There’s now just 12 days until entry into force. This week we are calling on MOROCCO to sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions. Please take part in this action and help put the spotlight on Morocco!
TAKE ACTION!
- Send a letter to the King of Morocco and a copy to the Foreign Minister asking Morocco to sign the Convention. You could also send a copy of the letter to the Moroccan embassy in your country (if there is one).
Downloadable letters urging the government of Morocco sign the Convention are available from the CMC website. Countdown to Entry into Force – Week 13: Morocco
The Kingdom of Morocco participated in the “Oslo Process” to develop and adopt the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but it has yet to sign the treaty.
“Morocco should set an example in the region by joining this landmark humanitarian and disarmament treaty that will ban cluster bombs” said Ayman Sorour, executive director of Protection, a CMC steering committee member that works to ban cluster munitions in the Middle East and North Africa. “Protecting civilians from these indiscriminate weapons must be at the heart of Morocco’s decision to join this treaty” he added.
In April 2008, Morocco endorsed the Livingstone Declaration, which called on African states to support a comprehensive convention with a “total and immediate” prohibition on the production, stockpiling, transfer, and use of cluster munitions. Morocco also formally adopted the Convention at the Dublin Diplomatic Conference in May 2008. Although Morocco attended the December 2008 Oslo signing ceremony, it did so as an observer and has never given a public explanation for not signing. To date, Tunisia is the only country in North Africa that has signed the treaty.
Moroccan forces used several types of cluster munitions at some point in the armed conflict with the Polisario Front in the 1970s and 1980s, leaving contamination in the disputed territory of Western Sahara as well as neighbouring Mauritania. Prior to 1995, the US transferred multiple types of cluster munitions – with a total of 2.5 million submunitions – to Morocco, but little is known about the makeup and size of its current stockpile.
The CMC urges all countries to join the Convention without delay and to participate in the First Meeting of States Parties in November 2010 in Lao PDR, the most-affected country in the world.
Additional information on Morocco and cluster munitions
> Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice
Morocco country chapter, May 2009 report
