pointers 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. 1 2 2 0 O c t o b e r 2 0 0 6 - V o l 4 7 - N ° 2 1 - A f r i c a C o n f i d e n t i a l
Part 3 The <strong>Navy</strong> Ship Deal Supporting Document 4 Murungaru’s Undated Memorandum 26 www.marsgroupkenya.org OSIEA