Posted on 05/26/2002 5:52:53 AM PDT by rdavis84
| Report Alleges US Role in Angola Arms-for-Oil Scandal Special to CorpWatch May 17, 2002 |
As the US Congress continues its investigation of the Enron affair, human rights advocates are calling for a probe of the Bush administration's possible role in another energy and influence-peddling scandal. According to a recent report by the British-based non-governmental organization Global Witness, Bush and US oil interests have ties to some of the key figures in the arms-for-oil scandal which has devastated Angola. Known as "Angolagate" in France, the scandal involves arms-for-oil deals between French businessman Pierre Falcone, the head of a firm called Brenco International; his colleague Jean-Christophe Mitterand, the son of the former French president; and a Russian-born Israeli named Arkadi Gaydamak. According to "All the Presidents' Men," a March 25 report on Angolagate by Global Witness, Gaydamak funneled billions of dollars in arms and oil-backed loans to Angola's government in return for lucrative oil contracts with Western oil companies. Falcone and Gaydamak, relying on the special access that Mitterand had to the Angolan government, managed to transfer some $463 million in arms to Angola. The net effect of the Angolan arms buildup was the scrapping of the 1994 Lusaka Peace Agreement between Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and long-time UNITA rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, a one-time favorite of the Central Intelligence Agency and a person who President Reagan once hailed as the "George Washington of Angola." The newly-armed Angolan Army -- supported by an array of US-based private mercenary companies like MPRI and AirScan -- went on a bloody offensive against UNITA in 1998 and was eventually able to push Savimbi's rebels further into the jungles in the eastern part of the country. This compelled UNITA to mine and sell more diamonds on the black market to buy arms. The trade in "blood diamonds," in turn, led to a number of human rights abuses by UNITA. Ironically, Savimbi -- Reagan's George Washington of Africa -- was gunned down by Angolan Army troops in a remote area of Angola on February 22, the birthday of America's first president. According to Global Witness, the links between Angola's corrupt government and the Bush administration are just as odorous as those linking Luanda's leadership to past and current members of the French government, both Socialist and Gaullist. In addition to the French oil giant Total-Fina-Elf, oil companies like Chevron, Texaco, Philipps Petroleum, Exxon Mobil, and BP-Amoco -- all with close links to Bush and his White House oil team -- were heavily involved in propping up dos Santos in return for profitable off-shore oil concessions. After transferring some $770 million in oil revenues to their own private bank accounts, dos Santos and his cronies became convinced that pluralism in their country would be a very dangerous thing for their future business deals. They also quickly abandoned their former Marxist beliefs in favor of the type of capitalist principles embraced by George W. Bush and Jacques Chirac. |
My father worked for and retired from Texaco, does this mean I'm going to be linked to this scandal??? ;-) Going by this, anybody who owned stock in the oil companies is guilty of having "ties" to this scandal. It's the way business is done. It may not be pretty, but these companies do what they have to do in these countries. There is a lot of working going on in and around Nigeria right now, it's only a matter of time before somebody conjures up some kind of scandal and ties this person or that to it.
— W.B.T., Scranton, PA
A. Secretary of State Albright is divorced. Not long ago, however, the New York press was reporting that she was “stepping out” with diamond king Maurice Templesman. His business interests have included, to go along with those diamonds, the funding of so-called liberation movements in Africa.
Templesman has played among the elite set for some time, including living in the apartment of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Social observers may recall that Templesman and Mrs. Onassis entertained President and Mrs. Clinton aboard the businessman’s yacht in 1993 in Martha’s Vineyard. Templesman has been a major supporter of the Democratic Party and, of late, has worked with the State Department on a diamond consortium in Angola.
There are other possible political ramifications in these relationships. The late Michael Kennedy, who died recently in a skiing accident, was tied to the Angolan communists through his Citizens Energy project, which helped found the Angola Chamber of Commerce, widely regarded as a front for the Reds in Angola.
The Kennedy family has long had oil interests in Angola; Citizens Energy Corporation has been granted an oil concession by the ruling regime in Luanda. Angola also had an influential role in the overthrow of the government in Zaire, now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the takeover there by Marxist-Leninist Laurent Desire Kabila.
Needing help from the West, Kabila recently brought back the “spin doctor” of the late dictator Mobutu, his longtime adversary, as noted in a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal. This is the same Kabila who was once written off by Che Guevara as a “womanizer and a drunk.” Yet he hopes to establish an “economic renaissance” in the Congo, based on its oil and diamonds, as noted in the Journal — which also reported that this renaissance wouldn’t work without the help of foreigners.
Accordingly, it is interesting that Secretary of State Albright visited the Congo not long ago and came out for more foreign aid for the new strong man.
From The New American. I originally found out about connection from a Portugese-Angolan partner of mine. I have and even better New Yorker article somewhere but can't find it. The truth is pretty nasty. We supported Castro's puppets so the Kennedys could enrich themselves.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/departments/right_answers/1998/vo14no07_answers.htm
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.