Navy story.indd - Mars Group Kenya Publications

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Sudan/Saudi Arabia
sIGNAL FROM SAUDI
n An astonishing attack on Sudanese
President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir
signalling a crack in Arab solidarity over
Khartoum’s policy on Darfur appeared
in the 8 October edition of the Saudi
Arabian daily Al Asharq al Awsat, which
is close to the rulers in Riyadh. ‘It is now
obvious to everyone that the Sudanese
regime has been thriving on crises since
it came to power in 1989,’ declared
former Editor Abdel Rahman al Rashid,
who is close to the royals and now works
at Al Arabiya television.
Khartoum’s Islamist regime courts
Arabs and Muslims by accusing advocates
of United Nations intervention of
colonialism, Zionism and Islamophobia.
‘Unfortunately – and like other Arab
governments – the Sudanese President
enjoys a collective Arab cover for major
crimes that are being committed by
militias that belong to his regime’, said
Abdel Rahman. ‘The Arabs know that the
issue of Darfur is real and that its woes
are more than what is happening in Iraq,
Palestine and Lebanon put together’.
Abdel Rahman suggests there is now
Arab support for military intervention
in Darfur: ‘ [Omer el Beshir] does not
know that the most tolerant countries
no longer object to ending the tragedy in
any way, including military means’.
Namibia
Kobi’s refuge
n Former Chief Executive of United
States-based Comverse Inc. Jacob ‘Kobi’
Alexander was arrested in Windhoek on
27 September on an Interpol warrant but
he has formed some powerful business
and political connections in Windhoek
and is determined to fight extradition.
Alexander, 54, an Israeli high-tech
entrepreneur with US residency, has
invested in a low cost housing business
with Brigadier Mathias Shiweda,
Managing Director of the militaryowned
August 26 Holdings, which makes
armoured cars and army uniforms and
mines diamonds in Congo-Kinshasa.
A lower court in Windhoek heard
that Alexander also transferred some
Namibian $N16 million (US$2.1 mn.) into
lawyer Richard Metcalfe’s trust account.
Alexander is accused of benefiting from
illegal payments on stock options at
Comverse from 1998-2000.
Magistrate Uaatjo Uanivi was
sufficiently impressed by Alexander’s
local commitment to grant bail of $1.36
mn. Alexander has also obtained a twoyear
work permit in record time. The US
Department of Justice must now rely
on the local authorities to prove that
Alexander’s alleged crimes would also
be crimes in Namibia.
Uganda
Riek’s battalion
n The government of Southern Sudan
has finally deployed a battalion of the
Sudan People’s Liberation Army to the
assembly area that 800 Lord’s Resistance
Army (LRA) fighters abandoned last
month because they had no protection
from Uganda’s soldiers there. The next
step is to get the LRA back to the assembly
area in the village of Owiny-Ki-Bul.
The Uganda People’s Defence Force
clashed with LRA fighters on 16-17
October in four separate engagements
near Bilinyang, close to a UPDF military
outpost about 130 kilometres south of
Juba, where the LRA and the Ugandan
government have been negotiating
a peace agreement since July. The
LRA abandoned Owiny-Ki-Bul on 28
September, a day after Ugandan troops
had approached the area to escort a
group of Kampala-based diplomats and
journalists who wanted to visit them.
The incidents embarrassed the Southern
government, whose Vice-President, Riek
Machar Teny-Dhurgon, takes a leading
role in the talks.
The peace talks are inching forward:
the two sides are still discussing agenda
item two, dealing with general economic
and political issues. We hear President
Yoweri Museveni plans to visit Juba to
reinvigorate the talks and bolster his
negotiators, led by Interior Minister
Ruhakana Rugunda.
Côte d’Ivoire
Toxic trials
n International oil traders Trafigura’s
Chief Executive, Claude Dauphin, and
his West Africa Manager Jean-Pierre
Valentini remain in Abidjan’s highsecurity
Maison d’Arrêt et de Correction
gaol. Trafigura denies wrong-doing over
the dumping of 500 cubic metres of toxic
waste in Abidjan, causing ten deaths and
harming tens of thousands of Abidjanais.
But Tommy, the Ivorian company which
accepted the waste from the Probo Koala
ship, which had been leased by Trafigura,
told the Centre Ivoirien Antipollution that
water ‘accidentally spilt’ after rinsing out
its trucks was later pumped back and
stocked in a ‘secure place’.
Journalists from Abidjan’s Le
Jour Plus were fined CFA15 million
(US$29,000) for reporting that first lady
Simone Gbagbo was behind Tommy’s
creation and licensing. In Estonia, where
the Probo Koala later offloaded 567 tons
of waste for treatment, the prosecutor’s
office said gasoline products had been
processed into low-grade petrol on
board. The toxic waste was a by-product
of this process which involves naphtha – a
product for which Trafigura has tendered
in large quantities in India and the United
States. Lobbyists Greenpeace report that
another vessel leased by Trafigura, the
Probo Emu, recently made round-trips
between Gibraltar and Nigeria, which
buys huge shipments of low-grade and
environmentally hazardous petrol.
Trafigura confirmed that the Probo
Emu had been used to mix ‘different
gasoline blendstocks’ to meet the ‘specific
requirements of different customers’.
African Union/NePAD
contretemps
n The rivalry between the African
Union (AU) and the New Programme for
Africa’s Economic Development (NePAD)
resurfaced at a conference on China in
Africa, organised by the South African
Institute of International Affairs and
Royal African Society, on 16-17 October
in Johannesburg. AU member states
voted to make NePAD an AU programme.
Yet NePAD host, South Africa, is keeping
the NePAD secretariat independent
in Johannesburg. This infuriates AU
officials, who want it relocated to Addis
Ababa and integrated into the AU.
AU President Alpha Oumar Konaré
wanted to use the China in Africa
conference as a preparatory meeting for
the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation
in Beijing on 3-5 November. The
organisers moved the date forward and
Konaré agreed to open the meeting.
NePAD offered to co-host the meeting,
promising to finance delegations from
across Africa; it also wanted a third day
with a closed policy session for African
delegates. But when Konaré heard of
NePAD’s involvement he pulled out. ‘In
order that there be no discordance, it
would be better you continue …. with
the NePAD secretariat’ he wrote to the
organisers in August.
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