Summary: Signatory Angola has often expressed its desire to ratify the convention but the government still has not introduced the ratification instrument to parliament for consideration and approval. Angola has participated in all the convention’s meetings and voted in favor of a key UN resolution on cluster munitions in December 2016.

Angola is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions. Cluster munitions were used in the past in Angola, but it is unclear when or by whom. The government has yet to make an official determination and public announcement confirming that all stocks of cluster munitions have been identified and destroyed.

Policy

The Republic of Angola signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008.

Government officials have promised swift ratification of the convention since Angola signed the convention, but parliament still has not considered or approved the ratification decision as it is awaiting its introduction by the government.[1] Nonetheless, in June 2016, representatives from Angola’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense said the ratification process was at a “very advanced stage.”[2] In August 2016, Angolan officials predicted that the ratification process would be completed within two months.[3]

Previously, in 2013, an official informed the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) that the ratification package had been prepared for cabinet and then parliamentary approval, repeating what another official had said in 2011.[4]

Angola participated extensively in the Oslo Process and, while it did not attend the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008, it signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Oslo in December 2008.[5]

Angola has participated in every Meeting of States Parties of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, including the Sixth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in September 2016. Angola did not make a statement at the meeting, but its delegation told the CMC that the process of ratification was in the final stages and should be completed by the end of 2016.[6]

Angola also attended the convention’s First Review Conference in 2015 and intersessional meetings in 2011–2015. Angola has participated in regional workshops on the convention, most recently in in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in August 2016.[7]

In December 2016, Angola voted in favor of a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution that urges states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitions to “join as soon as possible.”[8]

In August 2016, Angola made a statement encouraging African states not party to the convention to accede or ratify without delay.[9] As a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council (UNSC), Angola voted in favor of a June 2015 UNSC resolution on Sudan that expressed concern at evidence of cluster munition use in Darfur.[10] It also voted in favor of a May 2014 UNSC resolution on South Sudan that notes “with serious concern” reports of the “indiscriminate use of cluster munitions.”[11]

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

Production, transfer, and use

Angola is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions.

Cluster munitions were used in Angola in the past, but it is unclear when or by whom. An Intersectoral Commission on Demining and Humanitarian Assistance (Comissão Nacional Intersectorial de Desminagem e Assistência Humanitária, CNIDAH) official who had seen cluster munitions remnants in Huambo province near Caala and Bailundo, probably from the heavy fighting during 1998–1999, said he believed that the Angolan Armed Forces used cluster munitions because only they used aircraft during this conflict, unlike the rebel UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) forces.[12]

Stockpiling and destruction

The government has not made an official determination and public announcement that all stocks have been identified and destroyed.

In 2010, a CNIDAH official said that Angola destroyed its stockpile cluster munitions between 2003 and 2010 as part of a joint initiative by the government and the HALO Trust, and said the armed forces no longer hold any stocks.[13] In addition, HALO’s weapons and ammunition disposal teams found and destroyed 51 abandoned explosive submunitions in warehouses.[14] Deminers in Angola have also destroyed Soviet-made RBK 250-275 cluster bombs among abandoned ammunition.[15]