Commitment to the Convention on Cluster Munitions

Policy

The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Oslo on 3 December 2008. In June 2010, at the International Conference on the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Santiago, Chile, Afghanistan announced that it had taken “firm steps” toward ratification, and hoped to finish the process prior to the First Meeting of States Parties in November 2010.[1]

In December 2008, a Deputy Minister expressed strong support for the convention and early ratification in a meeting with representatives of the CMC, and explained the ratification process.[2] 

Afghanistan has been active in international efforts to promote the convention. In addition to the global meeting in Santiago, it participated in the Berlin Conference on the Destruction of Cluster Munitions in June 2009 and the Regional Conference on the Promotion and Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Bali, Indonesia, in November 2009.

Afghanistan participated in most of the preparatory meetings of the Oslo Process that created the convention, but it did not attend the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008, even as an observer.[3] Afghanistan’s signature of the convention came unexpectedly near the end of the Convention on Cluster Munitions Signing Conference in Oslo in December 2008 when the Afghan representative announced that within the past two hours he had received instructions and authorization to sign.[4] 

Afghanistan has not yet made known its views on several 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, and the prohibition on investment in production of cluster munitions.

Afghanistan is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It signed the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) in April 1981, but has never ratified it, and thus is not a party to the CCW or its Protocol V on explosive remnants of war.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

In August 2010, Afghanistan confirmed that it has not used, produced, or transferred cluster munitions.[5] 

At the Santiago conference in June 2010, Afghanistan told other states that it has no cluster munition stockpiles.[6] Upon inquiries from Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, the Ministry of Defense confirmed that it has no cluster munitions in its depots, and said that “about 113,196 items containing 29,559 kilograms” of old Soviet stocks had been destroyed.[7]

In 2002, Australian photographer John Rodsted documented an estimated 60,000 tons (60 million kg) of abandoned Soviet-type submunitions, bulk storage containers (cassettes), and other paraphernalia abandoned at an area in Bagram airbase, outside Kabul.[8]

There is no clear accounting of former stockpiles in Afghanistan. Jane’s Information Group has listed Afghanistan as possessing KMGU dispensers and RBK-250/275 cluster bombs.[9] Standard international reference sources also list it as possessing Grad 122mm and Uragan 220mm surface-to-surface rockets, but it is not known if these included versions with submunition payloads.[10] 

Some of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops operating in Afghanistan have been equipped with cluster munitions. The current status of any possible stockpiles is not known. For several years, ISAF has had a policy against using cluster munitions.[11]

Soviet forces used air-dropped and rocket-delivered cluster munitions during their invasion and occupation of Afghanistan from 1979–1989.[12] A non-state armed group used rocket-delivered cluster munitions during the civil war in the 1990s.[13] Between October 2001 and early 2002, United States aircraft dropped 1,228 cluster bombs containing 248,056 bomblets in 232 strikes on locations throughout the country.[14] Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor is not aware of additional cluster strikes since that time.

Cluster Munition Remnants

Afghanistan has a continuing threat from cluster munition remnants. However, most of the contamination is thought to have been removed during clearance operations in 2002–2003 guided by US cluster strike data. Clearance operators say they still encounter both NATO and Soviet unexploded submunitions but only in small numbers.[15]

Clearance of cluster munition remnants

The Mine Action Coordination Center of Afghanistan (MACCA) has recorded clearance by HALO Trust and Mine Clearance Planning Agency of 43 cluster munition sites since 2004 covering a total area of 3.2km². Of these, six sites covering a total of 670,276m² were reportedly cleared in 2009.[16]

HALO cleared a total of 2,607 unexploded submunitions in 2009, of which 331 were NATO items and 2,276 were Soviet submunitions.[17] G4S also reported clearing areas contaminated with US M-42 submunitions close to Camp Hero, near Kandahar, in 2009.[18]

Demining organizations continue to find unexploded submunitions used by Soviet forces, usually in small numbers. Hemayatbrothers Demining International, working on a US Army Corps of Engineers contract at Bagram airbase, reported finding substantial numbers of abandoned submunitions, many of them still in packing cases. The Organization for Mine Clearance and Afghan Rehabilitation (OMAR) also reported finding unexploded Russian submunitions on the border with Pakistan, which was bombed by Soviet and Afghan forces.[19]