British firm breaks Sudan arms boycott
By Jon Swain and Brian Johnson-Thomas
April 22, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — A British company has been transporting ammunition inside Sudan in defiance of European sanctions. A Sunday Times investigation has also uncovered evidence that Land Rover Defenders have been supplied to the Sudanese police, who have fitted machineguns to turn them into highly mobile killing machines.
The two episodes are unconnected but illustrate the inadequacy of the sanctions regime imposed on Sudan by western nations disgusted with widespread human rights violations.
Last week, Rolls-Royce announced it was pulling out of Sudan, citing concerns about the crisis in Darfur, western Sudan. The company makes equipment used to pump oil in the region.
“We have decided to discontinue our business there. We will progressively withdraw from support activities,” said a spokesman. “The reason is the increasing political and humanitarian concerns . . . we are not in Darfur, but we are in the country.”
At least 200,000 people have died and 2.5m peasants have been uprooted from their villages and forced into refugee camps since 2003, when rebels took up arms in Darfur against the central government. The widespread killings by government forces and their Janjaweed militias have been denounced by Britain, and America has called it genocide. The UN has imposed an arms embargo.
Despite this, the government has continued to obtain arms, often from China. Significant quantities of guns and ammunition have been shipped to Darfur rebels after being imported into southern Sudan through private air charter companies.
One such shipment took place on November 23. An Antonov-28 cargo plane owned by Dallex Trade, registered in London, with a São Tomé registration S9-PSV, delivered boxes of ammunition from Yei to Juba in southern Sudan.
The delivery, on behalf of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), was in breach of EU sanctions which prohibit the sale, supply, transfer or export of arms and related material including ammunition to Sudan.
Dallex Trade is a mysterious entity with worldwide links. Its ownership is hidden behind several US-based nominees. One shareholder is a front company in Belize whose signatory is a man living on the island of Niue, in the South Pacific.
The Sunday Times has seen western intelligence reports that link Dallex’s São Tomé operating partner Goliaf Air with the notorious arms dealer Victor Anatoliyevich Bout. If the report is accurate, it casts an even more sinister light on the shipments.
Bout has been named in many UN reports as a gunrunner in the African wars of the last decade. He is wanted on an Interpol warrant but has been in hiding in Russia and was last sighted in Damascus two weeks ago.
Inquiries at the registered office in London of Dallex Trade last week were met by an offer to forward any letter to an address in Lithuania.
Allegations about Land Rover first surfaced in a report to the United Nations security council last year. Members of an expert team saw large numbers of white-painted Defenders awaiting delivery at the docks in Port Sudan.
While some were destined for humanitarian use, an African Union official in Khartoum said the “vast majority” were for the interior ministry and government.
Other observers saw Land Rovers fitted with 12.7mm machineguns driven by Sudanese police in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan. African Union observers were told by one eyewitness that he had seen police shooting at civilians in Tawilla in northern Darfur, from vehicles with machineguns mounted on the back.
Land Rover’s parent company, Ford, admitted to the US government last year that American sanctions had been inadvertently breached. Land Rover in Britain has said it has taken steps to stop the export of any more Defenders to Sudan and has recovered some from a distributor.
While Land Rover has taken action to stop such exports, the role of Dallex Trade remains unresolved amid allegations over the death of one of the aircraft ground staff in Sudan. After the man, an employee of a Ken-yan company called Acariza Aviation, was found hanged, six men were arrested on suspicion of murder, although one, a local operations manager, was later released.
UN officials said last week that Africa was a haven of unscrupulous and criminal aircraft operators. They chase fat profits by transporting dubious cargo, including arms and ammunition, across the continent without asking questions.
The arms shipments into Sudan, in breach of sanctions, “almost certainly” fit into this category, officials said.
(The Sunday Times)