Zimbabwe
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Five-Year Review: Non-signatoryZimbabwe supports the convention and has expressed its interest in joining, but has not taken any steps toward accession besides consultations. Zimbabwe has participated as an observer in most of the convention’s meetings. Zimbabwe produced, exported, and imported cluster munitions in the past and is believed to stockpile them, but it is not clear if Zimbabwe has ever used cluster munitions.
Policy
The Republic of Zimbabwe has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Zimbabwe has expressed its support for the convention and interest in joining, but has not taken any steps toward accession.[1] In May 2012, a government representative said Zimbabwe was conducting “consultations with relevant stakeholders on the country’s accession to the Convention on Cluster Munitions” that it hoped to soon conclude.[2]
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.[3] It was absent from the Dublin negotiations in May 2008 and Oslo signing conference in December 2008.
Zimbabwe has participated as an observer in three of the convention’s Meetings of States Parties (2010, 2012, 2013). It has attended all of the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva since 2012. Zimbabwe has participated in regional workshops on the convention, most recently in Lusaka, Zambia on 17–18 June 2015.[4]
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.[5]
Zimbabwe is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions since its independence, but it likely still stockpiles cluster munitions.
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.”[6] In 2010, an official informed the CMC that Zimbabwe still possessed cluster munitions that remained from the former Rhodesia’s arsenal.[7]
Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paolo reported in 2012 on declassified Ministry of Defense documents showing that 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 between January 2001 and May 2002.[8]
Zimbabwe also possesses RM-70 122mm surface-to-surface rocket systems, but it is not known if these include versions with submunition payloads.[9]
[1] 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. Statement of Zimbabwe, Lomé Regional Seminar on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Lomé, Togo, 22 May 2013. The representative informed the CMC that consultations are continuing, but no decision has yet been made. CMC meeting with Mucheka Chameso, Counsellor, Permanent Mission of Zimbabwe to the UN in Geneva, in Lomé, 22 May 2013. In November 2010, Zimbabwe said it was following the progress of the convention with interest, but did not elaborate on the government’s position on joining it. CMC meeting with Mucheka Chameso, Permanent Mission of Zimbabwe to the UN in Geneva, in Vientiane, November 2010. In March 2010, Zimbabwe stated that “discussions are underway on the matter” of joining the convention. See statement of Zimbabwe, Africa Regional Conference on the Universalization and Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Pretoria, 25 March 2010. Notes by Action on Armed Violence.
[2] Statement of Zimbabwe, Accra Regional Conference on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Accra, May 2012.
[3] For details on Zimbabwe’s policy and practice regarding cluster munitions through early 2009, see Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), pp. 262–263.
[4] ICRC, “Zambia: Implementing the ban on cluster munitions in southern Africa,” 17 June 2015.
[5] Zimbabwe has not made a statement regarding possible past use. One source has said Zimbabwean and/or Congolese aircraft dropped cluster bombs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1998. Tom Cooper and Pit Weinert, “Zaire/DR Congo since 1980,” Air Combat Information Group, 2 September 2003.
[6] Robert Hewson, ed., Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons, Issue 44 (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2004), p. 440.
[7] CMC meeting with Mucheka Chameso, Permanent Mission of Zimbabwe to the UN in Geneva, Africa Regional Conference on the Universalization and Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, in Pretoria, 25–26 March 2010. Notes by the CMC.
[8] Rubens Valente, “Brasil vendeu bombas condenadas a ditador do Zimbábue,” Folha de São Paolo, 22 July 2012.
[9] International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2011 (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 449.