On 24 May 2009, Eritreans around
the world were celebrating Eritrea’s
18th Independence Anniversary with grand carnivals, galas, festivals
and more. Jubilant Eritreans were too engrossed to pay attention to other news,
least of all news emanating from Africa’s sin city, Addis
Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. The minority regime in Ethiopia led by the reckless and belligerent
Meles Zenawi took this opportunity to launch yet another propaganda campaign
against Eritrea.
The desperate campaign to link Eritrea
with Somalia, specifically
the flow of illegal arms into Somalia,
and the call for sanctions against Eritrea were echoed by the African
Union and the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD). The regime
and its partners are in a panic, the bloody trails lead right back to their own
doorsteps.
With the two corrupt and inept
regional organizations in tow, the shameless minority regime in Ethiopia is calling for sanctions against Eritrea for not
endorsing the third illegitimate Transitional National Government of Somalia
led by Sheikh Sharif Ahmed. These two organizations coordinated their calls for
UN actions against Eritrea-calls that came on the eve of Eritrea’s
18th Independence Anniversary. If they were counting on Eritreans
being too busy celebrating to pay attention to their immature gimmicks, they
would have been right…if the gamble was to get away with it, they were dead
wrong.
So what was all the huffing and
puffing coming from the African Union all about? Well, it all began with what Mr.
Jean Ping, Chairperson of the AU Commission said at the IGAD Council of
Ministers meeting on Somalia
on 20 May 2009. He said:
“…It may be recalled that at your meeting in December 2008,
the issue of imposing targeted sanctions against those that were deemed to be
undermining the peace process was mooted. This idea has assumed greater
relevance than it was at that time. It is in that light, that I am calling for
a full investigation into the matter in order to identify all those individuals
and entities involved in the destabilization activities currently taking place
in Somalia.
This is with a view to facilitating the imposition of appropriate sanctions by
the AU Peace and Security Council (PSC) and the United Nations Security
Council, in accordance with the decisions and resolutions taken by these two
bodies…”
Not sure what he means by "This
idea has assumed greater relevance". Ping
must know that IGAD and the AU need not go far, least of all conduct a full
investigation, to identify the culprit here. The only country that has invaded
and occupied Somalia is Ethiopia. In
addition, Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia,
Kenya and Uganda are the only countries that have
contributed to the mayhem that is Somalia today. This orchestrated
call is a poor attempt at cover up and white wash and divert attention from
their known and documented crimes in Somalia. The UN Envoy for Somalia
has since admitted that while there might be a lot of talk about Eritrea supplying arms to Somalia, there
is no hard evidence. Yet the minority regime and its partners in crime continue
to disseminate the erroneous reports.
It was fishy from the get go. It was obvious to all independent analysts
that the accusations against Eritrea
were meant to divert attention away from the US-backed Ethiopian invasion and
occupation of Somalia.
Back then, there was an orchestrated to link Eritrea with terrorism, with
Jendayi E. Frazer and Meles Zenawi leading the smear campaign. To help advance
the campaign, a UN Report filled with lies, fabrications and exaggerations was
produced. It accused Eritrea
of supplying certain factions in Somalia
with arms and went to great lengths to implicate Eritrea with certain deliveries, without
ever producing any tangible evidence.
Once again I’d like to re-visit the fabricated allegations contained
in the July 2007 UN Monitoring Group’s Report on Somalia. Recent
deadly developments may shed more light on the conspiracies woven by Jendayi E.
Frazer, Meles Zenawi and their hirelings.
AFP in a 12 May 2009 Report
“Africa aid shipped in planes 'used for
weapons'” said:
“…The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
(SIPRI) said in a report that 90 percent of air cargo companies identified in
arms trafficking-related reports had been used by UN agencies, European Union
and NATO members as well as leading non-governmental organisations to deliver
aid …US private security firms hired air cargo carriers and aircraft
which have been "involved in the trafficking of arms to militias which the
US government have designated 'global terrorists'…The report cited
Dyncorp, a company that provides security services for the US government, as
having contracted Aerolift, a firm accused by the UN Security Council in 2006
of being involved in arms trading, to supply weapons to an Islamist militia
that controls much of southern Somalia…”
Aerolift? Isn’t that the
same company that supposedly sold a plane to Eritrea? I dug deeper…I went
hunting, or is it fishing…My catch led me to Uganda and a 9 March 2009
news item[1] about the crash of a plane heading for Mogadishu.
The report said:
“….An Iluyshin-76 four-engine cargo plane with eleven
people on board crashed into Lake Victoria after take-off from Uganda's
main airport at 5:14 am Monday. It was chartered by US Dyncorp, which confirmed
the crash. There seem to be no survivors… The
plane, registration S9-SAB, was operated by an international cargo company
located in Russia
-- which uses some of the most experienced military pilots in the world --
Aerolift . It was chartered by Dyncorp, the US
military and intelligence contractor [CIA], to fly emergency supplies to Somalia…”
Something about that plane kept
nagging me and going back through my notes, I found it. The identification
given, S9-SAB, was familiar. A quick
check revealed that is was the same plane that was supposedly sold to Eritrea by Evgueny
Zakharov of Aerolift in July 2006. More on that later
With international arms dealer Victor Bout behind bars in Bangkok, many
world leaders are squirming over revelations of his client list, which include
the US, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda,
Congo
and more. Despite the attempts by the UN Monitoring Group and its anonymous
informants to link Eritrea with Bout and efforts by the minority regime and its
handlers to implicate Eritrea in a dubious transactions with Zakharov and other
known associates of Bout, the truth is that Eritrea has absolutely no links
with Bout and has never done any business with the notorious arms dealer. So
let us go back to the beginning and the UN, State Department and African
Union’s collusion on Eritrea.
The UN Monitoring Group for Somalia in its
November 2006 report wrote:
“…On
26 July 2006, at 07.45 AM, an Ilyushin aircraft (IL-76) containing an arms
shipment for the ICU arrived at Mogadishu International airport…The IL-76
departed from Assab, Eritrea, indicating a flight plan designating a
destination of Hargeisa (Somaliland), but the aircraft went to Mogadishu. The
IL-76 used the call sign or LFT-1221. The IL-76 has the Kazakhstan flag painted on the
tail. The registration number on the fuselage of the aircraft starts with the
following pre-fix: UN - which is the code for Kazakhstan…”
In its July 2007 report, the Monitoring
Group unabashedly repeated its allegations against Eritrea and again sought to
deceive the readers with more “anonymous” informers.:
“…In its previous report
(see S/2006/913), the Monitoring Group provided detailed information concerning
an IL-76 cargo plane transporting arms and fighters from Eritrea to Mogadishu
(paras. 43-53). When presented with the foregoing information by the Monitoring
Group, the Government of Eritrea denied that the flights had taken
place…During the current mandate, the Monitoring Group obtained a copy of
the contract of sale (annex I) of the IL-76 aircraft to a company in Eritrea. A
person intimately familiar with the transaction confirmed the information
contained in the previous report of the Group added that the company that had
purchased the aircraft was a front for the Eritrean Government. The person also
indicated that a down payment of US$ 200,000 had been paid by Eritrean
diplomats based in a Gulf country to the seller of the aircraft…”
The Group never identifies the person
who is supposed to be familiar with the said transaction. The Group had annexed
to the report on Somalia, a
“Contract of sale of an IL-76 aircraft to Eriko Enterprise (Eritrea)”.
According to the “Contract”, the buyer is a certain Kelati Haile
for Eritrea
and the seller is Evgueny Zakharov (of Aerolift Company). According to the
Group, Eriko Enterprise was a “front” for the Government of Eritrea
and this copy of the “Contract” was supposed to some how prove
Eritrean involvement in the arms transport to Somalia. Why would the Government
of Eritrea need a “front company” if it wanted to purchase a plane?
Of all the planes available for sale, how did the GoE end up buying the one exact
plane that was used by Viktor Bout, and one that the African Union and DynaCorp
used until it crashed in March 2009?
In yet another twist to the
sordid saga of the Ilyushin 76, Amnesty International in its report about arms
trafficking mentions the “transaction” between Aerolift and Eritrea. Let us
take a look at Amnesty International’s version of the story…Amnesty
wrote about Brian Johnson Thomas, “the journalist” who broke the
story in a 18 February 2007 Times article[2],
Amnesty wrote:
“…The managing director of Aerolift told a researcher in
detail, and with supporting documents (Contract of Sale and Purchase,
Registration Certificate, Certificate of Airworthiness and Noise Certificate)
how he claims he was deceived by the Eritrean military into allowing
‘his’ aircraft to be used to make at least three clandestine arms
deliveries to the Union of Islamic Courts. He stated that early in July 2006,
Aerolift was approached by a high ranking officer of the Eritrean Peoples'
Defence Force, who offered to pay US$1.5 million for the IL-76TD aircraft,
registration UN-76496 (s/n 073410303), which at that time was operated by
Aerolift. Since the aircraft's actual value was in the region of US$1 million,
Aerolift accepted the offer, even though the aircraft was not his property, and
then contacted the actual owner GST Aero in Tashkent. Aerolift agreed to pay GST Aero
US$1.2 million, thus leaving Aerolift with a notional profit of US$300,000…”
In a news item for the Times,
Brian Johnson Thomas had identified the high ranking officer of the Eritrean People’s
Defence Force as “General Tambi”. Amnesty, and/or the
“journalists” want us to believe that Aerolift bought the plane
from Victor Bout (owner of GST Aero) and then Eriko Enterprises bought it from
Aerolift. Why didn’t Eritrea
buy it directly from Viktor Bout and why would Eritrea pay more for the plane than
it was worth? It should be recalled that Tambi ended up being a former member
of the Monitoring Group appointed by Kofi Annan.
Amnesty has more details not
found in the UN Monitoring Group’s Report. Amnesty says:
“…A contract was
then drawn up between Aerolift and an Eritrean company called Eriko Enterprise,
represented by a Mr Kelati Haile. Unusually, the contract does not specify the
payment to be made for the aircraft sale, saying merely "payment
conditions will be enclosed with contract forms", but Aerolift says that
they received a first, and only, 'progress' payment of US$250,000 on signing
the contract in Moscow
on 25 July 2006… The aircraft was reportedly delivered to Massawa
airport on 25 August 2006, whereupon the representative of the Eritrean
military assumed operational control. According to the Eritrean Civil Aviation
Authority documentation, the aircraft was registered as E3-AAF with registered
owner Skyroute Aviation (Asmara,
Eritrea). So
far as Amnesty International is aware, the Eritrean registration E3-AAF was
never actually applied to the surface of the aircraft, which remained pure
white except for the Kazakhstan
registration UN-76496…”
Amnesty International has no
presence in Eritrea so how
does Amnesty know that the plane was registered in Eritrea? How did Amnesty International
get documents from the Eritrean Civil Aviation Authority? Considering
Amnesty’s close links to the Eritrean Quislings League (EQL), it is
possible that they are AI’s anonymous sources.
The “Contract of
Sale” attached to the UN Monitoring Groups Report shows that the contract
was signed on 21 July 2006 and to make the “evidence” fit the
crime, the Contract says that the plane was to be delivered within four days of
the signing. That would mean, Eritrea
would take possession of the flights around 25 July 2006, just in time to make
the 26 July 2006 run from Massawa to Mogadishu.
But Amnesty says that plane was delivered to Massawa on the 25 August 2006. If that is the case, how did Eritrea make the flights from Massawa to Mogadishu in July 2006 as
reported by the UN Monitoring Group?
The IL-76 is at the center of the
accusations against Eritrea and it is supposed to be the most damning part of
the UN report and the one accusation against Eritrea that Jendayi E. Frazier was
hoping to make stick as she collected her “evidence” against
Eritrea. It is also the story that Meles Zenawi’s minority regime and its
partners in crime have been peddling in order to implicate Eritrea in their blood drenched
theater of war. Turns out, the fabricated story was taken right out of a book
about Viktor Bout- “Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Plans, and the Man
Who Makes War Possible,” by Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun. On pages
254-255 of the book Farah and Braun write:
“…At the same time as the
Lebanon crisis, a group of radical Somali militias operating under the banner
of United Islamic Courts seized control of Mogadishu, the battered Somali
capital…quickly consolidated their hold over the city's international
airport, a crumbling facility nearly abandoned by foreign aircraft over the
past decade. Then, on July 26 and again on July 28, exited residents near the
airfield streamed outside after hearing a rumbling from the sky. They watched
as a droning Ilyushin Il-76, with the flag of Kazakstan painted on its tail,
descended from the barren horizon and taxied down the airfield's dusty
runway…Journalists were banned from the airport, but several stationed
just outside the field managed to snap pictures of the aircraft, using
telephoto lenses. The plane's identifying tail number, required by
international aviation regulations, had been stripped off, preventing any
attempt to learn who was behind the weapons shipments…Within weeks,
intelligence officials concluded that the flights were carried out by Bout's
air network…”
Once again, in a related article,
Douglas Farah on 29 July 2006 writes about that flight:
“…Twice in one week the
airport at Mogadishu, Somalia, was the scene of something almost unseen in the
past decade-the landing of two large Soviet-era IL-76 cargo planes… On
the first flight, the plane was painted with the “UN” markings
denoting Kazakhstan
registration, with no other identifiers. The second flight may have been the
same aircraft, and if not, was a similar Il-76… Hmm, so an unmarked
Soviet-built aircraft probably carrying large amounts of weapons, flying to
remote airstrips …Kazakhstan
registration… Fits a certain M.O. There are not many people in the
weapons world who can provide the weapons and the transportation, who know the
terrain and the militia leaders…Bout has registered his Reem Air in
Kazakstan, including an IL-76, and has flown regularly smaller planes to
Somalia in recent times, from Sharjah, UAE…No one else has that kind of
track record. Intelligence officials are desperately trying to find any further
markers on the aircraft. But if it flies like a duck and quacks like a duck, it
just might be a duck…”
Viktor Bout’s adventures in Somalia are
well known and many have written about them, including the UN. In addition to
Douglas Farah, many others have written about Bout and his illicit activities
in Africa and Somalia.
In a 9 April 2009 report about the pirates in Somalia, Larry Kelen writes:
“…Security
observers have said that the hijackers are working with sophisticated groups
involving a cell of former KGB operatives who were part of the Viktor
Anatolyevich Bout network. Bout was arrested early last year, but some of his
regional net work based out of the port city of Kisamyo, with satellite bases in Marka
dealing in small arms and drugs has continued to operate. The same network is
blamed for the arms trade in Kenya's capital Nairobi with arms supplied from
Bircao and in the far flung south west town of Kalem in South west
Ethiopia…”
There is documented proof that Bout
has links with Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda
and the US, but he has
absolutely none, except the fabricated one, with Eritrea. None of these shameful
mercenary regimes, whose hands are drenched with the blood of innocent Somalis
and that of their own citizens, have the legal or moral authority to point any
fingers at Eritrea. Since the mercenary lot want to point fingers at Eritrea,
let’s see how many of those fingers point right back to them. Let us take
a look at Bout’s link with the above countries and the mercenary regimes and
their sponsors that are responsible for the chaos and destruction in Somalia
today.
Kenya
Sanjivan Ruprah, a Kenyan with
mining interests in the Congo
and Kenya
and a notorious arms dealer was Victor Bout’s business partner and both
“enjoyed a covert relationship with US Feds”. According to a 2002
UN Report, Sanjivan Ruprah:
“… plays a key role in Liberia’s airline registry
and in the arms trade. Before his involvement in Liberia,
Sanjivan Ruprah had mining interests in Kenya,
and was associated with Branch Energy (Kenya). Branch Energy owned diamond
mining rights in Sierra
Leone, and introduced the private military
company, Executive Outcomes to the government there in 1995… Ruprah
was once in charge of an airline in Kenya, Simba Airlines…”
The European Community on
Protection of marine life (ECOP) also links Kenya with Bout. It said:
“…Kenya recorded association with maritime trade dates back
to the 19th century when the Arabs from Oman established Manda Island 250km
north coast of Mombasa as their base and port…The industry has been
dogged behind by corruption, tribalism, nepotism and lack of political will.
For the past 12 years the government of Kenya has been collecting Ksh.500
million annually from the shippers as merchant shipping levy of cargo interest…It
hurts very much to note that this big amount of money has not been accounted
for and no one knows its where about…Apart from lack of accountability
and transparency the Kenya water ways has been used by international drug
barons, human traffickers and the illicit arms dealers such as Victor Bout
commonly known as ‘Anatoliyevich’…”
In addition, Alexander Radionov,
a known associate of Viktor Bout, is the Kenyan-based representative for the Oregon based company SIMIX Ltm. Mentioned as the person
who sold one of Viktor Bout’s planes to Eritrea, the story takes an
interesting twist when it is discovered that it was Amnesty’s researcher/
and Times journalists, who posed as a middleman for the UIC[3].
Not sure what Amnesty’s role in the collusion against Eritrea is, but
this certainly raises more questions about who else was in on the well
orchestrated plot.
Uganda
Viktor Bout, the world's most
notorious illegal arms baron who was arrested in Thailand,
sold arms to Uganda and
illegally used Entebbe International Airport
to ship arms to DR Congo and Liberia. A report by the Belgian
International Peace Information Service (IPIS) reveals how Bout, with the help
of top Ugandan military officers, fueled the conflict in DR Congo, Africa's vast and mineral-rich country. Belgian
researcher Tim Raemaekers reported that in 2002, Culworth Investments (a Bout
front company) sold arms to Uganda
(machine guns from Slovakia).
There are reports that Bout frequented Kampala
during the Congolese civil war and was close to top military officers in the
UPDF and the Ugandan President.
Ethiopia and the US
Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun
reported in their book about Bout, "Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Plans,
and the Man Who Makes War Possible," that both the U.S. military and
defense contractors KBR and DynCorp [supporting the African Union in Somalia]
had used Bout's services in the aftermath of the Iraq war. Even after President
Bush signed an order freezing Bout's assets, the Pentagon continued using his
planes, they reported, to get reconstruction supplies into Baghdad. According to Farah and Braun,
Bout’s planes flew hundreds of flights from 2003 to 2006, even after his
work for the Defense Department was exposed by the Los Angeles Times in its 14
December 2004 article which said:
“…Planes linked to Bout's shadowy network continued to fly
into Iraq, according to government records and interviews with officials,
despite the Treasury Department freezing his assets in July and placing him on
a blacklist for allegedly violating international arms sanctions…Largely
under the auspices of the Pentagon, U.S. agencies including the Army Corps of
Engineers and the Air Force, and the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority,
which governed Iraq until last summer, have allowed their private contractors
to do business with the Bout network… Four firms
linked to the network by the CIA and international investigators have flown
into Iraq nearly 200 times
on U.S.
business…”
Douglas Farah in his book
explains that Victor Bout’s activities are well known to US intelligence:
“…We have developed a large
body of information of what Mr. Bout's organization is doing" in the Horn
of Africa, one U.S.
intelligence analyst said. "I am alarmed at what he is doing as it
undermines Centcom's counterterrorism strategy in the region…”
A 28 October 2002 report “The Business of
War: Making a Killing” from the Center for Public Integrity and the
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has much to say about
Victor Bout and his connections. Here are some of its comments:
·
“…the polyglot with
personal skills was able to establish working relationships with various
African heads of state and rebel leaders – the late Angolan rebel leader
Jonas Savimbi, Liberian President Charles Taylor, former Zairean President
Mobutu Sese Seko…”
·
“…And his associates
– ranging from former U.S. military personnel and Russian officials to
African heads of state and organized crime figures – gave him a lengthy
list of buyers and sellers with whom to do business. He ran a maze of
individuals and companies, which employed some 300 people and owned and
operated 40 to 60 aircraft, including the largest private fleet of Antonov
cargo planes in the world…”
·
“…Bout’s companies
shipped vegetables and crayfish from South Africa
to Europe, transported United Nations peacekeepers from Pakistan to East Timor, and reportedly assisted
the logistics of Operation Restore Hope, the U.S.-led military famine relief
effort in Somalia
in 1993…”
·
“…Bout’s
companies had contracts flying in tents, food, and other supplies for US firms
working for the US military in Iraq, including a large contract to fly supplies
for Kellogg, Brown, and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, the company once run
by Vice President Cheney. Bout’s companies also flew for US Air Mobility
Command. The US military
does not stop hiring and using Bout’s planes until about 2007…”
Apart from his relationship with
the Pentagon, I set out to find out more about Victor Bout and his associates.
Not surprisingly, I found out that he was not only well known to the State
Department, CIA and other US
entities, but that Jendayi E. Frazier and Meles Zenawi also knew of him. Turns
out Richard K. Orth, the US Defense Attaché in Ethiopia, a close friend of Jendayi E. Frazier,
had used Bout to deliver arms to various groups in Africa including Rwanda.
On November 17-19, 2006, a Wayne
Madison Report (WMR) contained the following on Richard K. Orth:
“…The arming by the U.S. of both
the Ethiopians and Somalis in preparation for war is nothing new. In fact, WMR
and this editor have reported extensively on the past and current covert
intelligence activities of the U.S.
Defense Attache in Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia, U.S.
Army Colonel Richard Orth. He was present in Rwanda
the day after U.S.-supplied surface-to-air missiles struck the Rwandan
presidential aircraft on April 6, 1994, assassinating the Hutu presidents of Rwanda and Burundi and triggering Rwandan and
Zairian/Congolese civil wars that took the lives of over 5 million Africans.
Orth, as Defense Attache in Kigali, Rwanda, lorded over the transformation of that
country from a French-speaking nation to a U.S.
client state with English-speaking refugees from Uganda put in charge. Orth then
proceeded to take over as U.S.
Defense Attache in Uganda
where he cemented the U.S.
military presence in that nation. He then moved on to Addis Ababa where, as
Defense Attache, he aided Meles Zenawi and helped prepare Ethiopia's incursion
into Somalia, bolstered the U.S. military positions in Djibouti and Somaliland,
tilted U.S. policy to favor Ethiopia in its border war with Eritrea,
coordinated Horn of Africa intelligence activities…”
The Wayne Madison Report in a May 2007 article wrote:
“…Colonel Richard K. Orth is
not well-known outside the circles of Africa specialists who have tracked America's insidious role in some of Africa's bloodiest civil wars. Orth is what is known in U.S.
intelligence circles as an "operations area specialist." He now
serves as the U.S. Defense Attache in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he oversees
overt and covert U.S. military assistance to the Meles Zenawi regime and
Ethiopian-backed groups seeking to overthrow the government of Eritrea and roll
back that nation's long-fought independence struggle against
Ethiopia…Orth also oversees the joint Ethiopian-U.S. military foray into
Somalia as well as at least three secret CIA detention camps in Ethiopia where
prisoners, accused of terrorist links, have been rounded up from around the
world…In Addis Ababa, Orth has not only provided U.S. military and
intelligence support to the Ethiopian dictatorship but has overseen U.S.
training of African military units via the Pentagon's Africa Contingency
Operations Training and Assistance Program (ACOTA)…”
It is clear that Ethiopia, Kenya,
Uganda and the US know of and
have done business with Viktor Bout. What is also becoming clearer is that the
accusations against Eritrea were not only totally false, but that the whole sordid
story was fabricated with the help of US intelligence officers and was designed
to vilify Eritrea for not agreeing to their dangerous and deadly policies in Somalia.
Only those who were in Somalia
would know about Viktor Bout and his frequent flights there. Only those with
access to Bout and his schedules would know such details. Eritrea, despite the fabricated and erroneous UN
Report that claimed there were 2000 Eritrean forces in Somalia, had no presence then, and has no
presence now, in Somalia.
It took two years, but the
fateful turn of events, the crash of an Ilyushin 76 plane have finally exposed
the truth and the US-Ethiopia-AU and IGAD collusion on Eritrea. Africa News reported the following on 23
March 2009
“...It is believed
that the Ilyushin-76 plane that crashed at Entebbe Airport a fortnight ago,
might have been hit by an Al-Qaida missile. Villagers who saw the plane going
down confirmed to reporters on the accident's scene that the plane was indeed
in fire when going down. Mr Yevgeniy Zakharov the owner of the ill fated plane
told a russian news agency after spending five days in Uganda that evidences on
the scene of the crash showed clearly that the cargo plane managed by Ugandan
businessman Sam Engola, living Entebbe en route to Somalia was either hit by a
rocket from a grenade launcher or a Stinger missile during take-off, when its
tanks were virtually full with tonnes of fuel aboard. He supported his
arguments by alleging that there was nothing left and all the debris recovered
by the divers covered less than six meters by six area ashore...”
The one small item missing from
this news report is that the plane is the same plane that the UN Monitoring
Group and Meles Zenawi’s mercenaries claim was sold to Eritrea. When
did the African Union and DynCorp take possession of the plane? According to
the aviation report about the crash of the Ilyushin 76 in Uganda, Aerolift took possession of
the plane in 2006 from GST Aero (Viktor Bout’s company) and it remained
in its possession until the fateful crash.
The plane was leased to DynCorp
at the time of the crash. Is it simply a coincidence that the very same plane
ends up with DynCorp and the African Union? If the plane was sold to Eritrea in 2006,
how did Aerolift get it back? I bet it was in Aerolift’s possession all
along and Eritrea
was wrongly framed. I bet there was no sale to Eritrea
and I bet the “Contract” that is supposed to show the sale of the
Ilyushian 76 to Eritrea
is a forged document. The art of forgery and counterfeiting are two things that
the minority regime and its mercenaries have perfected.
At this juncture, it behooves
Johnnie Carson, the current Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs
and the Obama Administration and the Justice Department ought to launch a
thorough investigation into the conduct of Jendayi Frazier, the former
Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs and all those involved in the
campaign to vilify Eritrea.
The Obama Administration should review the policy for Somalia and the horn of Africa that has plunged Somalia into
the abyss and is threatening to destabilize the entire region.
Finally, African Union and IGAD, the
incompetent and crooked regional organizations have long compromised their credibility,
neutrality and integrity and can no longer have relevance on matters pertaining
to Somalia, or anywhere else
in Africa. These two organizations no longer
serve the interests of Africa and have become tools for those who want to
plunder and pillage Africa’s vast
resources. Africans should come together and create new organizations that can
better represent the aspirations and dreams of their people and revoke their
memberships in these pathetic entities.
As for mercenary regimes in Burundi, Djibouti,
Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda,
pointing their blood drenched fingers at Eritrea
is not going to absolve them, or their handlers, of the international crimes
and the genocide being committed in Somalia. History and the Somali
people will judge them harshly.
The rule of law must prevail over
the law of the jungle!