/ 5 March 2011

UN probes Zim-Côte d’Ivoire arms trade claims

The United Nations is investigating evidence that Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, secretly sent weapons to Côte d’Ivoire for possible use against civilians.

A confidential report by the UN mission in Côte d’Ivoire, seen by Reuters on Friday, said it had been gathering more information on “the arrival of light weapons cargoes from Zimbabwe”, which is in breach of an arms embargo against the west African country.

The revelation came after seven women were shot dead by security forces loyal to the president, Laurent Gbagbo, in what his opponents describe as “a new level of horror and barbarism”.

UN officials have told Reuters that arms from Zimbabwe will have been intended for Gbagbo and not his rival Alassane Ouattara. Diplomats on the UN security council have warned his forces could use them against UN peacekeepers or Ivorian civilians who support Ouattara.

In January, Gbagbo sent a special envoy to Harare to meet Mugabe who, like Gbagbo, has been accused of election fraud and is subject to US and EU restrictive measures.

An official at Zimbabwe’s mission in Ivory Coast expressed surprise at the allegation and declined to comment. Eldred Masunungure, a political scientist at Zimbabwe University, said: “It can’t be ruled out but, in the absence of firm information, it can only be an allegation.”

Asked why Mugabe might assist Gbagbo, he speculated: “Zimbabwe has no strategic interest in Ivory Coast. It may simply be to frustrate Mugabe’s perceived enemies, like a reflex action. What the US and UK want, he tries to frustrate, especially in an African context. He’s a pioneer of the adage ‘African solutions to African problems’.”

Côte d’Ivoire has been under an arms embargo since the last bout of serious violence in 2004, when pro-Gbagbo forces bombed French peacekeepers in the rebel-controlled north. Analysts say both sides have repeatedly violated the embargo.

The report also says the UN mission, Unoci, was monitoring a shipment of 10 large wooden boxes that “may contain trucks or tanks”. “This cargo has been at Abidjan airport for six months,” the Unoci report says. “Aerial pictures confirmed the presence of these boxes, which are under 24/7 hours military surveillance.”

Philippe Bolopion, of Human Rights Watch, said countries aiding Gbagbo should be careful: “Given the documented pattern of unlawful attacks on civilians by pro-Gbagbo forces, countries violating the arms embargo to provide weapons to his forces might be complicit in grave human rights abuses.”

The report obtained by Reuters also speaks of a “suspected cargo delivery from Angola,” involving two Soviet-manufactured Sukhoi-27 fighter jets and a Soviet-made MIG-25 interceptor and reconnaissance bomber, spotted at San Pedro airport in Cape Verde, and a Russian cargo plane seen at Abidjan in January.

The Russian aircraft “has a considerable cargo capacity to carry heavy military equipment or a company of soldiers”, the report says.

It does not explicitly say whether the fighter jets are linked to Gbagbo’s government. But it says Unoci has received information that the “same [Russian cargo] aircraft had supplied equipment to the Ivorian government in 2005”.

Diplomats at Angola’s UN mission were not immediately available for a reaction.

‘They won’t shoot at women’
Gbagbo has ordered Unoci out of the country, a demand the mission has ignored. Its peacekeepers have been protecting Ouattara, recognised by the UN as the winner of last November’s election, at an Abidjan hotel along with his advisers.

The Unoci report is not the first claim of a possible transfer of military aircraft to Gbagbo. The UN peacekeeping chief, Alain Le Roy, apologised to Belarus for a statement alleging an initial shipment of attack helicopters had arrived in Côte d’Ivoire from that country.

Diplomats say the statement on the helicopter sale, issued by secretary-general Ban Ki-moon’s press office, is based on credible US intelligence.

Ouattara’s UN envoy, Youssoufou Bamba, told reporters the only incorrect part of the statement was that a first shipment had arrived. “It’s true that he [Gbagbo] wanted these three helicopters to be smuggled into Côte d’Ivoire and be assembled,” he said. “This is something we have from credible sources of intelligence.”

Meanwhile there were expressions of shock and disgust after the killing of seven women who had been staging a demonstration against Gbagbo.

Patrick Achi, a spokesperson for Ouattara’s government-in-waiting, said: “Indeed, we anticipated everything short of imagining that one could shoot live rounds at unarmed women, all the more with tanks.”

Sirah Drane (41) who helped organise the march, said she had been holding a megaphone and preparing to address the large crowd that had gathered at a traffic circle in Abobo. “That’s when we saw the tanks,” she told Associated Press. “There were thousands of women. And we said to ourselves: ‘They won’t shoot at women’ — I heard a boom. They started spraying us — I tried to run and fell down. The others trampled me. Opening fire on unarmed women? It’s inconceivable.”

The attack prompted an immediate rebuke from the United States, which like most governments has urged Gbagbo to step down. “The moral bankruptcy of Laurent Gbagbo is evident as his security forces killed women protesters,” wrote the US state department spokesperson, PJ Crowley, in a Twitter message.

In New York, the UN security council has said it is “deeply concerned” about the escalation of violence in Côte d’Ivoire, which may lead to a resurgence of civil war. – guardian.co.uk