Author(s):
Site Admin <webmaster2@icbl.org> .
Friday 19 September 2008
In the lead up to the African Conference on Cluster Munitions, which will be held in Kampala, Uganda on 29-30 September 2008, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, member of the Cluster Munitions Coalition (CMC), held a 16 September lunchtime briefing for African Missions in Geneva on the historic new Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM). The CCM was negotiated in May and adopted in Dublin by 107 countries on 30 May 2008 and will be signed in Oslo, Norway on 3 December 2008 in the successful culmination of the “Oslo Process on Cluster Munitions”.
The purpose of the briefing was to update the African diplomatic missions on the Convention on Cluster Munitions and the Oslo Signing Conference, as well as on the Kampala Regional Conference on Cluster Munitions. Speakers included representatives from the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and H.E. Ambassador Cissy Taliwaku from Uganda. The presentations were inspirational, informative and concise - all stressing the humanitarian imperative for the CCM to enter into force and be fully implemented as rapidly as possible. A dozen African Missions were represented at the briefing and several commented that it had been very useful and clear. Amb. Taliwaku stressed that the Convention on Cluster Munitions is of particular importance to Africa as a region that knows the devastating humanitarian effects of cluster munitions and has suffered for decades from the uncontrolled proliferation of conventional weapons.
Panel of speakers at the Briefing. Copyright ICBL.
As of 18 September, more than 40 African states had registered for the Kampala Regional Conference on Cluster Munitions. The ICBL urges the remaining countries (Algeria, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Libya, Morocco, Namibia, Sao Tome and Principe and Tunisia) to register as soon as possible to join their African brothers and sisters in Uganda, along with other key persons in the “Oslo Process on Cluster Munitions”, for this important conference. Several countries stated they would do so following the briefing.
For information on sponsorship and registration of government delegations, please contact: UNDP at clustermunitions.kampala@undp.org. Information on the Kampala Conference on Cluster Munitions can be found at www.clustermunitionskampala.ug.
For more information on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, please contact:
Laura Cheeseman, CMC Campaigning Officer ( laura@stopclustermunitions.org)
Kasia Derlicka, ICBL Advocacy Officer ( kasia@icbl.org)
Susan B. Walker, ICBL Advocacy Advisor ( humanitarian_affairs@igc.org )