It's not only diamonds and base metals that interest big mining companies and the latter are not alone in being interested in Katanga. In the delegation that the United States sent to Kinshasa on June 2 under its ambassador to the United Nations, Bill Richardson, the state department's African affairs department was represented by Marc Baas, director for Central Africa. (Susan Rice, director for African Affairs at the National Security Council, has just been appointed under secretary of state for African affairs in succession to George Moose). Baas was accompanied by a representative of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and several Defense Department officials. The mission also visited Lubumbashi and met with officials from Gecamines and provincial authorities.
AEM's sources claim it wasn't the small research reactor that General Electric installed in 1977 at the university of Kinshasa, and which ceased operating in 1990, that interested the NRC and the military men, but rather the Shinkolobwe uranium deposit. Its resources are negligible from a commercial viewpoint when weighed against those in Namibia and Niger and new discoveries like France's Cogema has just made in western Canada. They weren't negligible from the security standpoint, however. The Americans [See the June 2, 1997 delegation- Marc Baas, etc] are concerned over a visit to Katanga by the head of the Iraqi Baath party's international relations section, Shabi Al Maliki, around a year ago [1996]. He, too, showed an interest in Katanga's uranium, and last February [1997] another high-ranking Iraqi official reportedly held talks in Kinshasa with the mines minister in the last government of the Mobutu era, Banza Mukalay. The uranium is thought to have also figured in Libya's proposals in 1995 to supply oil to Zaire in exchange for ore.
--------Saddam's Shadow (Posted on the Free Republic on 12/04/2005 11:21:13 AM EST by SBD1; Source: Africa Energy & Mining, June 18, 1997, Indigo Publications, available online to subscribers of Lexis-Nexis Academic)AUGUST 1999 : (NIGERIA : US ENERGY SECRETARY BILL RICHARDSON VISITS--See ENRON) Bill Richardson : (Clinton Administration Energy Secretary) To help push through energy initiatives in Africa, Clinton's Energy Secretary (and Monica Lewinsky's job counselor), Bill Richardson, visited Nigeria in August 1999. "As a result of Secretary Richardson's visit to Nigeria in August, we have embarked on a bilateral cooperation program. The Department is developing an action plan with the Government of Nigeria, which will be coordinated with USAID. Cooperation could include: restructuring and privatization; rural electrification; deployment of clean energy and renewable energy technologies; promotion of energy efficiency; and development of an independent regulatory authority.This initiative, coordinated by Richardson, led to $882 million dollars in power contracts for Enron from the government of Nigeria: Enron, an oil and gas firm in Houston, has signed a power purchase agreement to supply emergency electricity to state-owned power utility Nigerian Electric Power Authority (NEPA) through 30MW power barges located on the coast of Lagos State. Enron and its Nigerian joint venture partner signed the $82 million deal with NEPA and the power ministry in the capital Abuja. Enron and the Lagos state government entered a joint venture earlier in 1999 to build an $800 million gas-powered plant with capacity for 540 Megawatt (MW) to augment supply to the city. Unfortunately for Enron, the Nigerian Government cancelled these contracts in April 2000. As a further reward for their generosity to the Democratic Party, ClintonAdministration Special Envoy Thomas Pickering hustled off to Nigeria (on the taxpayer's dime) to plead Enron's case. Source: Several Sources/FreeRepublic.com
NOVEMBER 6-14, 1999 : (ADDIS ABABA , ETHIOPIA :TRADE MEET INCLUDES ... )
The Letter of The Indian Ocean100 posted on 06/26/2004 6:42:46 PM PDT by Shermy
October 23, 1999
(Some) Well introduced businessmenAmerican buinessmen who will go from November 6-14 to Addis - Abeba at the instigation of the Ethio-American Trade and Investment Council (EATIC, organization close to the government Ethiopian and directed by Gezahegn Kebede) have solid support in American administration. This visit is sponsored by Osyka Corporation, an oil firm of Texas whose president, Michael F Harness, is at the same time a member of EATIC and the National Petroleum Council, an organization charged to advise the American minister of Energie Bill Richardson. Other sponsors: F.C. Schaffer & Associates, a sugar company whose president, Mina Nedelcovych, is also the owner of Corporate Council of Africa (CCA) which assembles the active American companies in Africa.
Several companies controlled by the Saudi-Ethiopic billionaire Mohamed Hussein Al Amoudi helped with the organisation of the voyage: Westar Group, which manages the interests dof Al Amoudi in Washington and which is chaired by Derige Mekonen after being directed a long time by the banker Jeff Wilson; Sheraton of Addis-Abeba whose council of administration includes the ex - American ambassador in Ethiopia Irvin Hicks and group MIDROC Ethiopia; but also the Rock Creek Corporation, an investment company controlled by Al Amoudi and chaired since 1997 by a Lebanese businessman very connected into the power circles of Washington, Elias Aburdene. Former adviser of the Franklin Bank National in Washington DC, Aburdene at the start of his accession to the head (position) of Rock Creek Corporation hired the ex - adviser to Bill Clinton for African affairs, Joseph Wilson IV. The latter had already met Mohamed Al Amoudi in 1997 at the time of a reception organized for the World Bank by Westar Group (LAW n.794). In addition to his responsibilities with the Rock Creek Corporation, Elias Aburdene is the executive chairman very influential National Association of Arab Americans. Alumnus of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, he is also very active in the old networks of the university, where teaches the ex-under-secretary of State for African Affairs Chester A. Crocker and the American mediator between Ethiopia and Eritrea, former National Security Advisor of Bill Clinton Anthony Lake.
NOVEMBER 1999 : (JOE WILSON IS ACCOMPANIED BY MIMA NEDELCOVYCH, MOHAMMED ALAMOUDI AND OTHERS ON HIS SECOND TRIP TO AFRICA) According to the SSCI Wilson made at least one other trip to Africa That was made at his wife’s suggestion for the CIA in 1999. He made the second trip there that year as part of a trade delegation. As Just One Minute poster Rocco found these tidbits:
Mima Nedelcovych, Vice President for International Operations, F. C. Schaffer and Associates, Inc traveled with Wilson, [Mohammed] Alamoudi and others in Nov. 99, for a trade delegation.-------- "The African Connection: Rep. Jefferson and Joe Wilson," by Clarice Feldman, The American Thinker, July 25th, 2006 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1672123/posts?page=1
Nedelcovych gave Jefferson campaign donations in 01, 02, and 05.
F. C. Schaffer and Associates is a small Louisiana based sugar company but the curious thing is, the donations aren’t from Schaffer, they’re from AFRKA GLOBAL/PARTNER