The Angolan rebel movement appears to be stockpiling weapons from new sources
Sechaba ka’Nkosi
Former Eastern bloc countries have emerged as the main suppliers of arms to Angola’s Unita rebel movement as fears mount in the international community that rebel leader Jonas Savimbi may be stockpiling weapons.
A report by the United Nations monitoring team in the trouble-torn country has accused Bulgaria, Ukraine and Romania of being the main suppliers of arms since the Angolan government offensive and sanctions against Unita have crippled the rebel movement’s arms-for-diamonds networks.
The UN warns that the lull in Unita attacks should not be interpreted as a defeat for Savimbi, as the rebel leader remains capable of amassing a major rearmament exercise through his contacts in Europe and Africa.
It says that arms to Unita were sold through the West African countries Togo and Burkina Faso, although in some instances some weapons were sold in good faith on the basis of end-user certificates to the two countries.
However, a UN-sponsored forensic investigation revealed a massive scheme of counterfeit certificates issued for end-users.
“As Unita’s traditional allies and arms suppliers and conduits become more hesitant, as a result of publicity and the name and shame campaign, we expect Unita to seek new and unexpected friends and to explore more subtle and refined ways of evading the sanctions,” says the report.
The report claims that Unita maintains particularly active information machinery in South Africa through the use of informal networks associated with apartheid-era security agencies and Portugal.
Accusations against the former communist states stem from concerns among international experts monitoring sanctions in Angola that large quantities of arms were recently sold to Togo and Burkina Faso amounts much larger than those countries’ current military needs.
Togo, Burkina Faso and Cte d’Ivoire have traditionally been known Unita supporters allowing the rebel leaders to stay and plan operations within their borders.
The report claims that forensic examinations carried out on some of the end-user certificates were forged. Among weapons shipped by Bulgaria to Togo in the past few months are 6?300 RPG-7 anti-tank rockets.
In some instances the implicated countries denied being part of the massive forgery certificates, despite damning evidence to the contrary.
For example, the report claims that Romania provided evidence that it had exported R6-million worth of weapons to Togo and Burkina Faso in a two-year period from 1996. Burkina Faso denied ever issuing certificates.
“But the forensic examinations found that the end-user certificates featuring Burkina Faso as the country of origin were authentic,” states the report.
Between 1996 and 1998 Bulgaria exported nearly R110-million worth of weapons on the basis of end-user certificates with Togo listed as the end-user. However, forensic investigations found the certificates were forgeries based on a legitimate one issued by Togo to one of Unita’s senior arms procurers Marcelo Moises Dachala, also known as Ambassador Karrica.
The damning report on the Eastern bloc comes in the wake of another investigation, implicating South African mining giant De Beers and three countries involved in the Great Lakes conflict in smuggling diamonds from Unita.
De Beers has been named alongside the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Rwanda as some of the major traffickers of Angola’s conflict diamonds.
The investigation found that an informal Unita network with links into South Africa is active in the smuggling of diamonds from Kinshasa. It says in South Africa Mines Tadeu is actively involved in promoting Unita and facilitating its activities.
“We have to take into account that there are many common elements in terms of arms, diamond dealers and air transport carriers involved in these conflicts,” states the report.
“It will not be a surprise to see emerging the same names, companies and activities related to the organised crime profiting from death, destruction and greed. Those elements know no nationality or loyalty of any kind and can be found today in Angola and tomorrow somewhere else. This is becoming an increasingly common phenomenon that the international community must urgently address.”
The report says while De Beers has publicised programmes to ensure that conflict diamonds do not enter its supply lines, the reliability of its guarantees have become questionable in the wake of new evidence. De Beers was unavailable for comment.
However, the UN investigators argue that there is no validation of De Beers’ claims and the company has so far refused to inform the British government where its billions of rands worth of imports into London originate from.
It says major dealers some of whom are known clients of the company have been operating offices along the border with Congo since last year and buying Angolan diamonds without a certificate of origin.
The report says: “If the widely accepted figure for illicit diamonds [which is different from conflict diamonds as it includes other diamonds stolen from their legal owners] of 20% of trade in rough diamonds is correct, then either a surprising 57% of the outside market is comprised of illicit diamonds or De Beers too must accept some responsibility for trade in illicit diamonds.”