African presidents violated sanctions against Angola rebels: UN report
By Nicole Winfield
UNITED NATIONS: Two sitting African presidents are implicated in a U.N.
report that details sanctions violations that have enabled rebels in Angola
to finance their war, two sources familiar with the report said Friday.
Togolese President Gnassingbe Eyadema and Burkina Faso's President Blaise
Compaore are accused of having allowed sanctions-busting activities in their
countries - explosive accusations in a U.N. report that recommends punitive
measures against the violators, the sources said on condition of anonymity.
The U.N. Security Council imposed an arms and fuel embargo on Angola's UNITA
rebels in 1993. Five years later, it expanded the measures to include a ban
on rebel diamond exports, which are estimated to have supplied the group
with up to dlrs 4 billion since 1992.
Togo's U.N. ambassador, Roland Yao Kpotsra, said late Friday that he
understood Togo was implicated but said he couldn't comment until he had
read the report. Officials at Burkina Faso's mission said no one was
available to comment.
In addition to the presidents, individuals and officials in Gabon, Rwanda,
South Africa, Congo, Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, and the late president
of then-Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko, are accused of violating the sanctions, the
sources said, reading from the report.
A senior Rwandan official speaking on condition of anonymity denied that his
country cooperated with UNITA rebels.
The violations described in the report included providing fuel and arms to
the UNITA rebels, allowing planes carrying banned items to refuel in their
countries, and dealing in banned UNITA diamonds.
The document, which is to be released Wednesday, is the product of a panel
of experts established by the Security Council last year to pinpoint how
sanction violations allowed the rebels to relaunch their war against the
government in December 1998.
The U.N. panel of experts, the brainchild of the sanctions committee
chairman, Ambassador Robert Fowler of Canada, visited several African
countries in the past six months and questioned top diamond dealers in
London to prepare the report.
The experts found that the Antwerp, Belgium, diamond market, described as
the largest in the world for rough stones, has "extremely lax controls and
regulations," that allows illegal trading of banned UNITA diamonds, one
source said, quoting from the report.
The panel recommends sanctions for the sanction-busters, including a
three-year arms embargo on any country that supplies UNITA with weapons, the
source said.
South African Ambassador Dumisana Shadrack Kumalo welcomed the report. South
African individuals and companies were implicated in the report for diamond
and arms dealings, he said.
"The South African government has cooperated, and we did inform the Security
Council of South African citizens and some shady companies that were
involved in sanctions-busting," Kumalo said in an interview Friday night.
The report does not provide significant details about diamond companies that
have bought UNITA diamonds in violation of the sanctions, one source said.
The government and UNITA, a Portuguese acronym for the National Union for
the Total Independence of Angola, began fighting after Angola gained
independence from Portugal in 1975. A 1994 U.N.-mediated truce collapsed
when the government sought in 1998 to take back land that UNITA refused to
hand over as part of the peace agreement. (AP)
For reprint rights: Times Syndication Service
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