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Blackwater to reach settlement with U.S. DOJ on violating Sudan sanctions

June 27, 2010 (WASHINGTON) – The U.S. defense contractor Blackwater Worldwide is negotiating with federal authorities on a settlement regarding violations of Sudan sanctions that took place since 2005, McClatchy Newspapers said in an investigative report.

Blackwater.jpgBlackwater is doing this in order to avoid indictment that would have prevented it from benefitting from lucrative government contracts. The Obama administration recently awarded the firm a $120 million State Department security contract, and about $100 million in new CIA work.

This is likely the reason why Obama administration decided not to pursue legal action against Blackwater. The Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) which monitors sanctions enforcement generally imposes fines on those companies found to have violated sanctions against countries such as Iran, Cuba and Sudan.

Former and current U.S. officials told the newspaper that the effort to secure contract in South Sudan was led by Blackwater’s owner Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL who had close ties with top officials in President George W. Bush’s White House and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Blackwater has a 7,000-acre compound in Moyock where it has trained thousands of military and law enforcement personnel. It also works with international clients.

Prince became the focus of a four year investigation by law enforcement into allegations of sanctions violations, illegal exports and bribery.

Sudan has been under U.S. sanctions since 1997 though in 2006 the Bush administration lifted them in the South of the country and other areas with limited exceptions. The U.S. has been attempting to make sure that ease the impact of the sanctions on South Sudan which enjoys Washington’s backing.

After negotiating a $2 million draft contract to train South Sudan president Salva Kiir’s personal security detail, Blackwater in early 2007 drafted a detailed second proposal, valued at more than $100 million, to equip and train southern Sudan’s army.

Because the south lacked ready cash, Blackwater sought 50% of its untapped mineral wealth, a former senior U.S. official said.

South Sudan which has large reserves of oil was believed to also mineral riches of gold, iron and diamonds.

Kiir was sworn in as president of South Sudan government in 2005 following the death of his predecessor, John Garang, in an unexplained helicopter crash, and Blackwater’s sales pitch to the Bush administration was that protecting the new leader would support U.S. policy objectives.

Several officials with knowledge of Sudan policy said the State Department and CIA had initially encouraged Blackwater to explore providing protection for Southern Sudan’s leaders, fearing they could be targeted for assassination.

The Bush administration promised protection, secure communications and air transport to Garang, the long-time Southern Sudanese rebel leader before his untimely death, said a U.S. official with years of experience in Sudan.

A month earlier, Prince had met with Bradford Phillips, who knew Garang, to discuss possible Blackwater training for the Southern Sudanese leader’s security detail.

The two men had met years earlier through their fathers, industrialist Edgar Prince and conservative activist Howard Phillips, both prominent in the Christian conservative movement.

That fall, Blackwater formally retained Phillips, who traveled to the Southern Sudanese capital of Juba, where he promoted Blackwater to Kiir, who was Garang’s successor. Christopher Taylor, a Blackwater vice president who led the company’s Sudan initiative, accompanied Phillips on two subsequent trips.

Ultimately, though, Blackwater’s venture in Sudan foundered, U.S. officials said.

“Blackwater had some problems in Iraq,” said Deng Nhial, the deputy chief of southern Sudan’s Washington office. “Nothing really materialized. No services were performed.”

In 2007, Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth, head of GoSS mission in Washington told The Virginian-Pilot that he expected Blackwater to soon start working with security forces in South Sudan.

BLACKWATER LOBBIES GoSS

The documents obtained by McClatchy newspaper detailed how Blackwater lobbied GoSS at the highest levels to bring the contract to life.

In November 2005, Kiir traveled to Washington on his first official visit and met then U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.

Prince has convinced personally Cheney to lift the sanctions on Southern Sudan, according to the documents and a former senior U.S. official, who said that one meeting took place aboard Air Force Two. Prince’s aides also helped draft a letter from Kiir, Bush seeking an end to the sanctions.

The GoSS president and his aides also met Blackwater executives, including Prince, Taylor and Black, the veteran CIA officer. At the Marriott hotel, Black delivered a presentation on Blackwater’s capabilities and urged Kiir to lobby Bush to lift the sanctions on Southern Sudan.

Several days later, accompanied by Philips, two of Kiir’s close advisers toured Blackwater’s sprawling Moyock, N.C., facility.

The chief salesman to the Sudanese during the Washington meeting appears to have been Cofer Black, a former top CIA and State Department official who in 2001 famously demanded that a CIA subordinate kill terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and deliver his head in dry ice.

A senior GoSS official confirmed the trip to Blackwater’s headquarters, and said Kiir was interested in elite bodyguard training and secure satellite phones that couldn’t be intercepted by the Khartoum government.

Taylor and Phillips then visited Sudan in February 2006. Taylor gave Kiir and his aides the satellite phones, access to the secure e-mail accounts and a formal proposal for Blackwater protective services.

Over subsequent months, and while the U.S. sanctions were still in effect, Blackwater pressed its sales drive, which included a meeting between Prince and Kiir in Nairobi, Kenya, and a third visit to Sudan by Taylor.

Bush lifted the U.S. sanctions on Southern Sudan by executive order on Oct. 13, 2006, but by that time, federal investigators had concluded that Blackwater had already crossed the permissible line in brokering defense services.

Eleven days later, Blackwater and Southern Sudan concluded preliminary negotiations on a contract to train Kiir’s bodyguards. It’s not clear whether the contract was ever implemented.

(ST)

19 Comments

  • mohammed ali
    mohammed ali

    Blackwater to reach settlement with U.S. DOJ on violating Sudan sanctions
    50% will be paid to have the right to South Sudan Mineral deposts(gold ,diamond and othe precious metals)! I hope that South Sudan minerals are not already sold!Like Moboto’s Congo.

    One can understands clearly why AL BASHEER is indicted by the ICC! Probably he doesn’t need “top secured” mobile phones!

    Reply
  • Kuer Dau Apai
    Kuer Dau Apai

    Blackwater to reach settlement with U.S. DOJ on violating Sudan sanctions
    Let Learn from the Experiences!!

    Indeed, the South Sudanese leaders need to learn from the saddest incident that killed SPLM’s founder and visionary leader Dr John Garang de Mabior. That means, Mr Kiir Mayardit should cooperate and collaborate with the U.S. planned known as Blackwater security training contract to survive the Referendum in kilometres to come.

    It was the Addis-Ababa’s agreement that killed Mr Deng Nhial who fought for the freedom of the Southerners and the CPA that killed Dr John Garang who had long-enough fought and/or about to or that he provides the everlasting enough solution to war in Sudan if it could be followed as it is documented.
    Southerners should not go beyond U.S.’s future economic reasons of supporting the South Sudan rather than just to ensure the freedom in the world. I wish Mr Mayardit may not presume to control the oil future economic expectations before getting rid of Arabs in Southern Sudan.

    As Southerners we should allow the U.S. to achieve the secure Referendum when our leaders are well secured.

    Message to the Southerners, Americans or other westerners can teach you how to do alone while the Arabs in the North Sudan have exploited you to death!!!

    Let well come more supports from U.S. and other western countries in this intentional months and years of Referendum

    Thank All
    Kuer Dau Apai

    Reply
  • Angelo Achuil
    Angelo Achuil

    Blackwater to reach settlement with U.S. DOJ on violating Sudan sanctions
    Having the security training from blackwater is wonderful if we could afford it, but I don’t think it is wise to get it at the expense of the country’s future economy. I hope Kiir’s administration had clear MOUs on this. “Because the south lacked ready cash, Blackwater sought 50% of its untapped mineral wealth, a former senior U.S. official said.”

    Reply
  • Sudani Logik
    Sudani Logik

    Blackwater to reach settlement with U.S. DOJ on violating Sudan sanctions
    This is a very sad piece of news, if indeed the contract has been implemented! The West are and have been exploiting African resources for centuries and they have not changed.

    Anyone who understands global poilitics knows that Blackwater and likes are only interested in Business and not the safety or peace of southern Sudan. Iraq is a perfect example of their disregard for Human lives and blatant manipulation of facts being distributed to media outlets.

    But, there’e a blind loyalist/ racist here named M. Ali, who seems to think that what the northern ruling elite did and are doing to southerners/ blacks is somehow more humane. He’s dead wrong, the northern ruling elite are just as bad if not worse because they oppressed, killed, marginalized and tortured their own brothers, something I doubt very much Westerners would currently do openly in their own countries and in the name of religion.

    What is even more sad, that this guy truly believes what he writes and seems to think one kind of domination is better than another. Arabs (Africans mixed with Arabs) have highjacked the Sudanese political arena for over a century, they promoted the slave trade in the 1800s, they dislodged the advancement of Sudanese Africans since the early 20th century, failing southern students in universities, suppressing African culture & traditions in favor of Arabisim and they continue to exploit African Sudanese.

    He also has the audacity to say that the south didn’t contribute to the Sudenese economy since independence, whaaaaat??????

    How about the millions generated from taxes before and during the war/s, animal trade & skin products being sold in the north and abroad, southern Teak/ Timber and Taleh being utilized by northern industries, cheap labour (mainly domestic servants & construction workers) from refugees residing as peasants in the north and many other economical benfits from southern resources (petroleum industry and its many by products), please don’t advocate the north developed this industry, it was developed by the Chinese, Malaysians, Pakistanis and Canadians with the permission of the NCP who used malitias to uproot/ kill thousands of southerns from their homes. All this, and you choose to deny the contribution of the south in the Sudenese economy. Khartoum’s current development is due mainly to southern resources.

    Stop pretending that you’re not a racist, you’re the worst kind of racist and bigot that Sudan suffers from.

    Reply
  • khawaja
    khawaja

    Blackwater to reach settlement with U.S. DOJ on violating Sudan sanctions
    And you; Southerners, still want the help of US? whereas they are only interested in your minerals and in selling arms? They don’t care about anything else? Freedom? they don’t care : they just want to sell guns and bombs, they just want to get the money from your petrol, they don’t care about your people. Did they send any company to developp South Sudan? Have they started to make some investment for the future? NO only GUNS, being paid by future minerals! US GO HOME

    Reply
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