UN experts have “credible information” that Zimbabwe may have received Chinese arms last year via Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), a recently published report said.
The UN Security Council report cites four Boeing aircraft flights that took place between Kinshasa, Harare and Lubumbashi and “transported a total of 53 tonnes of ammunition destined to the Zimbabwean army” between Aug. 20 and Aug. 22 this year.
“While this is not a violation of the arms embargo, it is an indication that the Democratic Republic of the Congo could become a transit point for weapons destined for other countries,” it said.
In March, the Security Council extended an arms embargo until Dec. 31 targeting the many armed militias operating in eastern DR Congo, but not the government’s armed forces, the FARDC.
The measure, Resolution 1807, stipulates the FARDC can receive military equipment as long as the exporting country informs the council’s sanctions committee ahead of time.
But the group of experts on the DR Congo said they “obtained information regarding military supplies flown to FARDC from Khartoum without notification to the sanctions committee.”
The group also “received credible information that the weapons originated in China” and has written to the Chinese government.
“As the Democratic Republic of the Congo does not produce weapons or ammunition, this stock would have been imported to the [DR Congo] without notification and then possibly exported in violation of the original end-user agreement with the original exporter,” said the report, which was published on Dec. 12.
Beijing has been investing heavily in DR Congo in recent years.
It lent the African country an estimated US$9 billion in May to restore its infrastructure and revive the mining industry, following a US$35 million investment into the Congolese postal service last January.
Fighting since Aug. 28 between Congolese rebels and the Kinshasa government has displaced more than 250,000 people in DR Congo’s eastern Nord-Kivu Province.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
Hundreds of thousands of Guyana citizens living at home and abroad would receive a payout of about US$478 each after the country announced it was distributing its “mind-boggling” oil wealth. The grant of 100,000 Guyanese dollars would be available to any citizen of the South American country aged 18 and older with a valid passport or identification card. Guyanese citizens who normally live abroad would be eligible, but must be in Guyana to collect the payment. The payout was originally planned as a 200,000 Guyanese dollar grant for each household in the country, but was reframed after concerns that some citizens, including
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
RSS