Summary: Non-signatory Zimbabwe has shown interest in the convention, but has not taken any steps towards accession. It is the only country to vote with Russia against an annual United Nations (UN) resolution promoting the convention, most recently in December 2017. Zimbabwe has participated as an observer in several meetings of the convention, but not since 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 shown interest in the convention, but has taken no steps to accede besides stakeholder consultations.[1]

Zimbabwe participated in two regional meetings held during the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitionsand expressed its support for a comprehensive ban without exceptions.[2] It was absent from the Dublin negotiations in May 2008 and the Oslo signing conference in December 2008.

Zimbabwe participated in the convention’s annual Meetings of States Parties in 2010–2013 and intersessional meetings in Geneva in 2012–2015. It was invited to, but did not attend, the convention’s Seventh Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in September 2017. Zimbabwe has participated in regional workshops on the convention, most recently in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in August 2016.[3]

In December 2017, Zimbabwe and Russia were the only countries to vote against UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 72/54, which calls on states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitions to join “as soon as possible.”[4] Zimbabwe has not explained why it voted against this non-binding resolution or on previous UNGA resolutions promoting on the convention in 2016 and 2015.[5]

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.[6]

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.”[7]

Zimbabwe is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions since it gained independence in 1980, but it likely has a stockpile. In 2010, an official informed the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) that Zimbabwe still possessed cluster munitions that remained from the former Rhodesia’s arsenal.[8]

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.[9]

A copy of an official document obtained by Human Rights Watch in May 2018 indicates that Zimbabwe may have transferred Chilean-manufactured cluster munitions to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in or after July 2013.[10] The DRC signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 18 March 2009, but has not ratified. As a signatory, the DRC has committed not to take any action that runs contrary to the object and purpose of the convention such as importing or otherwise receiving cluster munitions.

Zimbabwe also possesses RM-70 and BM-21 122mm surface-to-surface rocket systems, but it is not known if these include versions with submunition payloads.[11]