Summary: State Party Mozambique ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 14 March 2011. It is reviewing existing legislation to see if additional measures are required to enforce the convention’s implementation. Mozambique has attended all of the convention’s meetings and has condemned new use of cluster munitions. It voted in favor of a UN resolution on the convention in December 2015.

In its initial transparency report for the convention provided in 2012, Mozambique confirmed it has never produced cluster munitions. Cluster munitions were used in Mozambique in the past. In September 2015, Mozambique announced the completion of the destruction of its stockpile of 299 cluster munitions and 9,708 submunitions, five years in advance of the treaty’s deadline. It is not retaining any cluster munitions for training or research.

Policy

The Republic of Mozambique signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, ratified on 14 March 2011, and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 September 2011.

Mozambique reported in June 2012 and again in February 2016 that it is undertaking a review of existing legislation to determine if new law is needed to enforce its implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[1]

Mozambique submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the convention in June 2012. It has provided annual updated reports since then, most recently on 1 February 2016.[2]

Mozambique was one of three African states to participate in the launch of the Oslo Process in February 2007, which produced the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It participated actively throughout the Oslo Process and advocated forcefully for a comprehensive ban without exceptions, as well as for victim assistance and international cooperation and assistance.[3]

Mozambique engages actively in the work of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It participated in the convention’s First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia in September 2015, where it announced the completion of the destruction of its stockpiled cluster munitions.

In an address to the high-level segment of the meeting, Mozambique’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva, Ambassador Pedro Comissário, described universalization of the convention as “of paramount importance” and said, “we appeal to those states that have not yet ratified or acceded to this important legal instrument to ratify it or accede to it as a matter of urgency.”[4]

Mozambique has participated in every Meeting of States Parties of the convention as well as intersessional meetings in Geneva in 2011–2015. It has attended regional workshops on cluster munitions, most recently in Lusaka, Zambia in June 2015.[5]

Mozambique expressed sincere regret at new use of cluster munitions in 2013.[6]

On 7 December 2015, Mozambique voted in favor of a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[7] Mozambique has not elaborated its views on several important issues relating to the convention’s interpretation and implementation, such as the prohibition on transit, the prohibition on assistance during joint military operations with states not party that may use cluster munitions, the prohibition on foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions, and the prohibition on investment in production of cluster munitions.

Mozambique is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, and transfer

Mozambique has declared that it “never produced” cluster munitions and “therefore has no need to convert or decommission such facilities.”[8]

It is not clear who was responsible for using cluster munitions in Mozambique in the past. Clearance operators have discovered and destroyed cluster munition remnants, including submunitions from RBK-250 and CB-470 air-dropped bombs, in Tete, Manica, Gaza, and Maputo provinces.[9] In 2011, Mozambique requested that State Parties “provide any technical data on previous cluster munitions strikes within the territory of Mozambique that may be available in their military archives.”[10]

Stockpiling and destruction

Mozambique once stockpiled 299 cluster munitions and 9,708 submunitions:

• 199 RBK-250 PTAB-2.5M cluster bombs containing 8,358 submunitions;
• 9 RBK-250-275 AO-1SCh cluster bombs containing 1,350 submunitions.[11]

Under Article 3 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Mozambique was required to destroy all its stockpiled cluster munitions as soon as possible but not later than 1 September 2019.

At the First Review Conference in September 2015, Mozambique announced the completion of its stockpile destruction, four years in advance of the treaty deadline.[12] It destroyed all of the stocks after the convention’s entry into force for Mozambique, between October 2014 and September 2015.

During 2015, Mozambique destroyed 208 cluster munitions and 5,970 submunitions:

• 109 RBK-250 PTAB-2.5M cluster bombs containing 4,620 submunitions;
• 9 RBK-250-275 AO-1SCh cluster bombs containing 1,350 submunitions.

In October–December 2014, Mozambique destroyed 90 RBK-250 PTAB-2.5 bombs and 3,738 PTAB submunitions.

In June 2014, the Ministry of Defence, National Demining Institute of Mozambique, and Norwegian People’s Aid dismantled and destroyed one RBK-250 PTAB-2.5 bomb containing 42 PTAB-2.5 submunitions as part of a joint project to safely destroy the stockpile.

Mozambique also reported the destruction of incendiary weapons in its Article 7 report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[13]

Retention

Mozambique has reported that it is not retaining any cluster munitions for training or research.[14]