Commitment to the Convention on Cluster Munitions

Policy

The Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville) signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008.

In May 2013, Congo informed a regional meeting on the Convention on Cluster Munitions that parliamentary approval of its ratification of the convention would “soon” be achieved.[1] Congo said it had not been able to complete the ratification process by the end of 2012 as hoped but was now making progress.[2] The representative stated that while Congo did not have cluster munitions, it was committed to ratifying the convention to help the international community to stop the use, production, and stockpiling of these weapons.[3]

In December 2012, a government official informed the Monitor that the bill authorizing Congo’s ratification was submitted to the Supreme Court for an advisory opinion on 23 August 2010, with a favorable response. In March 2011, the bill was then sent to the General Secretary of the government, to be submitted for consideration by the Council of Ministers. It remained that the bill be submitted to both chambers of parliament for adoption.[4] As of 13 May 2013, the bill was still under consideration by the government.[5]

In May 2013, a government official informed the Monitor that the process to incorporate the convention’s provisions into national legislation had already begun. The official stated that Congo intends to amend its existing implementation legislation for the Mine Ban Treaty to include cluster munitions, but a decision would be taken only after the adoption by parliament of its ratification instrument.[6]

Congo attended several meetings of the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and joined in the consensus adoption of the convention in Dublin in May 2008.[7] Congo has continued to engage in the work of the convention. It participated in the convention’s Third Meeting of States Parties in Oslo, Norway in September 2012 but did not make any statement. Congo did not attend the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva in April 2013 but did participate in an African regional seminar on the universalization of the convention in Lomé, Togo in May 2013.

Congo is party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Interpretive issues

In May 2013, Congo expressed its views on several issues important for the interpretation and implementation of the convention. Congo’s National Mine Action Focal Point informed the Monitor that Congo “is not willing to assist any country with prohibited acts” under the convention, nor “to use its national territory for transit of these weapons or the stockpiling of cluster munitions and landmines belonging to a foreign army.”[8] In June 2013, the official informed the Monitor that Congo agreed with the views of a number of States Parties to the convention and of the CMC that investment in the production of cluster munitions is also prohibited by the convention.[9]

Congo has not made a national statement to express concern at Syria’s use of cluster munitions. However it endorsed the Lomé Strategy on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions at the regional meeting held in May 2013, which expresses “grave concern over the recent and on-going use of cluster munitions” and calls for the immediate end to the use of these weapons.[10]

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Congo has stated that it has never used, produced, or transferred cluster munitions.[11] In May 2013 and December 2012, Congo reiterated that it has no stockpiles of cluster munitions on its territory, including for training or research purposes.[12]

Congo reported in 2010 that it had stockpiles of Soviet cluster munitions that were supplied for use with MIG-21 aircraft.[13] In September 2011, Congo stated that following the bombing of a central arms depot in Maya-Maya during the 1997–1998 conflict, many explosive weapons consisting mainly of Soviet OFAB unitary aircraft bombs, RBK-250 and RBK-500 cluster bombs, mortars, artillery shells, and C-250 rockets were dispersed over an area of more than 0.26km², making the territory inaccessible for the local population. After the end of the conflict, the area was abandoned without being marked.[14] After an accident in May 2011, a demining unit of the Congolese Armed Forces began surface clearance the Maya-Maya depot in cooperation with humanitarian demining NGO, Mines Advisory Group (MAG). As of September 2011, Congo reported that MAG had destroyed 7,102 items of unexploded ordnance (UXO), including 11 PTAB-2.5M and 28 AO-1SCh submunitions.[15]

In December 2012, a Congolese official reported that no further cluster submunitions had been found since August 2012.[16]

On 4 March 2012, a series of explosions at a munitions storage depot located in a densely populated residential area of Brazzaville killed more than 200 people and injured over 1,500.[17] The blast damaged and destroyed numerous homes and businesses, left over 14,000 people homeless, and scattered large amount of UXO posing a grave threat to the local community over a wide radius. However, cluster munitions were not found among the UXO or other stockpiled munitions in the depot.[18]

In May 2013, Congo thanked MAG, Handicap International, Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD), UN, ICRC, and European Union partners for their assistance to clear the impact zone and reported that measures had been taken to relocate military facilities away from civilian areas.[19]