AUSTRIA has sold 20 tanks to Botswana, Pretoria-based Austrian diplomat Caroline Gudenus said on Wednesday. “There was a deal for 20 new tanks, plus an option for 20 second-hand ones. The new ones have been supplied, but the sale of the second hand ones was not permitted to go through,” Gudenus told the Sapa news agency. The deal follows unsuccessful attempts by Botswana to buy German-made tanks from the Netherlands and Belgium in 1996 and 1998. Those sales were blocked by Germany on the grounds that southern Africa was a region in tension. Gudenus said the Austrian deal was negotiated in 1998 and that the last of the tanks were delivered this year. – AFP
Wednesday 25, 2001