Inner City Press
Global Inner Cities Report - March 2, 2006
In
Congolese Chaos, Shots Fired at U.N. Helicopter Gunship
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee, Inner City Press U.N. Correspondent
UNITED NATIONS, March
2 – In the eastern Congo, a joint operation between UN peacekeepers and
Congolese soldiers to drive militias out of the town of Tchei has been called
off, following a mutiny by dozens of Congolese soldiers. The soldiers fired on a
UN helicopter carrying General Padiri of the Forces Armées de la République
Démocratique du Congo, or FARDC. What this means for the DRC elections
scheduled for later this year, and for the 17,000 UN peacekeepers in the DRC, is
not clear.
At a noon
briefing at UN headquarters in New York, the Secretary-General’s spokesman
described the operation to re-take Tchei. In response to a question by Inner
City Press, he also described Congolese army officers taking refuge from their
troops in a UN compound. The questions of implications for UN peacekeeping and
DR Congo’s slated elections were left open. Following the briefing, a staffer
tracking developments in Ituri confirmed that shots had been fired at UN
helicopter. He reported that a UN camp had been looted of foodstuff, saying
that might explain the mutiny. He added that despite some reports that rebels
were using human shields, there is no evidence of that.
MONUC / UN helicopter
The
mutiny by the FARDC troops in Tchei is not a one-off or primarily food-driven
event. Further south, there have been reports of desertions from the FARDC’s
109th brigade, by soldiers refusing to fight the Burundian National Liberation
Front Hutu rebels. In Ituri, the major groups are not Hutu and Tutsi but rather
Hema and Lendu, and the largest rebel group is the Congolese Revolutionary
Movement, which claims 18,000 militiamen.
In terms
of natural resources, the DR Congo has many, including but not limited to the
coltan which is used in cellular phones; its resources have been up for grabs
during the last years of chaos. Now some politicians in the Congolese Rally for
Democracy (CRD) party are demanding immediate implementation of provisions
concerning the share of the tax revenues between the central government and the
provinces. Joseph Kabila’s People's Party for Reconstruction and Development (PPRD)
has refused. Meanwhile, there’s been a recent leak of a report by the DRC's
National Assembly's Special Commission on the war contracts reporting up to $10
billion may have been embezzled by the regime of Kabila père and the
other warring parties.
While
public announcements of financial arrangements are few, in a rare and surreal
November 2005 press release, First Canadian American Holding Corporation (FCAHC)
announced that its CEO Sandy Winick had “met with the Chargé d'Affaires --
Madam Louise Nzanga Ramazani of the DRC at their Embassy in Ottawa with First
Canadian's consulting firm Quathemetin Consultants, to discuss furthering the
development of low-cost housing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. First
Canadian American Holding Corporation is the international licensee for
Terrablock building products, a construction and development firm based in
Orlando, Florida.” FCAHC describes itself has having “operations in areas of
digital television, radio and building and construction” and as “actively
looking at several other opportunities in many different industries such as
natural resources, wireless, technology and biotechnology.”
In terms
of housing, or the re-housing of those displaced, amid reports that hundred of
civilians have fled Tchei, Inner City Press inquired with
UNHCR in Geneva regarding provisions for refugees but was still awaiting a
response at press time. From Kinshasa, MONUC issued a press release stating that
civilians in Tchei are or were being “held against their will,” but
distinguishing this from human shields since “due to their rules of engagement,
blue helmets have to identify their targets before opening fire with light or
heavy weapons, such as attack helicopters.” Meanwhile the rebels in Tchei have
fired at UN helicopters. The Congo war and its four million dead, already
barely covered in major media, can barely hit the news even when a UN helicopter
is fired upon. This is a developing story that we will continue to follow.
Multimedia: Audio
report from VoA
Empty Words on Money Laundering and Narcotics, from the UN, Georgia and
Equatorial Guinea
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee, Inner City Press U.N. Correspondent
UNITED NATIONS, Feb.
28 – The International Narcotics Control Board released its 2005 annual report
on Tuesday, during an embargoed briefing by retired U.S. diplomat and Board
member Melvyn Levitsky. Asked by Inner City Press if the Board has taken a
position on statements about coca by Bolivia’s new president Evo Morales, Mr.
Levitsky responded that while the report ends with November 2005, Bolivia is a
signatory to treaties that cover coca, and that the twenty five year opt-out for
medical uses is not applicable. Mr. Levitsky confirmed that opium production in
Afghanistan has increased since 2001, and ascribed this to areas of the country
being outside of government control. The question arose, if the military
firepower currently supporting the government of Hamid Karzai can’t or won’t
turn the tide on opium production, it will be difficult to see anti-drug goals
of the Board realized.
Earlier
in the briefing Mr. Levitsky had said that Afghan production is moving through
Iran and “Russia;” asked to clarify, he said trafficking would have to move
through the “former Soviet republics” of Central Asia in order to get to Russia.
The report, in its 552nd paragraph on page 79, states
that “Turkmenistan, whose extensive borders with Afghanistan, the Islamic
Republic of Iran, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are inadequately controlled,
continues to be used as a transit country by trackers of Afghan opiates.”
Also
reported, but not connected, is the Board’s note a page earlier that “current
legislation in Armenia, Georgia and Turkmenistan is insufficient to deal with
the problem of money laundering; the Board urges the Governments of those
countries to remedy the situation without delay.”
Interviewed
after the briefing by Inner City Press, Mr. Levitsky said that money laundering
is not in the mandate of the International Narcotics Control Board. “We don’t
have a section that monitors flows,” he said. Asked if the Board provides
narcotic-specific information to the Financial Action Task Force, Mr.Levitsky
shook his head and mentioned changes in Swiss and even Russian banking secrecy
laws, but nothing about Turkmenistan, much less Georgia.
Georgia’s
permanent representative to the UN, Revaz Adamia, confirmed in a Feb. 1 press
briefing quotes by National Bank of Georgia president Roman Gotsiridze regarding
Russian banks money laundering in Abkhazia. Mr. Adamia spoke of money
laundering for “terrorism,” and said that he would more get more specifics from
the National Bank of Georgia. While such information has yet to be provided, in
Tbilisi Mr. Gotsiridze has said more, being quoted in a Rustavi-2 TV report on
February 23 that
“The National Bank has asked the FATF to
examine illegal activities of Russian commercial banks in Abkhazia. Here is a
list of the Russian commercial banks that have been illegally operating in
Abkhazia and laundering massive amounts of black money. It is not ruled out that
there may be even more serious violations, for example financing of terrorism,
going on in this uncontrolled area. Banks operating in Abkhazia are illegal and
unlicensed banking establishments. The Russian legislation itself prohibits any
economic relations with unlicensed organizations.”
Inner
City Press on Feb. 28 posed written questions to Georgia’s mission to the UN;
the questions were not responded to by deadline.
Footnote on a footnote: The report states that “Equatorial Guinea remains the
only State in Africa that is not yet a party to any of the three main
international drug control treaties” (page 42). The Secretary-General on Feb. 27
met with the long-time president of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema
Mbasogo, and afterwards
hailed him. One wonders if the topics of money laundering came up...
On the Web: http://www.incb.org/incb/en/annual_report.html
A related previous
Inner City Press report --
Abkhazia: Cleansing and
(Money) Laundering, Says Georgia, Even Terror’s Haven
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee, Inner City Press U.N. Correspondent
UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 1 -- The situation in
Abkhazia should be internationalized, said Georgia’s ambassador to the
United Nations, Revaz Adamia, on February 1. Briefing reporters at the
UN Headquarters, Mr. Adamia characterized the plight of ethnic Georgians
in Abkhazia as one of ethnic cleansing and even genocide. He cited a
figure of 10,000 dead (as well as 100 Russian soldiers killed). His
prepared remarks referred to “de facto annexation” and that “acquisition
of property in the conflict zones, including property of refugees and
IDPs, by the Russian entities is underway at full steam.”
As Inner City Press reported in
December, the President of Georgia's National Bank Roman Gotsiridze has
accused Russian banks in Abkhazia of money laundering and of financing
terrorism. At the Feb. 1 UN briefing, Mr. Adamia responded to
questioning by reiterating the allegation, and specifying that the
perpetrator of particular terror attacks in Turkey is living in
Abkhazia, “he has a shelter there.” Mr. Adamia promised to provide Inner
City Press with further information and evidence; watch this space.
On January 31, the
Security Council
extended
the UN Observer
Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) until March 31. The mission consists of 122
military observers and 13 civilian police officers.
After the
briefing, in an interview with Inner City Press, Ambassador Adamia
provided an update on the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline. He stated that
the Georgian section pipe is full of oil, but that this is not yet the
case in Turkey. He stated that Turkmenistan wants to use the BTC
pipeline, but that the Kremlin for now is blocking it. This, Adamia
said, makes more likely the construction of an underwater trans-Caspian
pipeline. Pipe dream? Rose (revolution) colored glasses? Only time will
tell.
Other Inner City Press
reports are archived on
www.InnerCityPress.org -
In Locked Down
Iraq, Oil Flows Unmetered While Questions Run in Circles
What is the Sound
of Eleven Uzbeks Disappearing? A Lack of Seats in Tashkent, a Turf War
at UN
Kosovo: Of
Collective Punishment and Electricity; Lights Out on Privatization of
Ferronikeli Mines
Abkhazia:
Cleansing and (Money) Laundering, Says Georgia, Even Terror’s Haven
Post-Tsunami
Human Rights Abuses, including by UNDP in the Maldives
Halliburton
Repays $9 Million, While Iraq’s Oil Remains Unmetered
Darfur on the
Margins: Slovenia’s President Drnovsek’s Quixotic Call for Action
Ignored
Who Pays for the
Global Bird Flu Fight? Not the Corporations, So Far - UN
Citigroup
Dissembles at United Nations Environmental Conference
Other Inner City Press
reports are archived on
www.InnerCityPress.org -
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