Summary: Non-signatory Zimbabwe has shown interest in the convention, but has not taken any steps towards accession. It has participated as an observer in meetings of the convention, but not since 2015. Zimbabwe was the only country to oppose a United Nations (UN) resolution promoting the convention in December 2018.

Zimbabwe 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. Prior to 1980, the defense industries of then-Rhodesia developed and produced cluster bombs.

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 Munitions and expressed its support for a comprehensive ban without exceptions.[2] However, it was absent from the Dublin negotiations in May 2008 and the Oslo signing conference in December 2008.

Zimbabwe has participated in the convention’s meetings, but not since 2015.[3] It was invited to, but did not attend, the convention’s Eighth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in September 2018.[4]

Zimbabwe was the only state to vote against adopting UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 73/54 in December 2018, which calls on states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitions to join “as soon as possible.”[5] Zimbabwe has not explained why it has voted against the annual UNGA resolution promoting the convention since it was first introduced in 2015–2017.[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]

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]  State Parties have provided additional information. Chile has declared and destroyed Alpha bomblets that it possessed, while Peru has also reported Alpha bomblets among the stocks to be destroyed.

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.[9]

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 according to a 2012 Folha de São Paolo article reviewing declassified Ministry of Defense documents.[10]

Zimbabwe may have transferred Chilean-manufactured cluster munitions to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in or after July 2013 according to a copy of an official shipping document obtained by Human Rights Watch in May 2018.[11] 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.[12]