Yemen
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Policy
The Republic of Yemen has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It has not made a public statement about why it has not joined.
Yemen did not attend any of the diplomatic meetings related to the convention in 2009 or 2010 through July.
Yemen participated in two meetings of the Oslo Process that produced the convention, the international conference in Lima in May 2007 and the Belgrade Conference for States Affected by Cluster Munitions in October 2007. During the Lima conference, Yemen stated that the international community must push forward its work on the prohibition of cluster munitions.[1]
Yemen did not attend, even as an observer, the formal negotiations of the convention in Dublin in May 2008.
Yemen is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
Yemen is not believed to have used, produced, or exported cluster munitions.[2]
It appears that Yemen does have a stockpile. Jane’s Information Group reports that KMG-U dispensers that deploy submunitions are in service with the country’s air force.[3] Moldova exported 13 220mm Uragan Multiple Rocket Launch Systems to Yemen in 1994, and it possesses Grad 122mm surface-to-surface rocket launchers, but it is also not known if the ammunition for these weapons includes versions with submunition payloads.[4]
In June 2010, Amnesty International stated that it appears the United States used at least one TLAM-D cruise missile with 166 BLU-97 submunitions to attack a “training camp” in al-Ma’jalah in the al-Mahfad district of Abyan governorate of Yemen on 17 December 2009. Amnesty International published a series of photographs showing the remnants of the cruise missile. It said the attack killed 55 people, including 14 alleged members of the targeted “terrorist group,” as well as 14 women and 21 children.[5] Neither the US nor Yemeni governments have publicly responded to Amnesty International’s allegations.
[1] Statement of Yemen, Session on Victim Assistance, Lima Conference on Cluster Munitions, 23 May 2008. Notes by WILPF.
[2] There are unconfirmed reports that cluster munitions may have been used in the 1994 civil war.
[3] Robert Hewson, ed., Jane’s Air Launched Weapons, Issue 44 (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2004), p. 848.
[4] Submission of the Republic of Moldova, UN Register of Conventional Arms, Report for Calendar Year 1994, 28 April 1995; International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2005–2006, (London: Routledge, 2005), p. 215; and Colin King, ed., Jane’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal 2008, CD-edition (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2008).
[5] The remnants in the photographs included images of the propulsion system, a BLU-97 submunition, and the payload ejection system, the latter of which is unique to the TLAM-D cruise missile. See www.amnesty.org. See also, “U.S. missiles killed civilians in Yemen, rights group says,” CNN, 7 June 2010, www.cnn.com.