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Working for a world free of landmines and cluster munitions                                    View this email in your browser

6 April , 2016                                                                                         

Cuba Bans Cluster Bombs

Cuba is the 99th State Party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. The instrument of accession was submitted to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, at the UN Headquarters in New York, on 6 April 2016.


 

“We are very pleased to hear this news. Cuba was the country with perhaps some of the greatest political constraints towards joining the Convention on Cluster Munitions and it has done it. Once again it shows that banning cluster munitions just requires an awareness of their humanitarian impact, and political will,” said Camilo Serna of the Colombian Campaign to Ban Landmines and a representative of the Cluster Munition Coalition governance board.
 
The Cluster Munition Coalition congratulates Cuba on its accession and encourages it to actively promote the universalization of the Convention by inviting all states not party to join the Convention, in particular Latin American and Caribbean countries that have not yet renounced cluster munitions.
 
“Cuba is a country whose decisions have an important regional influence, especially in the Caribbean. Acceding to the Convention on Cluster Munitions sends a strong message to the few Latin American and Caribbean countries that remain outside the Convention. We are close to being the first region free of cluster munitions. There is no excuse, not political or technical, to prevent a universal ban on these weapons from becoming a reality,” said Serna.
 
Cuba is not known to have used, produced, or exported cluster munitions.
 
According to the Cluster Munition Monitor Cuba has a stockpile of cluster munitions, although Cuba has never confirmed it. The CMC hopes that Cuba will report on its stockpile in its initial transparency report due in 2017, and subsequently undertake the destruction of any remaining stocks.
 
Twenty-four of the thirty-five countries in the Americas have ratified or acceded to the Convention. Haiti and Jamaica have signed the Convention. Nine countries in the Americas (Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Brazil, Dominica, Saint Lucia, Suriname, U.S. and Venezuela) have not joined the Convention yet.
 
The Convention will enter into force for Cuba on 1 October 2016.

Campaigners Marked 4th April
the International Mine Awareness Day

 
4th April, the International Mine Awareness Day has been observed since 2015 aiming to raise awareness on the need to eradicate landmines, cluster munitions and all explosive remnants of war.

Members of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Munitions Coalition all over including in Africa, Asia, Europe, Americas and Middle East and North Africa have carried out advocacy activities in the lead up to and on 4 April to promote universalization and implementation of the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions and the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. They conducted actions such as lobbying meetings with decision makers; writing letters to Ministers, Parliamentarians and Presidents; conducting media work and publishing press releases; briefing diplomats or other supporters of the campaign; organizing public events (workshops, round tables, raising awareness among students, concerts or a flash-mobs); staging photo exhibitions; blogging; launching petitions or social media campaigns.




To read more visit the ICBL and CMC websites.

Nobel Laureates and campaigners urge Democratic Republic of Congo to ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions



Nobel Laureates, campaign ambassadors and campaigners from about 50 countries called on H.E. Joseph Kabila, President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, to ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Jody Williams, 1997 Nobel Peace Laureate, Dr. Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Nobel Peace Laureate, CMC Ambassadors Branislav Kapetanovic and Margaret Arach Orech joined national campaigns by supporting a global action that was launched by the Campagne congolaise pour interdire les mines and the Cluster Munition Coalition to urge the Democratic Republic of Congo to ratify the Convention as soon as possible before the Sixth Meeting of States Parties that will take place in September 2016 in Geneva.

Click here to read more.  
 
 

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