POPs IN AFRICA HAZARDOUS WASTE TRADE 1980 - 2000 ... - Arte

30 Journal of Commerce, December 23, 1988; La Liberte (Switzerland), November 14, 1988.
under negotiation between the Angolan government and a major
Swiss arms trader, Arnold Andreas Kuenzler.
The scheme reportedly would bring over 5 million tons of
western industrial waste to Angola for incineration and storage in
exchange for $2 billion and the construction of a new city, port,
and airfield which would provide 15,000 jobs.
According to the Lisbon weekly, O Independente, the Angolan
government entered a preliminary agreement on the proposal on
November 5, 1988. However, Angola’s official news agency
reported that President Jose Eduardo dos Santos denied having
signed any preliminary agreement on the scheme.
Kuenzler said, “We want to build in Africa the same installations
that Ciba-Geigy [a major chemical manufacturer] has in Basel
[Switzerland.] If it is good for the Swiss, it is good for the
blacks!” 30
The waste was to be imported through the southern port of
Namibe, Angola, and then incinerated in southern Angola. The
incinerator would have produced toxic waste water and residual
ash, which would have been buried in the Angolan desert.
According to the proposed contract, a copy of which has obtained
by the European Environmental Alliance, the Angolan
government was to receive USD 2 million for “national projects
of an urgent nature.”
The proposed contract gave a waste importation license to
Kuenzler, who, with his partner Roland Straub, told O
Independente that they hoped to clear between USD 5 and USD
10 million from the deal.
The project was to be financed by three U.S. corporations: Texas
Alley Bank, the Millen Bank (also of Texas), and the U.S.
Casualty Agency insurance company. Disposal of the ash and
waste water was to be handled by another Swiss firm, Landis and
Gyr.
The Angolan government denied that any such deal had been
signed. The Angolan ambassador in Paris, Luis de Almeida, said
that Angola was not and never would be a “dustbin” for any
power. Another Angolan official was quoted as saying that all
reports of the deal were “only aimed at smearing the credibility
of our country.” The secretary General of the Organization of
African Unity, Ide Oumaru, also said that such reports were false.
Kuenzler, however, when asked in a radio interview, “Are you
certain that you will export this waste or build this factory in
26