Policy

The Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. Since the conclusion of the conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009, the government has showed increased interest in the convention.

In October 2009, Sri Lanka Army Commander Lieutenant General J. Jayasuriya gave a keynote address at a seminar co-organized by UNICEF and the ICBL (Sri Lanka Campaign). He stated, “In the current post-conflict phase in Sri Lanka, it is timely that we focus our attention on the international legal instruments that limit or ban certain weapons based on humanitarian grounds,” referring to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, the Mine Ban Treaty, and the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).[1]

He stated, “Where the cluster munitions are concerned, I wish to categorically state that such inhumane weapons have never, and will never be used by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces.”[2]

In November 2009, Sri Lanka sent representatives from the military to the Regional Conference on the Promotion and Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions held in Bali, Indonesia. They did not make any statements at the meeting. Sri Lanka did not participate in the International Conference on the Convention on Cluster Munitions held in Santiago, Chile in June 2010.

Sri Lanka only attended one of the diplomatic Oslo Process conferences to develop the convention, in Vienna in December 2007. It did not intervene.

Sri Lanka is not party to the Mine Ban Treaty. Sri Lanka is party to the CCW, but has not ratified Protocol V on explosive remnants of war. Sri Lanka has not been an active participant in CCW discussions on cluster munitions in recent years.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

There were media reports of Sri Lanka using cluster munitions against the LTTE in 2008 and 2009, but Sri Lanka strongly denied the claims, and there has been no compelling evidence of such use.[3] Sri Lanka has said that it does not possess cluster munitions.

The Sri Lankan government’s Media Center for National Security posted the following statement on its website in February 2009: “The Government wishes to clarify that the Sri Lanka army do not use these cluster bombs nor do they have facilities to use them.”[4] The Ministry of Defence website posted a statement saying Sri Lanka never fired cluster munitions and never brought them into the country.[5]  Military spokesperson Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara was quoted stating, “We don’t have the facility to fire cluster munitions. We don’t have these weapons.”[6]

Sri Lanka possesses both aircraft and rocket launchers capable of deploying cluster munitions. In February 2009, the CMC wrote a letter to Sri Lankan President Rajapaska asking the government to officially state whether Sri Lanka possesses cluster munitions and to provide “clarification on whether Sri Lanka has imported either cluster bombs for use in Kfir attack aircraft or 122mm cluster rockets for RM-70 rocket launchers.”^[7] Sri Lanka did not respond.