Commitment to the Convention on Cluster Munitions

Policy

The Republic of Zimbabwe has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Zimbabwe was encouraged to accede to the ban convention during a June 2014 visit to Harare by Zambia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Harry Kalaba, who is serving as president of the convention’s Fourth Meeting of States Parties held in Lusaka in September 2013. According to a statement issued after the visit by Zambia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Simbarashe Mumbengegwi told Kalaba that the government has the political will to accede to the Convention on Cluster Munitions and committed to do everything possible to expedite the process of Zimbabwe’s accession. Zimbabwe’s Minister of Defence Dr Sydney Sekeramayi also reaffirmed the government’s commitment to acceding to the Convention on Cluster Munitions and acknowledged Zimbabwe needs to be pro-active in its approach to accession.[1]

Previously, in May 2013, a government representative told a regional meeting that Zimbabwe is “seriously considering” accession to the Convention on Cluster Munitions but acknowledged the process toward joining the convention has been slow.[2]

Zimbabwean officials have expressed support for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on several occasions.[3] In May 2012, a government representative said it was Zimbabwe’s intent to “work diligently towards accelerating the conclusion of consultations with relevant stakeholders on the country’s accession to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.”[4]

Zimbabwe participated in two regional meetings held during the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions and expressed its support for a comprehensive ban without exceptions.[5] It was absent from the Dublin negotiations in May 2008 and Oslo signing conference in December 2008.

Despite not joining, Zimbabwe has continued to participate in the work of the Convention on Cluster Munitions since 2008. It attended the convention’s Fourth Meeting of States Parties in Lusaka in September 2013 as an observer and participated in intersessional meetings held in Geneva in April 2014, but did not make any statements at either meeting. Zimbabwe attended a regional meeting in Lomé, Togo in May 2013, where it provided an update on its accession process.

Zimbabwe was invited to, but did not attend, a workshop on universalization of the ban convention held in Geneva on 20 and 24 February 2014.

Zimbabwe has not made a national statement to express concern at Syria’s cluster munition use, but it endorsed the 2013 Lomé Strategy on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions which expresses “grave concern over the recent and on-going use of cluster munitions” and calls for the immediate end to the use of these weapons.[6]

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

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

It is unclear if Zimbabwe has ever used cluster munitions.[7]

Zimbabwe is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions since its independence. Jane’s Information Group has reported that the Alpha bomblet developed for the South African CB-470 cluster bomb was produced in Rhodesia and that “Zimbabwe may have quantities of the Alpha bomblet.”[8]

In March 2010, an official informed the CMC that Zimbabwe still possessed cluster munitions that remained from the former Rhodesia’s arsenal.[9]

In July 2012, a major Brazilian newspaper reported that Brazil had sold cluster bombs to Zimbabwe a decade earlier.[10] A review by Folha de São Paolo of 1,572 pages of Ministry of Defense documents obtained under the Law on Access to Information shows that, in the period from January 2001 to May 2002, Brazil transferred 104 BLG-250K and four BLG-60K cluster bombs and various components for BLG-500K, BLG-250K, and BLG-60k cluster bombs to Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe also possesses RM-70 122mm surface-to-surface rocket systems, but it is not known if these include versions with submunition payloads.[11]