Summary: Non-signatory Zimbabwe has expressed interest in the convention, but has not taken any steps to accede and was the only country to join Russia in voting against a UN resolution promoting the convention in 2015 and December 2016. Zimbabwe has participated as an observer in most of the convention’s meetings, most recently in 2015. Zimbabwe produced, exported, and imported cluster munitions in the past and is believed to stockpile them, but it is not clear if it ever used cluster munitions.

Policy

The Republic of Zimbabwe has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Zimbabwe has expressed interest in joining the convention and conducted stakeholder consultations on the matter in the past, but it has not taken any steps towards accession.[1] In October 2016, a government representative told the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) that Zimbabwe may participate in the work of the convention but that does not necessarily mean it intends to join it.[2]

In December 2016, Zimbabwe was the only country to join Russia in voting against a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution that calls on states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitions to join “as soon as possible.”[3] Zimbabwe has not explained why it voted no on the non-binding resolution or on the first UNGA resolution on the convention in December 2015.[4]

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.[5] It was absent from the Dublin negotiations in May 2008 and the Oslo signing conference in December 2008.

Zimbabwe participated as an observer in the convention’s annual Meetings of States Parties in 2010–2013 and attended intersessional meetings in Geneva in 2012–2015. It has participated in regional workshops on the convention, most recently in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in August 2016.[6]

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.[7]

Zimbabwe is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions since it gained independence in 1980, but it likely has a stockpile.

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.”[8] In 2010, an official informed the CMC that Zimbabwe still possessed cluster munitions that remained from the former Rhodesia’s arsenal.[9]

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.[10]

Zimbabwe also possesses RM-70 122mm surface-to-surface rocket systems, but it is not known if these include versions with submunition payloads.[11]