Guinea-Bissau

The Republic of Guinea-Bissau signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Oslo on 4 December 2008. The status of the ratification process is not known.

Guinea-Bissau did not attend the initial meeting in Oslo in February 2007 to launch the Oslo Process, but was present at the next two international diplomatic conferences to develop the convention text in Lima and Vienna. After missing the international conference in Wellington in February 2008, it participated in the African regional conference in Livingstone in March/April and the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008. It also attended the African regional conference in Kampala in September 2008.

Guinea-Bissau did not intervene often during these meetings. At the Vienna conference, Guinea-Bissau said it fully supported the Oslo Process and particularly wanted the proposed treaty to include strong provisions on victim assistance.^[1] At the Livingstone regional conference on 1 April 2008, Guinea-Bissau endorsed the Livingstone Declaration, calling for a comprehensive treaty with a prohibition that should be “total and immediate.”^[2]

While unable to attend the Wellington conference, Guinea-Bissau subscribed to the Wellington Declaration on 21 April 2008, thereby committing to participate fully in the formal negotiations in Dublin on the basis of the draft Wellington text.

During the Dublin negotiations, Guinea-Bissau joined other African countries in opposing efforts to weaken the convention text. At the conclusion, Guinea-Bissau said it regarded the text as the “best possible compromise available,”^[3] and joined the consensus adoption of the convention.

Guinea-Bissau participated in the Kampala regional conference in September 2008 and endorsed the Kampala Action Plan, which declared that states should sign and “take all necessary measures to ratify the convention as soon as possible.”^[4]

Upon signing the convention in Oslo, Guinea-Bissau’s Secretary of State and International Cooperation said that the country would spare no effort in making sure the convention is fully implemented.^[5]

Guinea-Bissau became party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) on 6 August 2008 and ratified Protocol V on Explosive Remnants of War the same day. It has not been an active participant in the CCW work on cluster munitions.

On 4 December 2008, Guinea-Bissau stated that it does not use or produce cluster munitions.^[6] However, it is believed to possess a stockpile. RBK air-dropped cluster bombs and PTAB 2.5 bomblets were among munitions ejected by an explosion at the Paiol de Bra ammunition storage facility, located in the outskirts of Bissau City, sometime in 2000.^[7] The size and content of Guinea-Bissau’s current stockpile of clusters munitions is not known.