Ugandan generals linked to "Merchant of Death"

KAMPALA - Viktor Bout, the world's most notorious illegal arms baron who was arrested in Thailand at the weekend, sold arms to Uganda and illegally used Entebbe International Airport to ship arms to DR Congo and Liberia.

Former Russian KGB officer Bout - nicknamed the "Merchant of Death" - is believed to have supplied weapons to dozens of rebel groups the world over, including the Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked groups. A report by the Belgian International Peace Information Service (IPIS) reveals how Bout, with the help of top Ugandan military officers, fueled conflict in DR Congo, Africa's vast and mineral-rich country.

"Today, clients of Mr Bout's companies include Angola, Cameroon, CAR, DRC, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Congo-Brazzaville, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland and Uganda," a report authored in October 2002 at the height of the Congo civil war by Belgian researcher Tim Raemaekers said. The report said the Russian arms dealer fronted a company called Culworth Investments, headed by an Egyptian Sharif Al-Mazri, who was a sales agent for an MI-24 helicopter to the Uganda Defence Ministry. "In November 2000, Culworth Investments was selling arms to Uganda, this time machine guns from Slovakia," the report said. But the consignment delivered in Uganda "contrasted the specifications and Uganda Defence Ministry asked Culworth Investments to ship it back to its country of origin." That is when trails of Bout were traced in Uganda. His plane, with a Moldovan registration number ER-75929, was the one used to ferry the rejected arms consignment to Uganda.

When Uganda rejected the arms, Bout attempted to sell the same arms to a Liberian rebel group. "On hindsight, it became clear that the representatives of Central African Air actually represented one and the same company run by the network around Viktor Bout," the report said. Other sources intimated that Bout frequented Kampala during the Congolese civil war and was close to top military officers in the UPDF. The IPIS report said Bout's close associate was Sanjivan Ruprah, a 40-year-old Kenyan of Indian origin who was arrested in Belgium in 2002 on charges of belonging to a criminal network. "Victor Bout and Sanjaivan Ruprah hold a large stake in diamond business in Kisangani (Congo), including diamond concessions in Banalia. Was the aircraft indeed carrying arms? Did it return to Entebbe with Congolese diamonds? Answers to these questions must be found with the arrangers of the arms' flights as well as the aviation authorities in Uganda and DRC," the report said.

But Ugandan Defence Minister Crispus Kiyonga said Uganda does not purchase its military hardware from individuals. "I have no comment about Viktor Bout and Uganda does not deal with or purchase military hardware from individuals. It is a state to state arrangement," Dr. Kiyonga said yesterday. But Uganda has a record of using middlemen; a case in point being the much publicised purchase of junk helicopters. A local company owned by a Ugandan businessman was used as a go-between.
Several UN expert panel reports and a local commission of inquiry, headed by Justice David Porter, accused Uganda's top military brass of looting Congolese minerals and arming different Congolese warring factions. Top military officers, including Maj. Gen. James Kazini, Maj. Gen. Kahinda Otafiire and Brig. Noble Mayombo (RIP), among others, were accused by the Porter commission of taking part in the plunder. The officers, however, vehemently denied the accusations and some were cleared of any wrong doing.

Bout's network of planes, the IPIS report said, reportedly helped transport minerals out of DR Congo. "When coltan prices skyrocketed at the end of 2000, Mr Bout's planes transported coltan from DRC to Uganda," the report said. "In the DRC, Mr Bout's planes have been transporting arms, diamonds, coltan to Congolese rebel movements such as MLC and RCD." At the time, MLC (Mouvement de Liberation du Congo) was a rebel group led by former Uganda-backed Congolese rebel leader Jean Pierre Bemba. RCD (Rasemblement Congolais pour la Democratie) was also led by Uganda-backed Wamba Dia Wamba. Interpol and MI6 have worked hard to disrupt Bout's arms' deals in conflict zones.

Bout, who speaks six languages and is widely believed to have been the model for the arms dealer played by Nicolas Cage in the 2005 film Lord of War, was finally arrested in Bangkok on an international drugs warrant. Police Colonel Petcharat Sengchai said he was wanted on charges of "procuring weapons and explosives for Colombian rebels." Former British Foreign Office Minister Peter Hain - who named Mr Bout as the “Merchant of Death” in the House of Commons - said yesterday: "He was at the centre of the blood diamonds trade from Sierra Leone to Angola and across Africa. That was why I named him in the Commons, the first British minister to do such a thing."

For years, Bout made himself untouchable by using 60 aircraft from his British Gulf airline to fly supplies into Baghdad. At one time, he supplied both the Taliban and the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. Bout has told police he was in Bangkok, where he was arrested, for a holiday and not to transact any weapons business, a police officer said on Saturday.

A former Soviet air force officer, Bout was charged in New York with conspiring to sell weapons worth millions of dollars to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The United States, which has given billions of dollars in military aid to Colombia to fight the Marxist rebels and drug cartels, plans to seek Bout's extradition, but Thai police have said that would have to wait until after he is tried in Thailand. Thai laws require detained foreign terror suspects to be tried locally. The court on Saturday granted police permission to detain Bout, who was finger-printed in front of the media, for further questioning. He was remanded in custody at the infamous "Bangkok Hilton", or Klong Prem prison. Police, who can detain him for three months, expect to finish their investigation in two months before submitting it to prosecutors.

Bout was expected to apply for bail on Sunday, his Thai lawyer Lak Nitiwatvichan said.