the convention’s Second Meeting of States Parties in Beirut, Lebanon in September 2011 and attended intersessional meetings of the convention in Geneva in 2011 and 2013 but not those held in April 2014.
Egypt 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.”[5]
Egypt is not party to the Mine Ban Treaty. Egypt signed the Convention on Conventional Weapons in 1981 but has never ratified it or any of its protocols.
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
Egypt has said that it has never used cluster munitions.[6] But it is a producer, stockpiler, importer, and exporter of the weapon. Evidence has emerged that indicates Egypt exported or otherwise transferred cluster munitions to Syria in the past, most likely before the current conflict.[7]
In December 2012, the Syrian government’s first known use of ground-based cluster munitions was documented, including the use of 122mm cluster munition rockets bearing the markings of the SAKR Factory for Developed Industries and the Egyptian state-owned Arab Organization for Industrialization.[8] The SAKR Factory for Developed Industries produces two types of 122mm surface-to-surface rockets: the SAKR-18 and SAKR-36, containing 72 and 98 dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunitions, respectively.[9]
In January 2013, officials of then-President Mohamed Morsi deferred media questions concerning Syrian government use of Egyptian-made cluster munitions, to the armed forces.[10] According to local media, retired Major-General Dr. Mahmoud Khalaf, an advisor at Nasser Higher Military Academy, denied that Egypt had manufactured “this kind of unlawful weapon” and stressed Egypt’s commitment to “international conventions.”[11]
The Helipolis Company for Chemical Industries produces 122mm and 130mm artillery projectiles, which contain 18 and 28 DPICM submunitions, respectively.[12]
Egypt has also imported a significant number of cluster munitions, primarily from the United States (US). The US provided at least 760 CBU-87 cluster bombs to Egypt as part of a foreign military sales program in the early 1990s.[13] Lockheed Martin Corporation was awarded a US$36 million contract to produce 485 M26A1 Extended Range Multiple Launch Rocket System rockets for Egypt in November 1991.[14] Between 1970 and 1995, the US also supplied Egypt with 1,300 Rockeye cluster bombs.[15]
Additionally, Jane’s Information Group notes that KMG-U dispensers of Soviet-origin are in service for Egypt’s aircraft.[16]
[1] Statement of Egypt, Convention on Cluster Munitions Second Meeting of States Parties, Beirut, 14 September 2011, as per conference interpretation.
[2] According to the statement, “Egypt did not sign the Convention till now due to a number of shortages in it, on the top of which is excluding several types of cluster munitions especially the munitions with advanced technology from the ban, and also the main countries that produce and use cluster munitions did not join the treaty, as well as the issue that the affected countries are the one [sic] that have to shoulder the main responsibility of clearing its lands of the cluster munitions.” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Egypt press release, “The Official Spokesman welcomes the coming into force of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, on 1st August, 2010,” 2 August 2010.
[3] For details on Egypt’s cluster munition policy and practice through early 2009, see Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), pp. 197–199.
[4] Egypt’s explanation of vote, UNGA First Committee on Disarmament and International Security, 30 October 2008.
[5] “Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution A/RES/68/182,18 December 2013. Egypt voted in favor of a similar resolution on 15 May 2013.
[6] Statement by Ehab Fawzy, Oslo Conference on Cluster Munitions, 22 February 2007. Notes by the CMC/Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
[7] Human Rights Watch (HRW) press release, “Syria: Army Using New Type of Cluster Munition,” 14 January 2013. In addition, a number of SAKR rockets were found in Iraq by UN weapons inspectors possibly indicating export activity. The SAKR rockets were the “cargo variant” but had been modified by the Iraqis to deliver chemical weapons. “Sixteenth quarterly report on the activities of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission in accordance with paragraph 12 of Security Council resolution 1284 (1999) S/2004/160,” Annex 1, p. 10.
[8] See Brown Moses blog, “Evidence of New Grad Launched Cluster Munitions Used in Syria,” 15 December 2012; HRW press release, “Syria: Army Using New Type of Cluster Munition,” 14 January 2013; and The Rogue Adventurer blog, “Sakr 122mm Cargo Rockets & Submunitions in Syria,” 15 January 2013. It is not known if the 122mm rockets were the SAKR-18 or SAKR-36 type.
[9] Leland S. Ness and Anthony G. Williams, eds., Jane’s Ammunition Handbook 2007–2008 (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2007), p. 707. France declared that upon entry into force of the Convention on Cluster Munitions in 2010, France’s military retained six warheads for 122mm SAKR rockets containing 588 submunitions. France, Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 Report, Form C, 31 January 2011, p. 92.
[10] “Morsi mum on reports that Egyptian cluster bombs used by Syria,” World Tribune, 29 January 2013.
[11] For example, retired Maj. Gen. Sameh Seif el-Yazal said Egypt is “not providing the Syrian army or the revolutionaries with any weapons or ammunition, whether directly or indirectly, not even through a third party.” Max Elstein Keisler, “HRW: Syrian Regime Using Egyptian-Made Cluster Bombs,” The Algemeiner, 16 January 2013. See also “Egypt denies making cluster bombs for Syria’s Assad,” Al Bawaba, 15 January 2013.
[12] Leland S. Ness and Anthony G. Williams, eds., Jane’s Ammunition Handbook 2007–2008 (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2007), pp. 582, 589–590.
[13] “Dozen + Mideast Nations Bought Weapons since Gulf War,” Aerospace Daily, 10 December 1991; and Barbara Starr, “Apache buy will keep Israeli edge,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, 1 October 1992.
[14] US Department of Defense, “US Army Aviation & Missile Command Contract Announcement: DAAH01-00-C-0044,” Press Release, 9 November 2001.
[15] US Defense Security Assistance Agency, Department of Defense, “Cluster Bomb Exports under FMS, FY1970–FY1995,” 5 November 1995, obtained by HRW in a Freedom of Information Act request, 28 November 1995.
[16] Robert Hewson, ed., Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons, Issue 44 (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2004), p. 838.
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