AP
4 April 2009
NATO allies have agreed to send up to 5,000 more military personnel to Afghanistan as the alliance steps up its campaign to stabilize the country before elections in August, the White House said Saturday.
About 3,000 of the personnel will be on short-term deployments, sent in to provide security before the pivotal elections this summer, said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. Another 1,400 to 2,000 will provide training for Afghanistan's national army.
"If we don't get the security around the elections right, a lot of the other things we want to do won't matter," Gibbs said.
NATO leaders also agreed to create a $100 million trust fund to assist Afghanistan's army, with $57 million of it coming from Germany.
The United States is sending in 21,000 additional troops as part of President Barack Obama's new anti-terror strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Earlier Saturday, Obama welcomed Albania and Croatia to the alliance and declared to other nations that "the door to membership will remain open."
"It is a measure of our vitality that we are still welcoming new members," Obama said of NATO, which is marking its 60th anniversary at a summit dominated by the war in Afghanistan.
Obama, the one doing the welcoming, is himself new to the table. He is taking part in his first NATO summit and seeking support from allied nations toward the plodding effort in Afghanistan, where the new U.S. president is sending in more troops and civilian help.
As the leaders got down to business, the two NATO summit hosts, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, made it clear they embraced new U.S. leadership. "We are very pleased to work with him," Sarkozy said of Obama. "We trust him."
Meanwhile, outside, police fired tear gas and flash bombs at protesters throwing Molotov cocktails and rocks less than 2 miles from the gathering of world leaders. First lady Michelle Obama and other spouses canceled a visit to a cancer hospital out of concern for security, the French president's office said.
One of NATO'S stickiest political issues is how and where to grow. Germany, France and many other NATO nations fear any more NATO eastward expansion will further damage the alliance's ties to Russia.
Said Obama: "The door to membership will remain open for other countries that meet NATO standards and can make a meaningful contribution to allied security."
Founded in 1949, NATO has added members since the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, its Soviet-dominated Cold War foe. In contrast to the alliance's previous eastward expansion, which infuriated Russia, Moscow has not objected to the inclusion of Albania and Croatia in NATO.
Albania and Croatia officially joined NATO this week. Obama praised them for having already deployed troops to the NATO-led force in Afghanistan, calling that commitment a sign that both countries will be strong contributors.
"We are proud to have you as allies," Obama said. He also made a pitch for Macedonia and said he looks forward to the day when it will would join the alliance, too. Macedonia's accession to NATO has been stalled over a dispute with Greece.
Earlier, in a move symbolic of NATO's unity, Obama began his Saturday by joining Merkel and other heads of states in walking along a pedestrian bridge that links Germany and France across the Rhine River. The leaders met Sarkozy at the center of the bridge, then crossed together onto the French side in Strasbourg and posed for a group photo.
In the midst of an eight-day trip abroad, Obama says it is a new day in U.S.-European relations. But he encountered the same old story of allied reluctance to send more troops to Afghanistan.
___
Associated Press writers Jennifer Loven and Mark S. Smith contributed to this story from Strasbourg.
04 April, 2009
15 Years Later: In memoriam to all the victims of genocidal violence in Rwanda.
Photo by David Barouski, 2006.Two Judges Removed From Hartmann Case.
IWPR
3 April 2009
By Rachel Irwin in The Hague (TU No 595)
A special panel ruled this week that two judges set to preside over the contempt trial of journalist Florence Hartmann should be removed from the case.
The panel’s decision comes nearly two months after Hartmann’s defence team filed a motion claiming that the judges assigned to her case “lacked an appearance of impartiality”.
The motion, filed confidentially on February 3 and made public on February 6, alleged that the trial judges assigned to Hartmann’s case “supervised and partook in all aspects of the investigation and preparation of this prosecution”.
The disqualified judges – Carmel Agius and Alphons Orie – were part of the chamber that first asked the registry to investigate Hartmann and then issued the charges against her.
“The investigation was done at the behest, in the name of, and under the supervision of the Trial Chamber,” stated the defence motion.
Bruce McFarlane, the independent investigator assigned to look into allegations against Hartmann, later became the prosecutor on her case. He was an “investigative proxy” for the judges, alleged the defence.
Hartmann, a former spokeswoman for the Hague tribunal’s chief prosecutor, is charged with two counts of contempt for revealing confidential information pertaining to two appeals chamber decisions issued in 2005 and 2006, during the trial of former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic.
She allegedly disclosed the confidential information in her 2007 book, Peace and Punishment, and in an article, Vital Genocide Documents Concealed, which was published on the Bosnian Institute website on January 21, 2008.
Her trial, originally slated to begin on February 5, was suspended pending an investigation into the defence allegations, to be conducted by a special panel of judges appointed by Hague tribunal president Patrick Robinson.
In their decision this week, the special panel wrote that while the defence did not provide sufficient evidence “demonstrating the subjective partiality” of the judges, the panel acknowledged that the relationship between the judges and McFarlane “may lead an objective observer to conclude that the chamber has an interest in the investigation and prosecution of the case against Ms Hartmann”.
Therefore, they wrote that judges Agius and Orie should be disqualified because of their “active involvement… in the directing the course and parameters of the investigation… beyond the extent of giving general, generic or purely administrative instructions”.
Prior to the panel’s decision this week, Hartmann’s lawyer, Karim Khan, filed a motion on March 24 asking Robinson for “leave to be heard” regarding the continuation of the case, should the special panel decide to remove any of the judges.
Since it is up to Robinson to assign new judges to the case, Khan wrote that “it would be in the interests of justice [for the president] to hear the defence” before a decision is made to continue proceedings.
Khan declined to comment publicly on Hartmann’s case.
Robinson dismissed the motion on March 30, saying he lacked authority to hear the defence on the matter.
On April 2, he appointed judges Mehmet Guney and Liu Daquin to replace Agius and Orie.
No trial date has been set.
3 April 2009
By Rachel Irwin in The Hague (TU No 595)
A special panel ruled this week that two judges set to preside over the contempt trial of journalist Florence Hartmann should be removed from the case.
The panel’s decision comes nearly two months after Hartmann’s defence team filed a motion claiming that the judges assigned to her case “lacked an appearance of impartiality”.
The motion, filed confidentially on February 3 and made public on February 6, alleged that the trial judges assigned to Hartmann’s case “supervised and partook in all aspects of the investigation and preparation of this prosecution”.
The disqualified judges – Carmel Agius and Alphons Orie – were part of the chamber that first asked the registry to investigate Hartmann and then issued the charges against her.
“The investigation was done at the behest, in the name of, and under the supervision of the Trial Chamber,” stated the defence motion.
Bruce McFarlane, the independent investigator assigned to look into allegations against Hartmann, later became the prosecutor on her case. He was an “investigative proxy” for the judges, alleged the defence.
Hartmann, a former spokeswoman for the Hague tribunal’s chief prosecutor, is charged with two counts of contempt for revealing confidential information pertaining to two appeals chamber decisions issued in 2005 and 2006, during the trial of former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic.
She allegedly disclosed the confidential information in her 2007 book, Peace and Punishment, and in an article, Vital Genocide Documents Concealed, which was published on the Bosnian Institute website on January 21, 2008.
Her trial, originally slated to begin on February 5, was suspended pending an investigation into the defence allegations, to be conducted by a special panel of judges appointed by Hague tribunal president Patrick Robinson.
In their decision this week, the special panel wrote that while the defence did not provide sufficient evidence “demonstrating the subjective partiality” of the judges, the panel acknowledged that the relationship between the judges and McFarlane “may lead an objective observer to conclude that the chamber has an interest in the investigation and prosecution of the case against Ms Hartmann”.
Therefore, they wrote that judges Agius and Orie should be disqualified because of their “active involvement… in the directing the course and parameters of the investigation… beyond the extent of giving general, generic or purely administrative instructions”.
Prior to the panel’s decision this week, Hartmann’s lawyer, Karim Khan, filed a motion on March 24 asking Robinson for “leave to be heard” regarding the continuation of the case, should the special panel decide to remove any of the judges.
Since it is up to Robinson to assign new judges to the case, Khan wrote that “it would be in the interests of justice [for the president] to hear the defence” before a decision is made to continue proceedings.
Khan declined to comment publicly on Hartmann’s case.
Robinson dismissed the motion on March 30, saying he lacked authority to hear the defence on the matter.
On April 2, he appointed judges Mehmet Guney and Liu Daquin to replace Agius and Orie.
No trial date has been set.
Judges Decide Croatian Generals Have Case to Answer.
IWPR
3 April 2009
By Simon Jennings in The Hague (TU No 595)
Judges in the trial of former Croatian general Ante Gotovina and his two co-defendants have dismissed the request by all three defence teams to acquit their clients of all charges – including murder, deportation and cruel treatment of Serb civilians – at the halfway stage of proceedings.
Judges concluded that prosecutors had presented evidence that could convict Gotovina, along with two other former generals, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac, of orchestrating the permanent removal of Serbs from the Krajina region of Croatia between July and September 1995.
The prosecution’s evidence suggested “there was an attack and it was directed against the civilian population of the southern portion of Krajina”, said presiding judge Alphons Orie, while delivering the judges’ decision on April 3.
The prosecution alleges that Croatian forces bombarded towns across the Krajina region as part of a joint criminal plan conducted by the defendants, before embarking on a campaign across 16 municipalities, which included the killing of civilians, the burning of houses and looting of property in a bid to drive Serbs out of the area and prevent their return.
“There is sufficient evidence of a common objective aimed at the permanent removal of Serbs from Krajina by force or threat of force, persecution, forced transfer and deportation, as well as appropriation and destruction of property,” Judge Orie told the court.
He added that the prosecution had also presented enough evidence to show that the three defendants could also be convicted of the murder and cruel treatment of Krajina Serb civilians in the aftermath of the attack known as Operation Storm.
Under tribunal rules, the defence may seek an acquittal from the judges at the midpoint of a trial on any charges that it deems the prosecution has not proved during the presentation of its evidence.
However, Judge Orie cited evidence presented by prosecutors covering all the counts listed in the indictment, concluding that it could warrant a conviction at the end of the trial.
“All three accused have a case to answer on all nine counts of the indictment,” said Judge Orie.
To support the judges’ findings, Judge Orie recounted evidence presented by a number of prosecution witnesses corroborating the prosecution’s allegations about crimes in the Krajina during the summer of 1995.
He recounted the testimony of one witness who had testified that on August 6, 1995, in Knin municipality, Croatian soldiers had thrown his disabled father into a burning workshop and locked the door.
Addressing the charges of cruel treatment inflicted on Serb civilians, the judge recalled the statements of a 73-year-old woman who said that Croatian soldiers came to her village in August 1995.
After smashing her belongings and shooting at her house, the soldiers called her a “Chetnik whore” and forced her to strip to her underwear, she said. “Chetnik” was a term commonly used by Croats and Bosniaks during the Balkan wars to refer to Serbian ultra-nationalists.
Turning to the allegations of murder, Judge Orie said the evidence given in relation to killings of Serb civilians by Croat troops in the town of Grubori in August 1995 suggested “the victims were not actively participating in hostilities at the time the offences were committed and that the murders were closely related to the armed conflict”, making the defendants criminally liable.
Addressing the evidence for the criminal liability of each defendant, Judge Orie referred to evidence suggesting that they had planned the removal of Serb civilians from the Krajina, in particular, the minutes of a meeting at Brijuni on July 31, 1995, attended by the-then Croatian president Franjo Tudjman, Gotovina and Markac.
“During the meetings, the participants discussed, among other things, that civilians should be leaving the area as part of the armed operation,” said Judge Orie, quoting statements made by both Tudjman and Gotovina.
“If we continue this pressure, probably for some time to come, there won’t be so many civilians,” the judge cited Gotovina as saying. The judge noted that it had been agreed at the meeting that information should be spread around the area that Serb civilians were already leaving to encourage others to follow.
Concerning the actual crimes committed on the ground, Judge Orie said that judges had “received evidence of Mr Gotovina’s awareness of crimes committed by men under his command during and following Operation Storm”.
He referred to evidence which showed that although Gotovina was informed about crimes being committed by his men and the human rights abuses taking place, he had claimed that he did not think such behaviour was against Croatian state policy.
“The evidence heard allows for the conclusion that Mr Gotovina had the power and ability to discipline soldiers under his command,” explained Judge Orie, but that the evidence suggested that Gotovina “primarily used his power for disciplining men for violations or crimes that would jeopardise combat operations, rather than for crimes against a civilian population, such as looting and burning”.
The evidence heard so far suggested that Markac was also guilty of “attempting to obscure crimes committed by the Special Police” under his command, said Judge Orie.
The judges ruled this week that there was evidence that could lead to the conviction of Cermak based on the fact that he was informed about crimes in and around the town of Knin where he served, yet did nothing.
“There is evidence that Mr Cermak either denied that members of Croatian forces had committed crimes, attempted to downplay these crimes or promised that investigations would take place. But such investigations were either not carried out or were not conducted until much later,” said Judge Orie.
He said that judges had also received documentary evidence that suggested Cermak was “one of the key persons” organising the removal of Serbs to Serbia on a convoy of 35 buses on September 16 and 17, 1995.
Judges concluded that the evidence suggested that Cermak, along with Gotovina and Markac, had participated in the joint criminal plan to drive Serbs out of the Krajina.
Judges will now hear the defence cases of all three defendants. Proceedings are scheduled to begin again on May 28.
3 April 2009
By Simon Jennings in The Hague (TU No 595)
Judges in the trial of former Croatian general Ante Gotovina and his two co-defendants have dismissed the request by all three defence teams to acquit their clients of all charges – including murder, deportation and cruel treatment of Serb civilians – at the halfway stage of proceedings.
Judges concluded that prosecutors had presented evidence that could convict Gotovina, along with two other former generals, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac, of orchestrating the permanent removal of Serbs from the Krajina region of Croatia between July and September 1995.
The prosecution’s evidence suggested “there was an attack and it was directed against the civilian population of the southern portion of Krajina”, said presiding judge Alphons Orie, while delivering the judges’ decision on April 3.
The prosecution alleges that Croatian forces bombarded towns across the Krajina region as part of a joint criminal plan conducted by the defendants, before embarking on a campaign across 16 municipalities, which included the killing of civilians, the burning of houses and looting of property in a bid to drive Serbs out of the area and prevent their return.
“There is sufficient evidence of a common objective aimed at the permanent removal of Serbs from Krajina by force or threat of force, persecution, forced transfer and deportation, as well as appropriation and destruction of property,” Judge Orie told the court.
He added that the prosecution had also presented enough evidence to show that the three defendants could also be convicted of the murder and cruel treatment of Krajina Serb civilians in the aftermath of the attack known as Operation Storm.
Under tribunal rules, the defence may seek an acquittal from the judges at the midpoint of a trial on any charges that it deems the prosecution has not proved during the presentation of its evidence.
However, Judge Orie cited evidence presented by prosecutors covering all the counts listed in the indictment, concluding that it could warrant a conviction at the end of the trial.
“All three accused have a case to answer on all nine counts of the indictment,” said Judge Orie.
To support the judges’ findings, Judge Orie recounted evidence presented by a number of prosecution witnesses corroborating the prosecution’s allegations about crimes in the Krajina during the summer of 1995.
He recounted the testimony of one witness who had testified that on August 6, 1995, in Knin municipality, Croatian soldiers had thrown his disabled father into a burning workshop and locked the door.
Addressing the charges of cruel treatment inflicted on Serb civilians, the judge recalled the statements of a 73-year-old woman who said that Croatian soldiers came to her village in August 1995.
After smashing her belongings and shooting at her house, the soldiers called her a “Chetnik whore” and forced her to strip to her underwear, she said. “Chetnik” was a term commonly used by Croats and Bosniaks during the Balkan wars to refer to Serbian ultra-nationalists.
Turning to the allegations of murder, Judge Orie said the evidence given in relation to killings of Serb civilians by Croat troops in the town of Grubori in August 1995 suggested “the victims were not actively participating in hostilities at the time the offences were committed and that the murders were closely related to the armed conflict”, making the defendants criminally liable.
Addressing the evidence for the criminal liability of each defendant, Judge Orie referred to evidence suggesting that they had planned the removal of Serb civilians from the Krajina, in particular, the minutes of a meeting at Brijuni on July 31, 1995, attended by the-then Croatian president Franjo Tudjman, Gotovina and Markac.
“During the meetings, the participants discussed, among other things, that civilians should be leaving the area as part of the armed operation,” said Judge Orie, quoting statements made by both Tudjman and Gotovina.
“If we continue this pressure, probably for some time to come, there won’t be so many civilians,” the judge cited Gotovina as saying. The judge noted that it had been agreed at the meeting that information should be spread around the area that Serb civilians were already leaving to encourage others to follow.
Concerning the actual crimes committed on the ground, Judge Orie said that judges had “received evidence of Mr Gotovina’s awareness of crimes committed by men under his command during and following Operation Storm”.
He referred to evidence which showed that although Gotovina was informed about crimes being committed by his men and the human rights abuses taking place, he had claimed that he did not think such behaviour was against Croatian state policy.
“The evidence heard allows for the conclusion that Mr Gotovina had the power and ability to discipline soldiers under his command,” explained Judge Orie, but that the evidence suggested that Gotovina “primarily used his power for disciplining men for violations or crimes that would jeopardise combat operations, rather than for crimes against a civilian population, such as looting and burning”.
The evidence heard so far suggested that Markac was also guilty of “attempting to obscure crimes committed by the Special Police” under his command, said Judge Orie.
The judges ruled this week that there was evidence that could lead to the conviction of Cermak based on the fact that he was informed about crimes in and around the town of Knin where he served, yet did nothing.
“There is evidence that Mr Cermak either denied that members of Croatian forces had committed crimes, attempted to downplay these crimes or promised that investigations would take place. But such investigations were either not carried out or were not conducted until much later,” said Judge Orie.
He said that judges had also received documentary evidence that suggested Cermak was “one of the key persons” organising the removal of Serbs to Serbia on a convoy of 35 buses on September 16 and 17, 1995.
Judges concluded that the evidence suggested that Cermak, along with Gotovina and Markac, had participated in the joint criminal plan to drive Serbs out of the Krajina.
Judges will now hear the defence cases of all three defendants. Proceedings are scheduled to begin again on May 28.
Less development revenue as diamonds lose their shine.
IRIN
3 April 2009
Diamond-rich Botswana has so far managed to avoid Africa's "resource curse" - a term for conflicts sparked or maintained by commodities - but is unlikely to escape the global recession unscathed.
The country relies heavily on diamonds for its development, but in tough economic times, deriving most of your revenue from a single resource can sour reputations. In March credit agencies downgraded Botswana's rating.
Kristin Lindow, senior vice-president and regional credit officer for Africa at Moody's, a well-known international credit rating agency, said in a statement that Botswana's lower rating was a result of the current economic crisis representing a "serious risk for Botswana's diamond-dependent economy."
A third of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) flows from diamonds, and the gemstones account for 80 percent of all export earnings and about 39 percent of public revenue.
Finance minister Baledzi Gaolathe warned in his 2009 budget speech that there "will be a slowdown in economic growth and decline in government revenues from the end of 2008/09, probably until 2010/11. Government's reserves may not be sufficient to sustain current rates of expenditure."
Diamond revenues have created a heavily subsidized education system from pre-school to university, about 95 percent of the population of 1.8 million reside 15km or less from a clinic providing free health care, and all HIV-positive citizens have access to antiretroviral therapy.
"There can be no doubt that diamonds have played a major part in the transformation of our country's fortunes and the lives of our citizens," Botswana's then president, Festus Mogae, told parliament in 2006.
"For our people, every diamond purchase represents food on the table, better living conditions, better healthcare, potable and safe drinking water, more roads to connect our remote communities, and much more."
From cattle post to shining economy
Botswana, a landlocked and largely arid southern African country, discovered diamonds soon after independence from Britain in 1966, and despite its proximity to regional wars and apartheid South Africa, managed to chart a course of development.
Between 1966 and 1997 Botswana recorded an average annual growth rate of 9.2 percent, the highest in the world, but at the price of being the world's most diamond-dependent economy.
The ripple effects of the global recession have already begun lapping against its economy. Debswana, a joint venture between international diamond company De Beers and the government, has suspended production at two of its three mines and reduced operations at a third.
"These actions are being taken to mitigate the effects of the global downturn by reducing production during 2009 to align with demand, conserving cash ... for an eventual upturn in the market," De Beers said in a statement to IRIN.
"During this shutdown, all Debswana essential services, such as hospitals and schools, will continue normally," De Beers said.
The diamond industry employs about 10,000 people in Botswana, of whom 6,300 work for Debswana.
Oupa Tsheko, an economic lecturer at the University of Botswana in the capital, Gaborone, told IRIN that diamonds funded government expenditure, and declining diamond revenues would have "a huge impact" on development.
He said the government was the country's biggest employer and provider of goods and services, and the private sector was dependent on government spending. "There is a risk of everything stagnating," he commented.
Diamond shocks
The discovery of diamonds in Kimberley, South Africa, in the 1870s irrevocably changed the industry. Previously, the gems were occasionally found in the riverbeds of Brazil and India.
The extraction of diamonds from rock, subsequently known as "kimberlite pipes", saw the then British colony produce more diamonds in 15 years than India had found in 2,000 years.
However, the sudden deluge of diamonds coming onto the market undermined the very value their preciousness was premised on - that of rarity.
To avoid diamonds being relegated to the stature of semi-precious stones, analysts said, South African producers realized it was in their interest to control the quantity of diamonds reaching the market to maintain their "rarity", and so De Beers Consolidated Mines was created.
At its zenith De Beers controlled every aspect of the world's diamond trade, and even though this control has been diluted in recent decades, industry players acknowledge the creation of scarcity is in the best interests of all.
Sentiment and availability are crucial to maintaining the value of diamonds, making the diamond price extremely sensitive to oversupply, or changes in attitude.
Such sensitivities were starkly illustrated in the immediate aftermath of the 1917 Russian revolution. The Bolsheviks threatened to sell the Tsar's diamonds, thereby flooding the market, which sowed panic in the industry.
The situation was calmed by diamond dealer Solly Joel, who purchased the entire collection and promised other dealers he would not release them onto the market.
A few years later the 1929 Wall Street crash brought a steep drop-off in the demand for diamonds, and it took a generation for the stones to regain pre-crash prices.
More recently, "blood diamonds" - a term describing the production of diamonds in conflict zones, which fuelled the war - sent shivers through the diamond market when consumers began to heed a boycott call by NGOs.
The establishment of the Kimberley Process, which weeded conflict diamonds from the market, went a long way to restoring public confidence.
De Beers maintains that diamonds are better positioned to weather the current economic crisis "because even in a recession people continue to get engaged, married, and celebrate special anniversaries, [which] diamonds are inherently linked to."
Edward Jay Epstein, author of The Rise and Fall of Diamonds, takes a more pessimistic view of the effects of the current recession on the industry, which sources 60 percent of the world's diamonds from Africa.
Predicting a drop in the value of rough diamonds by about 80 percent, Epstein wrote in a recent article that the recession could bring into play a "diamond overhang", with devastating consequences for producing countries.
"The real fear of the diamond cartel is not just that retail prices will decline - it has managed that problem before - but that the public will begin to sell its hoard of diamonds, or what is called at De Beers, 'the overhang'."
Epstein's cites NW Ayer, an advertising company contracted by De Beers in 1952 to lift flagging diamond sales. "Diamonds do not wear out and are not consumed. New diamonds add to the existing supply in trade channels and in the possession of the public. In our opinion, old diamonds are in safe hands only when widely dispersed and held by individuals as cherished possessions valued far above their market price," it reported.
"De Beers executives estimate that the public holds more than 500 million carats of gem diamonds, which is more than 50 times the number of gem diamonds produced by the diamond cartel in any given year," Epstein said.
"The moment a significant portion of the public begins selling diamonds from this prodigious inventory, the cartel would be unable to sustain the price of diamonds, or maintain the illusion that they are such a rare stone," he commented.
Such an eventuality would have a catastrophic impact on diamond-producing countries, and even more so on those with a skewed reliance on them.
De Beers dismissed Epstein's scenario. "A simple review of the supply-demand dynamics would starkly illustrate how wrong this theory is," the company said in a statement to IRIN.
"Decades of geological surveying confirms that diamonds are rare and getting rarer. In fact, known worldwide diamond reserves are at an all time low, and with no new major sources of supply on the horizon, some predict that we will run out of diamonds in just over 20 years."
Whichever prediction materializes, Botswana is on borrowed time if it does not wean itself off its diamond dependency.
3 April 2009
Diamond-rich Botswana has so far managed to avoid Africa's "resource curse" - a term for conflicts sparked or maintained by commodities - but is unlikely to escape the global recession unscathed.
The country relies heavily on diamonds for its development, but in tough economic times, deriving most of your revenue from a single resource can sour reputations. In March credit agencies downgraded Botswana's rating.
Kristin Lindow, senior vice-president and regional credit officer for Africa at Moody's, a well-known international credit rating agency, said in a statement that Botswana's lower rating was a result of the current economic crisis representing a "serious risk for Botswana's diamond-dependent economy."
A third of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) flows from diamonds, and the gemstones account for 80 percent of all export earnings and about 39 percent of public revenue.
Finance minister Baledzi Gaolathe warned in his 2009 budget speech that there "will be a slowdown in economic growth and decline in government revenues from the end of 2008/09, probably until 2010/11. Government's reserves may not be sufficient to sustain current rates of expenditure."
Diamond revenues have created a heavily subsidized education system from pre-school to university, about 95 percent of the population of 1.8 million reside 15km or less from a clinic providing free health care, and all HIV-positive citizens have access to antiretroviral therapy.
"There can be no doubt that diamonds have played a major part in the transformation of our country's fortunes and the lives of our citizens," Botswana's then president, Festus Mogae, told parliament in 2006.
"For our people, every diamond purchase represents food on the table, better living conditions, better healthcare, potable and safe drinking water, more roads to connect our remote communities, and much more."
From cattle post to shining economy
Botswana, a landlocked and largely arid southern African country, discovered diamonds soon after independence from Britain in 1966, and despite its proximity to regional wars and apartheid South Africa, managed to chart a course of development.
Between 1966 and 1997 Botswana recorded an average annual growth rate of 9.2 percent, the highest in the world, but at the price of being the world's most diamond-dependent economy.
The ripple effects of the global recession have already begun lapping against its economy. Debswana, a joint venture between international diamond company De Beers and the government, has suspended production at two of its three mines and reduced operations at a third.
"These actions are being taken to mitigate the effects of the global downturn by reducing production during 2009 to align with demand, conserving cash ... for an eventual upturn in the market," De Beers said in a statement to IRIN.
"During this shutdown, all Debswana essential services, such as hospitals and schools, will continue normally," De Beers said.
The diamond industry employs about 10,000 people in Botswana, of whom 6,300 work for Debswana.
Oupa Tsheko, an economic lecturer at the University of Botswana in the capital, Gaborone, told IRIN that diamonds funded government expenditure, and declining diamond revenues would have "a huge impact" on development.
He said the government was the country's biggest employer and provider of goods and services, and the private sector was dependent on government spending. "There is a risk of everything stagnating," he commented.
Diamond shocks
The discovery of diamonds in Kimberley, South Africa, in the 1870s irrevocably changed the industry. Previously, the gems were occasionally found in the riverbeds of Brazil and India.
The extraction of diamonds from rock, subsequently known as "kimberlite pipes", saw the then British colony produce more diamonds in 15 years than India had found in 2,000 years.
However, the sudden deluge of diamonds coming onto the market undermined the very value their preciousness was premised on - that of rarity.
To avoid diamonds being relegated to the stature of semi-precious stones, analysts said, South African producers realized it was in their interest to control the quantity of diamonds reaching the market to maintain their "rarity", and so De Beers Consolidated Mines was created.
At its zenith De Beers controlled every aspect of the world's diamond trade, and even though this control has been diluted in recent decades, industry players acknowledge the creation of scarcity is in the best interests of all.
Sentiment and availability are crucial to maintaining the value of diamonds, making the diamond price extremely sensitive to oversupply, or changes in attitude.
Such sensitivities were starkly illustrated in the immediate aftermath of the 1917 Russian revolution. The Bolsheviks threatened to sell the Tsar's diamonds, thereby flooding the market, which sowed panic in the industry.
The situation was calmed by diamond dealer Solly Joel, who purchased the entire collection and promised other dealers he would not release them onto the market.
A few years later the 1929 Wall Street crash brought a steep drop-off in the demand for diamonds, and it took a generation for the stones to regain pre-crash prices.
More recently, "blood diamonds" - a term describing the production of diamonds in conflict zones, which fuelled the war - sent shivers through the diamond market when consumers began to heed a boycott call by NGOs.
The establishment of the Kimberley Process, which weeded conflict diamonds from the market, went a long way to restoring public confidence.
De Beers maintains that diamonds are better positioned to weather the current economic crisis "because even in a recession people continue to get engaged, married, and celebrate special anniversaries, [which] diamonds are inherently linked to."
Edward Jay Epstein, author of The Rise and Fall of Diamonds, takes a more pessimistic view of the effects of the current recession on the industry, which sources 60 percent of the world's diamonds from Africa.
Predicting a drop in the value of rough diamonds by about 80 percent, Epstein wrote in a recent article that the recession could bring into play a "diamond overhang", with devastating consequences for producing countries.
"The real fear of the diamond cartel is not just that retail prices will decline - it has managed that problem before - but that the public will begin to sell its hoard of diamonds, or what is called at De Beers, 'the overhang'."
Epstein's cites NW Ayer, an advertising company contracted by De Beers in 1952 to lift flagging diamond sales. "Diamonds do not wear out and are not consumed. New diamonds add to the existing supply in trade channels and in the possession of the public. In our opinion, old diamonds are in safe hands only when widely dispersed and held by individuals as cherished possessions valued far above their market price," it reported.
"De Beers executives estimate that the public holds more than 500 million carats of gem diamonds, which is more than 50 times the number of gem diamonds produced by the diamond cartel in any given year," Epstein said.
"The moment a significant portion of the public begins selling diamonds from this prodigious inventory, the cartel would be unable to sustain the price of diamonds, or maintain the illusion that they are such a rare stone," he commented.
Such an eventuality would have a catastrophic impact on diamond-producing countries, and even more so on those with a skewed reliance on them.
De Beers dismissed Epstein's scenario. "A simple review of the supply-demand dynamics would starkly illustrate how wrong this theory is," the company said in a statement to IRIN.
"Decades of geological surveying confirms that diamonds are rare and getting rarer. In fact, known worldwide diamond reserves are at an all time low, and with no new major sources of supply on the horizon, some predict that we will run out of diamonds in just over 20 years."
Whichever prediction materializes, Botswana is on borrowed time if it does not wean itself off its diamond dependency.
03 April, 2009
FIGHTING IN NORTH, HUNDREDS OF NATIVES FLEEING.
MISNA
3 April 2009
At least 600 Emberá natives, for the most part women and children, were forced to abandon their villages in a remote rural area of the north-western department of Chocó, on the border with Panama, due to violent fighting. In reporting the news, the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) did not identify the protagonists of the clashes, defining them “parts in the internal conflict”. The area is presided by the guerrilla, the new extreme-right paramilitary groups known as ‘Los Rastrojos’ and government troops. The Emberá indigenous for days have been fleeing from their communities along the Purricha River and its tributaries in the Bajo Baudó area, seeking refuge in the urban areas of Pizarro and Bocas de Pegadó. “They told us of their anguish in learning that many family members and friends got lost in the forest and are now isolated”, said Silvia Padrón of the local Red Cross. The new displaced add to the 2,000 forced from their homes in mid March. Based on estimates of the National Indigenous Organisation of Colombia, at least 50,000 natives were forcedly displaced from their villages in the past six years, and over 1,200 were killed.
3 April 2009
At least 600 Emberá natives, for the most part women and children, were forced to abandon their villages in a remote rural area of the north-western department of Chocó, on the border with Panama, due to violent fighting. In reporting the news, the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) did not identify the protagonists of the clashes, defining them “parts in the internal conflict”. The area is presided by the guerrilla, the new extreme-right paramilitary groups known as ‘Los Rastrojos’ and government troops. The Emberá indigenous for days have been fleeing from their communities along the Purricha River and its tributaries in the Bajo Baudó area, seeking refuge in the urban areas of Pizarro and Bocas de Pegadó. “They told us of their anguish in learning that many family members and friends got lost in the forest and are now isolated”, said Silvia Padrón of the local Red Cross. The new displaced add to the 2,000 forced from their homes in mid March. Based on estimates of the National Indigenous Organisation of Colombia, at least 50,000 natives were forcedly displaced from their villages in the past six years, and over 1,200 were killed.
US reopens visa section in Libya.
The News
3 April 2009
The United States re-opened a visa office in Libya on Thursday, 29 years after it was closed, in a new step toward cementing diplomatic ties between the two nations.
“I am very pleased to celebrate the opening of US visa services to the Libyan public,” Ambassador Gene Cretz said during a ceremony at the American mission.
“This is a tangible and important symbol of the commitment of the United States to establish a normal relationship with Libya and with its people,” he said.
“With this step, we are sending the message to the Libyan people: our doors are open for business, study and travel.”
He also urged Libya to open a visa section at its Washington embassy.
“I’m confident that the Libyan government will take a similar step so that we also see more American business people, students, academics and tourists here in Libya as well,” he said.
Before the US visa section reopened in Tripoli, Libyan citizens had to travel to neighbouring Tunis to gain access to American consular services.
Cretz was confirmed by the US Senate in November as Washington’s first ambassador to Libya in 36 years, capping the restoration of ties between the two former foes.
After being severed in 1981, US-Libyan relations were restored in early 2004 a few weeks after Libyan leader Moamer Qadhafi announced Tripoli was abandoning efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
3 April 2009
The United States re-opened a visa office in Libya on Thursday, 29 years after it was closed, in a new step toward cementing diplomatic ties between the two nations.
“I am very pleased to celebrate the opening of US visa services to the Libyan public,” Ambassador Gene Cretz said during a ceremony at the American mission.
“This is a tangible and important symbol of the commitment of the United States to establish a normal relationship with Libya and with its people,” he said.
“With this step, we are sending the message to the Libyan people: our doors are open for business, study and travel.”
He also urged Libya to open a visa section at its Washington embassy.
“I’m confident that the Libyan government will take a similar step so that we also see more American business people, students, academics and tourists here in Libya as well,” he said.
Before the US visa section reopened in Tripoli, Libyan citizens had to travel to neighbouring Tunis to gain access to American consular services.
Cretz was confirmed by the US Senate in November as Washington’s first ambassador to Libya in 36 years, capping the restoration of ties between the two former foes.
After being severed in 1981, US-Libyan relations were restored in early 2004 a few weeks after Libyan leader Moamer Qadhafi announced Tripoli was abandoning efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
Leaders' statement from the G20 summit in London.
G20 LONDON SUMMIT 2009
The G20 countries are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the UK, the US and the EU.
1. We, the Leaders of the Group of Twenty, met in London on 2 April 2009.
2. We face the greatest challenge to the world economy in modern times; a crisis which has deepened since we last met, which affects the lives of women, men, and children in every country, and which all countries must join together to resolve. A global crisis requires a global solution.
3. We start from the belief that prosperity is indivisible; that growth, to be sustained, has to be shared; and that our global plan for recovery must have at its heart the needs and jobs of hard-working families, not just in developed countries but in emerging markets and the poorest countries of the world too; and must reflect the interests, not just of today's population, but of future generations too. We believe that the only sure foundation for sustainable globalisation and rising prosperity for all is an open world economy based on market principles, effective regulation, and strong global institutions.
4. We have today therefore pledged to do whatever is necessary to:
· restore confidence, growth, and jobs;
· repair the financial system to restore lending;
· strengthen financial regulation to rebuild trust;
· fund and reform our international financial institutions to overcome this crisis and prevent future ones;
· promote global trade and investment and reject protectionism, to underpin prosperity; and
· build an inclusive, green, and sustainable recovery.
By acting together to fulfil these pledges we will bring the world economy out of recession and prevent a crisis like this from recurring in the future.
5. The agreements we have reached today, to treble resources available to the IMF to $750 billion, to support a new SDR [IMF special drawing rights] allocation of $250 billion, to support at least $100 billion of additional lending by the MDBs [Multilateral Development Banks], to ensure $250 billion of support for trade finance, and to use the additional resources from agreed IMF gold sales for concessional finance for the poorest countries, constitute an additional $1.1 trillion programme of support to restore credit, growth and jobs in the world economy. Together with the measures we have each taken nationally, this constitutes a global plan for recovery on an unprecedented scale.
Restoring growth and jobs
6. We are undertaking an unprecedented and concerted fiscal expansion, which will save or create millions of jobs which would otherwise have been destroyed, and that will, by the end of next year, amount to $5 trillion, raise output by 4 per cent, and accelerate the transition to a green economy. We are committed to deliver the scale of sustained fiscal effort necessary to restore growth.
7. Our central banks have also taken exceptional action. Interest rates have been cut aggressively in most countries, and our central banks have pledged to maintain expansionary policies for as long as needed and to use the full range of monetary policy instruments, including unconventional instruments, consistent with price stability.
8. Our actions to restore growth cannot be effective until we restore domestic lending and international capital flows. We have provided significant and comprehensive support to our banking systems to provide liquidity, recapitalise financial institutions, and address decisively the problem of impaired assets. We are committed to take all necessary actions to restore the normal flow of credit through the financial system and ensure the soundness of systemically important institutions, implementing our policies in line with the agreed G20 framework for restoring lending and repairing the financial sector.
9. Taken together, these actions will constitute the largest fiscal and monetary stimulus and the most comprehensive support programme for the financial sector in modern times. Acting together strengthens the impact and the exceptional policy actions announced so far must be implemented without delay. Today, we have further agreed over $1 trillion of additional resources for the world economy through our international financial institutions and trade finance.
10. Last month the IMF estimated that world growth in real terms would resume and rise to over 2 percent by the end of 2010. We are confident that the actions we have agreed today, and our unshakeable commitment to work together to restore growth and jobs, while preserving long-term fiscal sustainability, will accelerate the return to trend growth. We commit today to taking whatever action is necessary to secure that outcome, and we call on the IMF to assess regularly the actions taken and the global actions required.
11. We are resolved to ensure long-term fiscal sustainability and price stability and will put in place credible exit strategies from the measures that need to be taken now to support the financial sector and restore global demand. We are convinced that by implementing our agreed policies we will limit the longer-term costs to our economies, thereby reducing the scale of the fiscal consolidation necessary over the longer term.
12. We will conduct all our economic policies cooperatively and responsibly with regard to the impact on other countries and will refrain from competitive devaluation of our currencies and promote a stable and well-functioning international monetary system. We will support, now and in the future, to candid, even-handed, and independent IMF surveillance of our economies and financial sectors, of the impact of our policies on others, and of risks facing the global economy.
Strengthening financial supervision and regulation
13. Major failures in the financial sector and in financial regulation and supervision were fundamental causes of the crisis. Confidence will not be restored until we rebuild trust in our financial system. We will take action to build a stronger, more globally consistent, supervisory and regulatory framework for the future financial sector, which will support sustainable global growth and serve the needs of business and citizens.
14. We each agree to ensure our domestic regulatory systems are strong. But we also agree to establish the much greater consistency and systematic cooperation between countries, and the framework of internationally agreed high standards, that a global financial system requires. Strengthened regulation and supervision must promote propriety, integrity and transparency; guard against risk across the financial system; dampen rather than amplify the financial and economic cycle; reduce reliance on inappropriately risky sources of financing; and discourage excessive risk-taking. Regulators and supervisors must protect consumers and investors, support market discipline, avoid adverse impacts on other countries, reduce the scope for regulatory arbitrage, support competition and dynamism, and keep pace with innovation in the marketplace.
15. To this end we are implementing the Action Plan agreed at our last meeting, as set out in the attached progress report. We have today also issued a Declaration, Strengthening the Financial System. In particular we agree:
· to establish a new Financial Stability Board (FSB) with a strengthened mandate, as a successor to the Financial Stability Forum (FSF), including all G20 countries, FSF members, Spain, and the European Commission;
· that the FSB should collaborate with the IMF to provide early warning of macroeconomic and financial risks and the actions needed to address them;
· to reshape our regulatory systems so that our authorities are able to identify and take account of macro-prudential risks;
· to extend regulation and oversight to all systemically important financial institutions, instruments and markets. This will include, for the first time, systemically important hedge funds;
· to endorse and implement the FSF's tough new principles on pay and compensation and to support sustainable compensation schemes and the corporate social responsibility of all firms;
· to take action, once recovery is assured, to improve the quality, quantity, and international consistency of capital in the banking system. In future, regulation must prevent excessive leverage and require buffers of resources to be built up in good times;
· to take action against non-cooperative jurisdictions, including tax havens. We stand ready to deploy sanctions to protect our public finances and financial systems. The era of banking secrecy is over. We note that the OECD has today published a list of countries assessed by the Global Forum against the international standard for exchange of tax information;
· to call on the accounting standard setters to work urgently with supervisors and regulators to improve standards on valuation and provisioning and achieve a single set of high-quality global accounting standards; and
· to extend regulatory oversight and registration to Credit Rating Agencies to ensure they meet the international code of good practice, particularly to prevent unacceptable conflicts of interest.
16. We instruct our Finance Ministers to complete the implementation of these decisions in line with the timetable set out in the Action Plan. We have asked the FSB and the IMF to monitor progress, working with the Financial Action Taskforce and other relevant bodies, and to provide a report to the next meeting of our Finance Ministers in Scotland in November.
Strengthening our global financial institutions
17. Emerging markets and developing countries, which have been the engine of recent world growth, are also now facing challenges which are adding to the current downturn in the global economy. It is imperative for global confidence and economic recovery that capital continues to flow to them. This will require a substantial strengthening of the international financial institutions, particularly the IMF. We have therefore agreed today to make available an additional $850 billion of resources through the global financial institutions to support growth in emerging market and developing countries by helping to finance counter-cyclical spending, bank recapitalisation, infrastructure, trade finance, balance of payments support, debt rollover, and social support. To this end:
· we have agreed to increase the resources available to the IMF through immediate financing from members of $250 billion, subsequently incorporated into an expanded and more flexible New Arrangements to Borrow, increased by up to $500 billion, and to consider market borrowing if necessary; and
· we support a substantial increase in lending of at least $100 billion by the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), including to low income countries, and ensure that all MDBs, including have the appropriate capital.
18. It is essential that these resources can be used effectively and flexibly to support growth. We welcome in this respect the progress made by the IMF with its new Flexible Credit Line (FCL) and its reformed lending and conditionality framework which will enable the IMF to ensure that its facilities address effectively the underlying causes of countries' balance of payments financing needs, particularly the withdrawal of external capital flows to the banking and corporate sectors. We support Mexico's decision to seek an FCL arrangement.
19. We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250 billion into the world economy and increase global liquidity, and urgent ratification of the Fourth Amendment.
20. In order for our financial institutions to help manage the crisis and prevent future crises we must strengthen their longer term relevance, effectiveness and legitimacy. So alongside the significant increase in resources agreed today we are determined to reform and modernise the international financial institutions to ensure they can assist members and shareholders effectively in the new challenges they face. We will reform their mandates, scope and governance to reflect changes in the world economy and the new challenges of globalisation, and that emerging and developing economies, including the poorest, must have greater voice and representation. This must be accompanied by action to increase the credibility and accountability of the institutions through better strategic oversight and decision making. To this end:
· we commit to implementing the package of IMF quota and voice reforms agreed in April 2008 and call on the IMF to complete the next review of quotas by January 2011;
· we agree that, alongside this, consideration should be given to greater involvement of the Fund's Governors in providing strategic direction to the IMF and increasing its accountability;
· we commit to implementing the World Bank reforms agreed in October 2008. We look forward to further recommendations, at the next meetings, on voice and representation reforms on an accelerated timescale, to be agreed by the 2010 Spring Meetings;
· we agree that the heads and senior leadership of the international financial institutions should be appointed through an open, transparent, and merit-based selection process; and
· building on the current reviews of the IMF and World Bank we asked the Chairman, working with the G20 Finance Ministers, to consult widely in an inclusive process and report back to the next meeting with proposals for further reforms to improve the responsiveness and adaptability of the IFIs.
21. In addition to reforming our international financial institutions for the new challenges of globalisation we agreed on the desirability of a new global consensus on the key values and principles that will promote sustainable economic activity. We support discussion on such a charter for sustainable economic activity with a view to further discussion at our next meeting. We take note of the work started in other fora in this regard and look forward to further discussion of this charter for sustainable economic activity.
Resisting protectionism and promoting global trade and investment
22. World trade growth has underpinned rising prosperity for half a century. But it is now falling for the first time in 25 years. Falling demand is exacerbated by growing protectionist pressures and a withdrawal of trade credit. Reinvigorating world trade and investment is essential for restoring global growth. We will not repeat the historic mistakes of protectionism of previous eras. To this end:
· we reaffirm the commitment made in Washington: to refrain from raising new barriers to investment or to trade in goods and services, imposing new export restrictions, or implementing World Trade Organisation (WTO) inconsistent measures to stimulate exports. In addition we will rectify promptly any such measures. We extend this pledge to the end of 2010;
· we will minimise any negative impact on trade and investment of our domestic policy actions including fiscal policy and action in support of the financial sector. We will not retreat into financial protectionism, particularly measures that constrain worldwide capital flows, especially to developing countries;
· we will notify promptly the WTO of any such measures and we call on the WTO, together with other international bodies, within their respective mandates, to monitor and report publicly on our adherence to these undertakings on a quarterly basis;
· we will take, at the same time, whatever steps we can to promote and facilitate trade and investment; and
· we will ensure availability of at least $250 billion over the next two years to support trade finance through our export credit and investment agencies and through the MDBs. We also ask our regulators to make use of available flexibility in capital requirements for trade finance.
23. We remain committed to reaching an ambitious and balanced conclusion to the Doha Development Round, which is urgently needed. This could boost the global economy by at least $150 billion per annum. To achieve this we are committed to building on the progress already made, including with regard to modalities.
24. We will give renewed focus and political attention to this critical issue in the coming period and will use our continuing work and all international meetings that are relevant to drive progress.
Ensuring a fair and sustainable recovery for all
25. We are determined not only to restore growth but to lay the foundation for a fair and sustainable world economy. We recognise that the current crisis has a disproportionate impact on the vulnerable in the poorest countries and recognise our collective responsibility to mitigate the social impact of the crisis to minimise long-lasting damage to global potential. To this end:
· we reaffirm our historic commitment to meeting the Millennium Development Goals and to achieving our respective ODA [Overseas Development Agencies] pledges, including commitments on Aid for Trade, debt relief, and the Gleneagles commitments, especially to sub-Saharan Africa;
· the actions and decisions we have taken today will provide $50 billion to support social protection, boost trade and safeguard development in low income countries, as part of the significant increase in crisis support for these and other developing countries and emerging markets;
· we are making available resources for social protection for the poorest countries, including through investing in long-term food security and through voluntary bilateral contributions to the World Bank's Vulnerability Framework, including the Infrastructure Crisis Facility, and the Rapid Social Response Fund;
· we have committed, consistent with the new income model, that additional resources from agreed sales of IMF gold will be used, together with surplus income, to provide $6 billion additional concessional and flexible finance for the poorest countries over the next 2 to 3 years. We call on the IMF to come forward with concrete proposals at the Spring Meetings;
· we have agreed to review the flexibility of the Debt Sustainability Framework and call on the IMF and World Bank to report to the IMFC [International Monetary and Financial Committee] and Development Committee at the Annual Meetings; and
· we call on the UN, working with other global institutions, to establish an effective mechanism to monitor the impact of the crisis on the poorest and most vulnerable.
26. We recognise the human dimension to the crisis. We commit to support those affected by the crisis by creating employment opportunities and through income support measures. We will build a fair and family-friendly labour market for both women and men. We therefore welcome the reports of the London Jobs Conference and the Rome Social Summit and the key principles they proposed. We will support employment by stimulating growth, investing in education and training, and through active labour market policies, focusing on the most vulnerable. We call upon the ILO, working with other relevant organisations, to assess the actions taken and those required for the future.
27. We agreed to make the best possible use of investment funded by fiscal stimulus programmes towards the goal of building a resilient, sustainable, and green recovery. We will make the transition towards clean, innovative, resource efficient, low carbon technologies and infrastructure. We encourage the MDBs to contribute fully to the achievement of this objective. We will identify and work together on further measures to build sustainable economies.
28. We reaffirm our commitment to address the threat of irreversible climate change, based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, and to reach agreement at the UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen in December 2009.
Delivering our commitments
29. We have committed ourselves to work together with urgency and determination to translate these words into action. We agreed to meet again before the end of this year to review progress on our commitments.
The G20 countries are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the UK, the US and the EU.
1. We, the Leaders of the Group of Twenty, met in London on 2 April 2009.
2. We face the greatest challenge to the world economy in modern times; a crisis which has deepened since we last met, which affects the lives of women, men, and children in every country, and which all countries must join together to resolve. A global crisis requires a global solution.
3. We start from the belief that prosperity is indivisible; that growth, to be sustained, has to be shared; and that our global plan for recovery must have at its heart the needs and jobs of hard-working families, not just in developed countries but in emerging markets and the poorest countries of the world too; and must reflect the interests, not just of today's population, but of future generations too. We believe that the only sure foundation for sustainable globalisation and rising prosperity for all is an open world economy based on market principles, effective regulation, and strong global institutions.
4. We have today therefore pledged to do whatever is necessary to:
· restore confidence, growth, and jobs;
· repair the financial system to restore lending;
· strengthen financial regulation to rebuild trust;
· fund and reform our international financial institutions to overcome this crisis and prevent future ones;
· promote global trade and investment and reject protectionism, to underpin prosperity; and
· build an inclusive, green, and sustainable recovery.
By acting together to fulfil these pledges we will bring the world economy out of recession and prevent a crisis like this from recurring in the future.
5. The agreements we have reached today, to treble resources available to the IMF to $750 billion, to support a new SDR [IMF special drawing rights] allocation of $250 billion, to support at least $100 billion of additional lending by the MDBs [Multilateral Development Banks], to ensure $250 billion of support for trade finance, and to use the additional resources from agreed IMF gold sales for concessional finance for the poorest countries, constitute an additional $1.1 trillion programme of support to restore credit, growth and jobs in the world economy. Together with the measures we have each taken nationally, this constitutes a global plan for recovery on an unprecedented scale.
Restoring growth and jobs
6. We are undertaking an unprecedented and concerted fiscal expansion, which will save or create millions of jobs which would otherwise have been destroyed, and that will, by the end of next year, amount to $5 trillion, raise output by 4 per cent, and accelerate the transition to a green economy. We are committed to deliver the scale of sustained fiscal effort necessary to restore growth.
7. Our central banks have also taken exceptional action. Interest rates have been cut aggressively in most countries, and our central banks have pledged to maintain expansionary policies for as long as needed and to use the full range of monetary policy instruments, including unconventional instruments, consistent with price stability.
8. Our actions to restore growth cannot be effective until we restore domestic lending and international capital flows. We have provided significant and comprehensive support to our banking systems to provide liquidity, recapitalise financial institutions, and address decisively the problem of impaired assets. We are committed to take all necessary actions to restore the normal flow of credit through the financial system and ensure the soundness of systemically important institutions, implementing our policies in line with the agreed G20 framework for restoring lending and repairing the financial sector.
9. Taken together, these actions will constitute the largest fiscal and monetary stimulus and the most comprehensive support programme for the financial sector in modern times. Acting together strengthens the impact and the exceptional policy actions announced so far must be implemented without delay. Today, we have further agreed over $1 trillion of additional resources for the world economy through our international financial institutions and trade finance.
10. Last month the IMF estimated that world growth in real terms would resume and rise to over 2 percent by the end of 2010. We are confident that the actions we have agreed today, and our unshakeable commitment to work together to restore growth and jobs, while preserving long-term fiscal sustainability, will accelerate the return to trend growth. We commit today to taking whatever action is necessary to secure that outcome, and we call on the IMF to assess regularly the actions taken and the global actions required.
11. We are resolved to ensure long-term fiscal sustainability and price stability and will put in place credible exit strategies from the measures that need to be taken now to support the financial sector and restore global demand. We are convinced that by implementing our agreed policies we will limit the longer-term costs to our economies, thereby reducing the scale of the fiscal consolidation necessary over the longer term.
12. We will conduct all our economic policies cooperatively and responsibly with regard to the impact on other countries and will refrain from competitive devaluation of our currencies and promote a stable and well-functioning international monetary system. We will support, now and in the future, to candid, even-handed, and independent IMF surveillance of our economies and financial sectors, of the impact of our policies on others, and of risks facing the global economy.
Strengthening financial supervision and regulation
13. Major failures in the financial sector and in financial regulation and supervision were fundamental causes of the crisis. Confidence will not be restored until we rebuild trust in our financial system. We will take action to build a stronger, more globally consistent, supervisory and regulatory framework for the future financial sector, which will support sustainable global growth and serve the needs of business and citizens.
14. We each agree to ensure our domestic regulatory systems are strong. But we also agree to establish the much greater consistency and systematic cooperation between countries, and the framework of internationally agreed high standards, that a global financial system requires. Strengthened regulation and supervision must promote propriety, integrity and transparency; guard against risk across the financial system; dampen rather than amplify the financial and economic cycle; reduce reliance on inappropriately risky sources of financing; and discourage excessive risk-taking. Regulators and supervisors must protect consumers and investors, support market discipline, avoid adverse impacts on other countries, reduce the scope for regulatory arbitrage, support competition and dynamism, and keep pace with innovation in the marketplace.
15. To this end we are implementing the Action Plan agreed at our last meeting, as set out in the attached progress report. We have today also issued a Declaration, Strengthening the Financial System. In particular we agree:
· to establish a new Financial Stability Board (FSB) with a strengthened mandate, as a successor to the Financial Stability Forum (FSF), including all G20 countries, FSF members, Spain, and the European Commission;
· that the FSB should collaborate with the IMF to provide early warning of macroeconomic and financial risks and the actions needed to address them;
· to reshape our regulatory systems so that our authorities are able to identify and take account of macro-prudential risks;
· to extend regulation and oversight to all systemically important financial institutions, instruments and markets. This will include, for the first time, systemically important hedge funds;
· to endorse and implement the FSF's tough new principles on pay and compensation and to support sustainable compensation schemes and the corporate social responsibility of all firms;
· to take action, once recovery is assured, to improve the quality, quantity, and international consistency of capital in the banking system. In future, regulation must prevent excessive leverage and require buffers of resources to be built up in good times;
· to take action against non-cooperative jurisdictions, including tax havens. We stand ready to deploy sanctions to protect our public finances and financial systems. The era of banking secrecy is over. We note that the OECD has today published a list of countries assessed by the Global Forum against the international standard for exchange of tax information;
· to call on the accounting standard setters to work urgently with supervisors and regulators to improve standards on valuation and provisioning and achieve a single set of high-quality global accounting standards; and
· to extend regulatory oversight and registration to Credit Rating Agencies to ensure they meet the international code of good practice, particularly to prevent unacceptable conflicts of interest.
16. We instruct our Finance Ministers to complete the implementation of these decisions in line with the timetable set out in the Action Plan. We have asked the FSB and the IMF to monitor progress, working with the Financial Action Taskforce and other relevant bodies, and to provide a report to the next meeting of our Finance Ministers in Scotland in November.
Strengthening our global financial institutions
17. Emerging markets and developing countries, which have been the engine of recent world growth, are also now facing challenges which are adding to the current downturn in the global economy. It is imperative for global confidence and economic recovery that capital continues to flow to them. This will require a substantial strengthening of the international financial institutions, particularly the IMF. We have therefore agreed today to make available an additional $850 billion of resources through the global financial institutions to support growth in emerging market and developing countries by helping to finance counter-cyclical spending, bank recapitalisation, infrastructure, trade finance, balance of payments support, debt rollover, and social support. To this end:
· we have agreed to increase the resources available to the IMF through immediate financing from members of $250 billion, subsequently incorporated into an expanded and more flexible New Arrangements to Borrow, increased by up to $500 billion, and to consider market borrowing if necessary; and
· we support a substantial increase in lending of at least $100 billion by the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), including to low income countries, and ensure that all MDBs, including have the appropriate capital.
18. It is essential that these resources can be used effectively and flexibly to support growth. We welcome in this respect the progress made by the IMF with its new Flexible Credit Line (FCL) and its reformed lending and conditionality framework which will enable the IMF to ensure that its facilities address effectively the underlying causes of countries' balance of payments financing needs, particularly the withdrawal of external capital flows to the banking and corporate sectors. We support Mexico's decision to seek an FCL arrangement.
19. We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250 billion into the world economy and increase global liquidity, and urgent ratification of the Fourth Amendment.
20. In order for our financial institutions to help manage the crisis and prevent future crises we must strengthen their longer term relevance, effectiveness and legitimacy. So alongside the significant increase in resources agreed today we are determined to reform and modernise the international financial institutions to ensure they can assist members and shareholders effectively in the new challenges they face. We will reform their mandates, scope and governance to reflect changes in the world economy and the new challenges of globalisation, and that emerging and developing economies, including the poorest, must have greater voice and representation. This must be accompanied by action to increase the credibility and accountability of the institutions through better strategic oversight and decision making. To this end:
· we commit to implementing the package of IMF quota and voice reforms agreed in April 2008 and call on the IMF to complete the next review of quotas by January 2011;
· we agree that, alongside this, consideration should be given to greater involvement of the Fund's Governors in providing strategic direction to the IMF and increasing its accountability;
· we commit to implementing the World Bank reforms agreed in October 2008. We look forward to further recommendations, at the next meetings, on voice and representation reforms on an accelerated timescale, to be agreed by the 2010 Spring Meetings;
· we agree that the heads and senior leadership of the international financial institutions should be appointed through an open, transparent, and merit-based selection process; and
· building on the current reviews of the IMF and World Bank we asked the Chairman, working with the G20 Finance Ministers, to consult widely in an inclusive process and report back to the next meeting with proposals for further reforms to improve the responsiveness and adaptability of the IFIs.
21. In addition to reforming our international financial institutions for the new challenges of globalisation we agreed on the desirability of a new global consensus on the key values and principles that will promote sustainable economic activity. We support discussion on such a charter for sustainable economic activity with a view to further discussion at our next meeting. We take note of the work started in other fora in this regard and look forward to further discussion of this charter for sustainable economic activity.
Resisting protectionism and promoting global trade and investment
22. World trade growth has underpinned rising prosperity for half a century. But it is now falling for the first time in 25 years. Falling demand is exacerbated by growing protectionist pressures and a withdrawal of trade credit. Reinvigorating world trade and investment is essential for restoring global growth. We will not repeat the historic mistakes of protectionism of previous eras. To this end:
· we reaffirm the commitment made in Washington: to refrain from raising new barriers to investment or to trade in goods and services, imposing new export restrictions, or implementing World Trade Organisation (WTO) inconsistent measures to stimulate exports. In addition we will rectify promptly any such measures. We extend this pledge to the end of 2010;
· we will minimise any negative impact on trade and investment of our domestic policy actions including fiscal policy and action in support of the financial sector. We will not retreat into financial protectionism, particularly measures that constrain worldwide capital flows, especially to developing countries;
· we will notify promptly the WTO of any such measures and we call on the WTO, together with other international bodies, within their respective mandates, to monitor and report publicly on our adherence to these undertakings on a quarterly basis;
· we will take, at the same time, whatever steps we can to promote and facilitate trade and investment; and
· we will ensure availability of at least $250 billion over the next two years to support trade finance through our export credit and investment agencies and through the MDBs. We also ask our regulators to make use of available flexibility in capital requirements for trade finance.
23. We remain committed to reaching an ambitious and balanced conclusion to the Doha Development Round, which is urgently needed. This could boost the global economy by at least $150 billion per annum. To achieve this we are committed to building on the progress already made, including with regard to modalities.
24. We will give renewed focus and political attention to this critical issue in the coming period and will use our continuing work and all international meetings that are relevant to drive progress.
Ensuring a fair and sustainable recovery for all
25. We are determined not only to restore growth but to lay the foundation for a fair and sustainable world economy. We recognise that the current crisis has a disproportionate impact on the vulnerable in the poorest countries and recognise our collective responsibility to mitigate the social impact of the crisis to minimise long-lasting damage to global potential. To this end:
· we reaffirm our historic commitment to meeting the Millennium Development Goals and to achieving our respective ODA [Overseas Development Agencies] pledges, including commitments on Aid for Trade, debt relief, and the Gleneagles commitments, especially to sub-Saharan Africa;
· the actions and decisions we have taken today will provide $50 billion to support social protection, boost trade and safeguard development in low income countries, as part of the significant increase in crisis support for these and other developing countries and emerging markets;
· we are making available resources for social protection for the poorest countries, including through investing in long-term food security and through voluntary bilateral contributions to the World Bank's Vulnerability Framework, including the Infrastructure Crisis Facility, and the Rapid Social Response Fund;
· we have committed, consistent with the new income model, that additional resources from agreed sales of IMF gold will be used, together with surplus income, to provide $6 billion additional concessional and flexible finance for the poorest countries over the next 2 to 3 years. We call on the IMF to come forward with concrete proposals at the Spring Meetings;
· we have agreed to review the flexibility of the Debt Sustainability Framework and call on the IMF and World Bank to report to the IMFC [International Monetary and Financial Committee] and Development Committee at the Annual Meetings; and
· we call on the UN, working with other global institutions, to establish an effective mechanism to monitor the impact of the crisis on the poorest and most vulnerable.
26. We recognise the human dimension to the crisis. We commit to support those affected by the crisis by creating employment opportunities and through income support measures. We will build a fair and family-friendly labour market for both women and men. We therefore welcome the reports of the London Jobs Conference and the Rome Social Summit and the key principles they proposed. We will support employment by stimulating growth, investing in education and training, and through active labour market policies, focusing on the most vulnerable. We call upon the ILO, working with other relevant organisations, to assess the actions taken and those required for the future.
27. We agreed to make the best possible use of investment funded by fiscal stimulus programmes towards the goal of building a resilient, sustainable, and green recovery. We will make the transition towards clean, innovative, resource efficient, low carbon technologies and infrastructure. We encourage the MDBs to contribute fully to the achievement of this objective. We will identify and work together on further measures to build sustainable economies.
28. We reaffirm our commitment to address the threat of irreversible climate change, based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, and to reach agreement at the UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen in December 2009.
Delivering our commitments
29. We have committed ourselves to work together with urgency and determination to translate these words into action. We agreed to meet again before the end of this year to review progress on our commitments.
02 April, 2009
Halliburton - EFCC Quizzes More Suspects.
This Day
By Chika Amanze-Nwachuku and Ali M Ali
2 April 2009
Top government officials and others alleged to have collected bribes from Halliburton Group to secure Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contracts in the country may soon have their day in court.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has interrogated some of the alleged bribe takers and may soon commence legal action against them.
Besides, the anti-graft body is said to have written the Attorney-General of the Federation to formally apply to the United States Justice Department to avail it (EFCC) of the details of the judgment delivered in the matter, including the evidence tendered during the trial of the foreigners implicated in the bribery case.
EFCC Chairman Farida Waziri, who confirmed the development yesterday in Abuja during a chat with newsmen at the opening of the Third Anti-Money Laundering/ Counter Financing of Terrorism Stakeholders' Summit, said the Nigerian officials fingered in the $180 million contract scam had made written statements to the commission.
The top government officials and other prominent Nigerians were alleged to have accepted at least N27 billion in bribes from the oil services companies to facilitate the contracts for the building of the country's liquefied natural gas plant put at $6 billion.
Former Energy Minister, Dr. Edmund Daukoru, and former Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr. Funsho Kupolokun, were among scores of persons quizzed last year in the wake of the bribery scandal.
But THISDAY learnt that more Nigerian officials have also been quizzed over the matter.
The EFCC Chairman who declined to name the interrogated officials said the commission would intensify efforts to stop foreign nationals from using undue advantage to perpetrate corruption in Nigeria.
Waziri, however, said the commission was requesting the Attorney-General and Justice Minister Michael Aondoakaa to write to the US Department of Justice for details of the court judgment which indicted some Nigerian public officers and officials of the Halliburton Group.
The charge recently brought against two citizens of the United Kingdom, Jeffrey Tesler, 60, of London, England, and Wojciech Chodan, 71, of Maidenhead, England by the US Justice Department, revealed that some high level Nigerian government officials, including top level executive branch officials, including employees of the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) were alleged to have obtained billions of dollar bribe from Halliburton to secure the juicy EPC contracts.
The EFCC boss said: "We are working on that case. We have written to the Attorney-General of the Federation on the need to have a copy of the court judgment so that we can see the roles and the names of all actors and what each person did. We have since invited some people that were mentioned and we recorded their statements. We are working on it. Nobody is above the laws of the land, the law is no respecter of persons, and everybody is equal before the laws of the land. So whether they are prominent or obscure if you are indicted and our investigation proved that you breached the law, of course, you are liable."
She pointed out that the commission was on top of developments on the matter and would follow the issue closely as soon as the Attorney-General furnished it with details of the judgment.
Commenting on EFCC's running battle with the Vaswani Brothers, Waziri warned that henceforth foreigners doing business in the country would not be allowed to defile the laws of the land.
"We can not allow foreigners to come in here and take advantage of us and do what they like because I know that we can't go out there and do one quarter of what they are doing in this country, we will not allow that," she said
The Attorney-General of the Federation recently wrote to his US counterpart requesting names and details of the bribe takers in respect of the Halliburton scandal.
THISDAY, however, learnt that the information being sought will assist the commission in its investigation, as the investigating officers will have to study the statements made by the foreign collaborators to ascertain the level of involvement of their Nigerian counterparts.
A source said as soon as the legal information is obtained, the commission would commence legal proceedings against those found culpable.
The bribe was in connection with four contracts for engineering, procurement and construction of Bonny Island Liquefied Natural Gas terminal worth more than $6 billion.
Investigation into the scandal which broke out in 2003 suffered a setback due to the failure by the alleged foreign collaborators to provide useful information to the Nigerian investigators.
But the Federal Government has written to the US government, demanding that individuals involved in the Halliburton bribery scandal be named.
In a letter signed by Aondoakaa and addressed to the US Attorney-General, Mr. Eric Holder, the Justice Minister asked his US counterpart to avail the Nigerian government of all the evidence in his possession on the scandal.
The letter, dated February 17, 2009, said it was obvious from the allocution and indictment of Mr. Albert Stanley Jackson that the US was aware of the identities of the persons who assisted Jackson in committing the crimes.
He demanded that all information and names of the individuals involved in the scandal be named.
Aondoakaa also introduced Messrs Kayode Oladele and Jack Blum as attorneys appointed by the Nigerian government to liaise with the US government's relevant authorities to release all the information and documents in their possession on the investigation of Jackson relating to the evidence gathered and presented to the grand jury during the trial.
Meanwhile, Aondoakaa has called for concerted efforts in the fight against money laundering.
Speaking at the stakeholders' summit in Abuja, the Justice Minister also called for joint efforts in the fight against the financing of terrorism and other forms of corruption.
Represented by Mr. Salihu Aliu, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), the minister assured anti-corruption bodies of the political support in the execution of their statutory mandates.
"This has become imperative given the current global financial crisis, as the revenue available to government and institutions faces increasing depletion.
"There is also the need for us all to ensure that the available resources are utilised in a more transparent, prudent and accountable manner," Aondoakaa said.
The attorney general of the federation said the effect of corruption on national growth and development was enormous.
"The challenge that now confronts us as stakeholders is to ensure that we develop the appropriate legal and institutional mechanisms to counter corruption wherever it may manifest," he added.
By Chika Amanze-Nwachuku and Ali M Ali
2 April 2009
Top government officials and others alleged to have collected bribes from Halliburton Group to secure Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contracts in the country may soon have their day in court.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has interrogated some of the alleged bribe takers and may soon commence legal action against them.
Besides, the anti-graft body is said to have written the Attorney-General of the Federation to formally apply to the United States Justice Department to avail it (EFCC) of the details of the judgment delivered in the matter, including the evidence tendered during the trial of the foreigners implicated in the bribery case.
EFCC Chairman Farida Waziri, who confirmed the development yesterday in Abuja during a chat with newsmen at the opening of the Third Anti-Money Laundering/ Counter Financing of Terrorism Stakeholders' Summit, said the Nigerian officials fingered in the $180 million contract scam had made written statements to the commission.
The top government officials and other prominent Nigerians were alleged to have accepted at least N27 billion in bribes from the oil services companies to facilitate the contracts for the building of the country's liquefied natural gas plant put at $6 billion.
Former Energy Minister, Dr. Edmund Daukoru, and former Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr. Funsho Kupolokun, were among scores of persons quizzed last year in the wake of the bribery scandal.
But THISDAY learnt that more Nigerian officials have also been quizzed over the matter.
The EFCC Chairman who declined to name the interrogated officials said the commission would intensify efforts to stop foreign nationals from using undue advantage to perpetrate corruption in Nigeria.
Waziri, however, said the commission was requesting the Attorney-General and Justice Minister Michael Aondoakaa to write to the US Department of Justice for details of the court judgment which indicted some Nigerian public officers and officials of the Halliburton Group.
The charge recently brought against two citizens of the United Kingdom, Jeffrey Tesler, 60, of London, England, and Wojciech Chodan, 71, of Maidenhead, England by the US Justice Department, revealed that some high level Nigerian government officials, including top level executive branch officials, including employees of the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) were alleged to have obtained billions of dollar bribe from Halliburton to secure the juicy EPC contracts.
The EFCC boss said: "We are working on that case. We have written to the Attorney-General of the Federation on the need to have a copy of the court judgment so that we can see the roles and the names of all actors and what each person did. We have since invited some people that were mentioned and we recorded their statements. We are working on it. Nobody is above the laws of the land, the law is no respecter of persons, and everybody is equal before the laws of the land. So whether they are prominent or obscure if you are indicted and our investigation proved that you breached the law, of course, you are liable."
She pointed out that the commission was on top of developments on the matter and would follow the issue closely as soon as the Attorney-General furnished it with details of the judgment.
Commenting on EFCC's running battle with the Vaswani Brothers, Waziri warned that henceforth foreigners doing business in the country would not be allowed to defile the laws of the land.
"We can not allow foreigners to come in here and take advantage of us and do what they like because I know that we can't go out there and do one quarter of what they are doing in this country, we will not allow that," she said
The Attorney-General of the Federation recently wrote to his US counterpart requesting names and details of the bribe takers in respect of the Halliburton scandal.
THISDAY, however, learnt that the information being sought will assist the commission in its investigation, as the investigating officers will have to study the statements made by the foreign collaborators to ascertain the level of involvement of their Nigerian counterparts.
A source said as soon as the legal information is obtained, the commission would commence legal proceedings against those found culpable.
The bribe was in connection with four contracts for engineering, procurement and construction of Bonny Island Liquefied Natural Gas terminal worth more than $6 billion.
Investigation into the scandal which broke out in 2003 suffered a setback due to the failure by the alleged foreign collaborators to provide useful information to the Nigerian investigators.
But the Federal Government has written to the US government, demanding that individuals involved in the Halliburton bribery scandal be named.
In a letter signed by Aondoakaa and addressed to the US Attorney-General, Mr. Eric Holder, the Justice Minister asked his US counterpart to avail the Nigerian government of all the evidence in his possession on the scandal.
The letter, dated February 17, 2009, said it was obvious from the allocution and indictment of Mr. Albert Stanley Jackson that the US was aware of the identities of the persons who assisted Jackson in committing the crimes.
He demanded that all information and names of the individuals involved in the scandal be named.
Aondoakaa also introduced Messrs Kayode Oladele and Jack Blum as attorneys appointed by the Nigerian government to liaise with the US government's relevant authorities to release all the information and documents in their possession on the investigation of Jackson relating to the evidence gathered and presented to the grand jury during the trial.
Meanwhile, Aondoakaa has called for concerted efforts in the fight against money laundering.
Speaking at the stakeholders' summit in Abuja, the Justice Minister also called for joint efforts in the fight against the financing of terrorism and other forms of corruption.
Represented by Mr. Salihu Aliu, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), the minister assured anti-corruption bodies of the political support in the execution of their statutory mandates.
"This has become imperative given the current global financial crisis, as the revenue available to government and institutions faces increasing depletion.
"There is also the need for us all to ensure that the available resources are utilised in a more transparent, prudent and accountable manner," Aondoakaa said.
The attorney general of the federation said the effect of corruption on national growth and development was enormous.
"The challenge that now confronts us as stakeholders is to ensure that we develop the appropriate legal and institutional mechanisms to counter corruption wherever it may manifest," he added.
EFCC to Probe Halliburton Bribery Scandal.
Vanguard
By Ise-Oluwa Ige & Bukola Ojeme
2 April 2009
Abuja — THE Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) yesterday said it is set to launch investigations into the alleged involvement of some Nigerian officials over the Halliburton bribe scandal.
About $180 million was paid out as bribe through a subsidiary of Halliburton, Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), to facilitate the award of $6 billion LNG contracts.
Meanwhile, April 14 has been set for hearing after a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja gave the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) the green light to prosecute a lawsuit seeking an order compelling the EFCC to probe and prosecute former President Olusegun Obasanjo over alleged corruption.
EFCC chairman, Mrs Farida Waziri, said the Commission has requested the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice to furnish it with details of Nigerian officials indicted in the Halliburton bribe scam as well as the actual judgment against them.
She made this known in Abuja during the opening of the 3rd Anti-Money Laundering/Counter Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Compliance Stakeholders summit expected to end today in Abuja.
The EFCC boss also affirmed that investigations into the matter would be professionally executed, without prejudice to the calibre of those involved.
Her words: "Yes, we are working on that case. We have written to the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) on the need to have the actual court judgment so that we can see the actual names; what each person did. We even invited some people that were mentioned specifically, we recorded their statements and we are working on it.
"You know, nobody is above the laws of the land, the law is no respecter of persons, and everybody is equal before the law. So, I don't know whether prominent or whatever; if you are indicted, if our investigations prove that you have breached the law, of course you are liable," Waziri added.
The EFCC boss further reiterated the need for AML/CFT compliance to economic growth, insisting that "the current economic crisis calls for concerted effort on the part of every country to comply with and ensure effective implementation of anti-money laundering programmes."
"Nigeria must stand tall in this endeavour among the comity of nations. We must stand to be counted as a nation. It is important to mention that there is a nexus between AML/CFT and the achievement of the Federal Government's 7-Point Agenda; attainment of Vision 2020 and ultimately, a sustainable economic growth", she said.
Waziri warned that, the EFCC will not stay on the sidelines "while the economic stability of the country is sacrificed on the altar of unethical business practices. We will strictly enforce the Money Laundering compliance requirements of the law.
"Where market operators and reporting entities are found wanting, the commission will firmly and decisively deal with defaulters. In this context, it may interest the audience and market operators to know that the Commission intends to develop and apply administrative sanctions against entities that fail to adhere with the money laundering compliance requirements of the law" she added.
Also speaking at the event, the House Committee Chairman on Narcotics and Financial Crimes, Nasir Rabe said that the EFCC has all the tools and enabling laws to fight corruption to a standstill as well as curb it.
CNPP's move to compel Obasanjo's probe get green light
Meanwhile, a Federal high court sitting in Abuja has given the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) the green light to prosecute a lawsuit seeking an order compelling the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to probe and prosecute former President Olusegun Obasanjo over alleged corruption.
Obasanjo was accused by CNPP of diversion of public funds and illegal enrichment.
Similarly, the trial high court judge, Justice Adamu Bello who granted the association permission to sue EFCC has also granted leave to the umbrella organisation of the political parties in the country to pursue an order of mandamus compelling EFCC to probe and prosecute former Executive Secretary of PTDF, Alhaji Adamu Waziri over corruption and diversion of public funds.
The judge had directed the CNPP to serve the court order on the anti-graft agency to enable it defend the suit. The CNPP had written two separate petitions to EFCC under the leadership of Alhaji Nuhu Ribadu alleging corruption against the two top public officials. But the petition did not give specific details of how the corruption was perpetrated.
The EFCC had consequently written back to the CNPP to assist it in beefing up the petition by giving specific details. Ever since, nothing was done on the petitions.
Aggrieved by the position of EFCC, CNPP filed a suit before the Federal high court seeking an order of mandamus compelling EFCC to perform its statutory function of probing the allegations made against the two top public officials.
It was the contention of the CNPP that its own was to alert while EFCC's responsibility was to follow up, probe and prosecute where there is prima facie evidence against them.
By procedure, the CNPP first sought for the leave of the court to commence the legal action against the anti-graft agency
The court has not only granted it but also fixed April 14 for commencement of hearing in the case. The EFCC is expected to come up with its defence or and preliminary objection on the adjourned date.
It is likely too that both ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo and Adamu Waziri may file an application for joinder as necessary parties in the case.
By Ise-Oluwa Ige & Bukola Ojeme
2 April 2009
Abuja — THE Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) yesterday said it is set to launch investigations into the alleged involvement of some Nigerian officials over the Halliburton bribe scandal.
About $180 million was paid out as bribe through a subsidiary of Halliburton, Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), to facilitate the award of $6 billion LNG contracts.
Meanwhile, April 14 has been set for hearing after a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja gave the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) the green light to prosecute a lawsuit seeking an order compelling the EFCC to probe and prosecute former President Olusegun Obasanjo over alleged corruption.
EFCC chairman, Mrs Farida Waziri, said the Commission has requested the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice to furnish it with details of Nigerian officials indicted in the Halliburton bribe scam as well as the actual judgment against them.
She made this known in Abuja during the opening of the 3rd Anti-Money Laundering/Counter Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Compliance Stakeholders summit expected to end today in Abuja.
The EFCC boss also affirmed that investigations into the matter would be professionally executed, without prejudice to the calibre of those involved.
Her words: "Yes, we are working on that case. We have written to the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) on the need to have the actual court judgment so that we can see the actual names; what each person did. We even invited some people that were mentioned specifically, we recorded their statements and we are working on it.
"You know, nobody is above the laws of the land, the law is no respecter of persons, and everybody is equal before the law. So, I don't know whether prominent or whatever; if you are indicted, if our investigations prove that you have breached the law, of course you are liable," Waziri added.
The EFCC boss further reiterated the need for AML/CFT compliance to economic growth, insisting that "the current economic crisis calls for concerted effort on the part of every country to comply with and ensure effective implementation of anti-money laundering programmes."
"Nigeria must stand tall in this endeavour among the comity of nations. We must stand to be counted as a nation. It is important to mention that there is a nexus between AML/CFT and the achievement of the Federal Government's 7-Point Agenda; attainment of Vision 2020 and ultimately, a sustainable economic growth", she said.
Waziri warned that, the EFCC will not stay on the sidelines "while the economic stability of the country is sacrificed on the altar of unethical business practices. We will strictly enforce the Money Laundering compliance requirements of the law.
"Where market operators and reporting entities are found wanting, the commission will firmly and decisively deal with defaulters. In this context, it may interest the audience and market operators to know that the Commission intends to develop and apply administrative sanctions against entities that fail to adhere with the money laundering compliance requirements of the law" she added.
Also speaking at the event, the House Committee Chairman on Narcotics and Financial Crimes, Nasir Rabe said that the EFCC has all the tools and enabling laws to fight corruption to a standstill as well as curb it.
CNPP's move to compel Obasanjo's probe get green light
Meanwhile, a Federal high court sitting in Abuja has given the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) the green light to prosecute a lawsuit seeking an order compelling the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to probe and prosecute former President Olusegun Obasanjo over alleged corruption.
Obasanjo was accused by CNPP of diversion of public funds and illegal enrichment.
Similarly, the trial high court judge, Justice Adamu Bello who granted the association permission to sue EFCC has also granted leave to the umbrella organisation of the political parties in the country to pursue an order of mandamus compelling EFCC to probe and prosecute former Executive Secretary of PTDF, Alhaji Adamu Waziri over corruption and diversion of public funds.
The judge had directed the CNPP to serve the court order on the anti-graft agency to enable it defend the suit. The CNPP had written two separate petitions to EFCC under the leadership of Alhaji Nuhu Ribadu alleging corruption against the two top public officials. But the petition did not give specific details of how the corruption was perpetrated.
The EFCC had consequently written back to the CNPP to assist it in beefing up the petition by giving specific details. Ever since, nothing was done on the petitions.
Aggrieved by the position of EFCC, CNPP filed a suit before the Federal high court seeking an order of mandamus compelling EFCC to perform its statutory function of probing the allegations made against the two top public officials.
It was the contention of the CNPP that its own was to alert while EFCC's responsibility was to follow up, probe and prosecute where there is prima facie evidence against them.
By procedure, the CNPP first sought for the leave of the court to commence the legal action against the anti-graft agency
The court has not only granted it but also fixed April 14 for commencement of hearing in the case. The EFCC is expected to come up with its defence or and preliminary objection on the adjourned date.
It is likely too that both ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo and Adamu Waziri may file an application for joinder as necessary parties in the case.
01 April, 2009
TEXT-Israeli-Palestinian commitments at 2007 peace meeting.
1 April 2009
The following joint statement was issued at the conference in Annapolis, Maryland, which was hosted by then-U.S. President George W. Bush, in Nov. 2007:
"The representatives of the Government of the State of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), represented respectively by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Mahmoud Abbas, in his capacity as Chairman of the PLO Executive Committee and President of the Palestinian Authority, have convened in Annapolis, Maryland, under the auspices of President George W. Bush of the United States of America, and with the support of the participants of this international conference, having concluded the following Joint Understanding:
"We express our determination to bring an end to bloodshed, suffering and decades of conflict between our peoples, to usher in a new era of peace, based on freedom, security, justice, dignity, respect and mutual recognition, to propagate a culture of peace and non-violence, and to confront terrorism and incitement, whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis.
"In furtherance of the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security:
"* We agree to immediately launch good faith bilateral negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues, without exception, as specified in previous agreements.
"* We agree to engage in vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations, and shall make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008.
"* For this purpose, a steering committee, led jointly by the head of the delegation of each party, will meet continuously, as agreed.
"* The steering committee will develop a joint work plan and establish and oversee the work of negotiations teams to address all issues, to be headed by one lead representative from each party.
"* The first session of the steering committee will be held on 12 December 2007.
"* President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert will continue to meet on a bi-weekly basis to follow up the negotiations in order to offer all necessary assistance for their advancement.
"The parties also commit to immediately implement their respective obligations under the Performance-Based Road Map to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israel-Palestinian Conflict, issued by the Quartet on 30 April 2003 (hereinafter, "the Roadmap") and agree to form an American, Palestinian and Israeli mechanism, led by the United States, to follow up on the implementation of the Roadmap. The parties further commit to continue the implementation of the ongoing obligations of the Roadmap until they reach a peace treaty. The United States will monitor and judge the fulfillment of the commitments of both sides of the Roadmap.
"Unless otherwise agreed by the parties, implementation of the future peace treaty will be subject to the implementation of the Roadmap, as judged by the United States.
"In conclusion, we express our profound appreciation to the President of the United States and his Administration, and to the participants of this international conference, for their support for our bilateral peace process." (Source: Israeli Foreign Ministry www.mfa.gov.il))
The following joint statement was issued at the conference in Annapolis, Maryland, which was hosted by then-U.S. President George W. Bush, in Nov. 2007:
"The representatives of the Government of the State of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), represented respectively by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Mahmoud Abbas, in his capacity as Chairman of the PLO Executive Committee and President of the Palestinian Authority, have convened in Annapolis, Maryland, under the auspices of President George W. Bush of the United States of America, and with the support of the participants of this international conference, having concluded the following Joint Understanding:
"We express our determination to bring an end to bloodshed, suffering and decades of conflict between our peoples, to usher in a new era of peace, based on freedom, security, justice, dignity, respect and mutual recognition, to propagate a culture of peace and non-violence, and to confront terrorism and incitement, whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis.
"In furtherance of the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security:
"* We agree to immediately launch good faith bilateral negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues, without exception, as specified in previous agreements.
"* We agree to engage in vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations, and shall make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008.
"* For this purpose, a steering committee, led jointly by the head of the delegation of each party, will meet continuously, as agreed.
"* The steering committee will develop a joint work plan and establish and oversee the work of negotiations teams to address all issues, to be headed by one lead representative from each party.
"* The first session of the steering committee will be held on 12 December 2007.
"* President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert will continue to meet on a bi-weekly basis to follow up the negotiations in order to offer all necessary assistance for their advancement.
"The parties also commit to immediately implement their respective obligations under the Performance-Based Road Map to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israel-Palestinian Conflict, issued by the Quartet on 30 April 2003 (hereinafter, "the Roadmap") and agree to form an American, Palestinian and Israeli mechanism, led by the United States, to follow up on the implementation of the Roadmap. The parties further commit to continue the implementation of the ongoing obligations of the Roadmap until they reach a peace treaty. The United States will monitor and judge the fulfillment of the commitments of both sides of the Roadmap.
"Unless otherwise agreed by the parties, implementation of the future peace treaty will be subject to the implementation of the Roadmap, as judged by the United States.
"In conclusion, we express our profound appreciation to the President of the United States and his Administration, and to the participants of this international conference, for their support for our bilateral peace process." (Source: Israeli Foreign Ministry www.mfa.gov.il))
Text of US-Russia statement on nuclear arms, other global issues.
1 April 2009
Text of a joint statement by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama, as released by the White House on Wednesday:
Reaffirming that the era when our countries viewed each other as enemies is long over, and recognizing our many common interests, we today established a substantive agenda for Russia and the United States to be developed over the coming months and years. We are resolved to work together to strengthen strategic stability, international security, and jointly meet contemporary global challenges, while also addressing disagreements openly and honestly in a spirit of mutual respect and acknowledgment of each others perspective.
We discussed measures to overcome the effects of the global economic crisis, strengthen the international monetary and financial system, restore economic growth, and advance regulatory efforts to ensure that such a crisis does not happen again.
We also discussed nuclear arms control and reduction. As leaders of the two largest nuclear weapons states, we agreed to work together to fulfill our obligations under Article VI of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and demonstrate leadership in reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world. We committed our two countries to achieving a nuclear free world, while recognizing that this long-term goal will require a new emphasis on arms control and conflict resolution measures, and their full implementation by all concerned nations. We agreed to pursue new and verifiable reductions in our strategic offensive arsenals in a step-by-step process, beginning by replacing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with a new, legally binding treaty. We are instructing our negotiators to start talks immediately on this new treaty and to report on results achieved in working out the new agreement by July.
While acknowledging that differences remain over the purposes of deployment of missile defense assets in Europe, we discussed new possibilities for mutual international cooperation in the field of missile defense, taking into account joint assessments of missile challenges and threats, aimed at enhancing the security of our countries, and that of our allies and partners.
The relationship between offensive and defensive arms will be discussed by the two governments.
We intend to carry out joint efforts to strengthen the international regime for nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery. In this regard we strongly support the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), and are committed to its further strengthening.
Together, we seek to secure nuclear weapons and materials, while promoting the safe use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. We support the activities of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and stress the importance of the IAEA Safeguards system. We seek universal adherence to IAEA comprehensive safeguards, as provided for in Article III of the NPT, and to the Additional Protocol and urge the ratification and implementation of these agreements.
We will deepen cooperation to combat nuclear terrorism. We will seek to further promote the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, which now unites 75 countries. We also support international negotiations for a verifiable treaty to end the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons.
As a key measure of nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, we underscored the importance of the entering into force the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. In this respect, President Obama confirmed his commitment to work for American ratification of this Treaty.
We applaud the achievements made through the Nuclear Security Initiative launched in Bratislava in 2005, including to minimize the civilian use of Highly Enriched Uranium, and we seek to continue bilateral collaboration to improve and sustain nuclear security. We agreed to examine possible new initiatives to promote international cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy while strengthening the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
We welcome the work of the IAEA on multilateral approaches to the nuclear fuel cycle and encourage efforts to develop mutually beneficial approaches with states considering nuclear energy or considering expansion of existing nuclear energy programs in conformity with their rights and obligations under the NPT. To facilitate cooperation in the safe use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, both sides will work to bring into force the bilateral Agreement for Cooperation in the Field of Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy.
To strengthen nonproliferation efforts, we also declare our intent to give new impetus to implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1540 on preventing non-state actors from obtaining WMD-related materials and technologies.
We agreed to work on a bilateral basis and at international forums to resolve regional conflicts.
We agreed that al-Qaida and other terrorist and insurgent groups operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan pose a common threat to many nations, including the United States and Russia. We agreed to work toward and support a coordinated international response with the U.N. playing a key role. We also agreed that a similar coordinated and international approach should be applied to counter the flow of narcotics from Afghanistan, as well as illegal supplies of precursors to this country. Both sides agreed to work out new ways of cooperation to facilitate international efforts of stabilization, reconstruction and development in Afghanistan, including in the regional context.
We support the continuation of the Six-Party Talks at an early date and agreed to continue to pursue the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in accordance with purposes and principles of the September 19, 2005, Joint Statement and subsequent consensus documents. We also expressed concern that a North Korean ballistic missile launch would be damaging to peace and stability in the region and agreed to urge the DPRK to exercise restraint and observe relevant UN Security Council resolutions.
While we recognize that under the NPT Iran has the right to a civilian nuclear program, Iran needs to restore confidence in its exclusively peaceful nature. We underline that Iran, as any other Non-Nuclear Weapons State-Party to the NPT, has assumed the obligation under Article II of that Treaty in relation to its non-nuclear weapon status. We call on Iran to fully implement the relevant U.N. Security Council and the IAEA Board of Governors resolutions, including provision of required cooperation with the IAEA. We reiterated their commitment to pursue a comprehensive diplomatic solution, including direct diplomacy and through P5+1 negotiations, and urged Iran to seize this opportunity to address the international communitys concerns.
We also started a dialogue on security and stability in Europe. Although we disagree about the causes and sequence of the military actions of last August, we agreed that we must continue efforts toward a peaceful and lasting solution to the unstable situation today. Bearing in mind that significant differences remain between us, we nonetheless stress the importance of last years six-point accord of August 12, the September 8 agreement, and other relevant agreements, and pursuing effective cooperation in the Geneva discussions to bring stability to the region.
We agreed that the resumption of activities of the NATO-Russia Council is a positive step. We welcomed the participation of an American delegation at the special Conference on Afghanistan convened under the auspices of Shanghai Cooperation Organization last month.
We discussed our interest in exploring a comprehensive dialogue on strengthening Euro-Atlantic and European security, including existing commitments and President Medvedevs June 2008 proposals on these issues. The OSCE is one of the key multilateral venues for this dialogue, as is the NATO-Russia Council.
We also agreed that our future meetings must include discussions of transnational threats such as terrorism, organized crime, corruption and narcotics, with the aim of enhancing our cooperation in countering these threats and strengthening international efforts in these fields, including through joint actions and initiatives.
We will strive to give rise to a new dynamic in our economic links, including the launch of an intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation and the intensification of our business dialogue. Especially during these difficult economic times, our business leaders must pursue all opportunities for generating economic activity. We both pledged to instruct our governments to make efforts to finalize as soon as possible Russias accession into the World Trade Organization and continue working towards the creation of favorable conditions for the development of Russia-U.S. economic ties.
We also pledge to promote cooperation in implementing Global Energy Security Principles, adopted at the G-8 summit in St. Petersburg in 2006, including improving energy efficiency and the development of clean energy technologies.
Today we have outlined a comprehensive and ambitious work plan for our two governments. We both affirmed a mutual desire to organize contacts between our two governments in a more structured and regular way. Greater institutionalized interactions between our ministries and departments make success more likely in meeting the ambitious goals that we have established today.
At the same time, we also discussed the desire for greater cooperation not only between our governments, but also between our societies — more scientific cooperation, more students studying in each others country, more cultural exchanges and more cooperation between our nongovernmental organizations. In our relations with each other, we also seek to be guided by the rule of law, respect for fundamental freedoms and human rights, and tolerance for different views.
We, the leaders of Russia and the United States, are ready to move beyond Cold War mentalities and chart a fresh start in relations between our two countries. In just a few months we have worked hard to establish a new tone in our relations. Now it is time to get down to business and translate our warm words into actual achievements of benefit to Russia, the United States, and all those around the world interested in peace and prosperity.
Text of a joint statement by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama, as released by the White House on Wednesday:
Reaffirming that the era when our countries viewed each other as enemies is long over, and recognizing our many common interests, we today established a substantive agenda for Russia and the United States to be developed over the coming months and years. We are resolved to work together to strengthen strategic stability, international security, and jointly meet contemporary global challenges, while also addressing disagreements openly and honestly in a spirit of mutual respect and acknowledgment of each others perspective.
We discussed measures to overcome the effects of the global economic crisis, strengthen the international monetary and financial system, restore economic growth, and advance regulatory efforts to ensure that such a crisis does not happen again.
We also discussed nuclear arms control and reduction. As leaders of the two largest nuclear weapons states, we agreed to work together to fulfill our obligations under Article VI of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and demonstrate leadership in reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world. We committed our two countries to achieving a nuclear free world, while recognizing that this long-term goal will require a new emphasis on arms control and conflict resolution measures, and their full implementation by all concerned nations. We agreed to pursue new and verifiable reductions in our strategic offensive arsenals in a step-by-step process, beginning by replacing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with a new, legally binding treaty. We are instructing our negotiators to start talks immediately on this new treaty and to report on results achieved in working out the new agreement by July.
While acknowledging that differences remain over the purposes of deployment of missile defense assets in Europe, we discussed new possibilities for mutual international cooperation in the field of missile defense, taking into account joint assessments of missile challenges and threats, aimed at enhancing the security of our countries, and that of our allies and partners.
The relationship between offensive and defensive arms will be discussed by the two governments.
We intend to carry out joint efforts to strengthen the international regime for nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery. In this regard we strongly support the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), and are committed to its further strengthening.
Together, we seek to secure nuclear weapons and materials, while promoting the safe use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. We support the activities of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and stress the importance of the IAEA Safeguards system. We seek universal adherence to IAEA comprehensive safeguards, as provided for in Article III of the NPT, and to the Additional Protocol and urge the ratification and implementation of these agreements.
We will deepen cooperation to combat nuclear terrorism. We will seek to further promote the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, which now unites 75 countries. We also support international negotiations for a verifiable treaty to end the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons.
As a key measure of nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, we underscored the importance of the entering into force the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. In this respect, President Obama confirmed his commitment to work for American ratification of this Treaty.
We applaud the achievements made through the Nuclear Security Initiative launched in Bratislava in 2005, including to minimize the civilian use of Highly Enriched Uranium, and we seek to continue bilateral collaboration to improve and sustain nuclear security. We agreed to examine possible new initiatives to promote international cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy while strengthening the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
We welcome the work of the IAEA on multilateral approaches to the nuclear fuel cycle and encourage efforts to develop mutually beneficial approaches with states considering nuclear energy or considering expansion of existing nuclear energy programs in conformity with their rights and obligations under the NPT. To facilitate cooperation in the safe use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, both sides will work to bring into force the bilateral Agreement for Cooperation in the Field of Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy.
To strengthen nonproliferation efforts, we also declare our intent to give new impetus to implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1540 on preventing non-state actors from obtaining WMD-related materials and technologies.
We agreed to work on a bilateral basis and at international forums to resolve regional conflicts.
We agreed that al-Qaida and other terrorist and insurgent groups operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan pose a common threat to many nations, including the United States and Russia. We agreed to work toward and support a coordinated international response with the U.N. playing a key role. We also agreed that a similar coordinated and international approach should be applied to counter the flow of narcotics from Afghanistan, as well as illegal supplies of precursors to this country. Both sides agreed to work out new ways of cooperation to facilitate international efforts of stabilization, reconstruction and development in Afghanistan, including in the regional context.
We support the continuation of the Six-Party Talks at an early date and agreed to continue to pursue the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in accordance with purposes and principles of the September 19, 2005, Joint Statement and subsequent consensus documents. We also expressed concern that a North Korean ballistic missile launch would be damaging to peace and stability in the region and agreed to urge the DPRK to exercise restraint and observe relevant UN Security Council resolutions.
While we recognize that under the NPT Iran has the right to a civilian nuclear program, Iran needs to restore confidence in its exclusively peaceful nature. We underline that Iran, as any other Non-Nuclear Weapons State-Party to the NPT, has assumed the obligation under Article II of that Treaty in relation to its non-nuclear weapon status. We call on Iran to fully implement the relevant U.N. Security Council and the IAEA Board of Governors resolutions, including provision of required cooperation with the IAEA. We reiterated their commitment to pursue a comprehensive diplomatic solution, including direct diplomacy and through P5+1 negotiations, and urged Iran to seize this opportunity to address the international communitys concerns.
We also started a dialogue on security and stability in Europe. Although we disagree about the causes and sequence of the military actions of last August, we agreed that we must continue efforts toward a peaceful and lasting solution to the unstable situation today. Bearing in mind that significant differences remain between us, we nonetheless stress the importance of last years six-point accord of August 12, the September 8 agreement, and other relevant agreements, and pursuing effective cooperation in the Geneva discussions to bring stability to the region.
We agreed that the resumption of activities of the NATO-Russia Council is a positive step. We welcomed the participation of an American delegation at the special Conference on Afghanistan convened under the auspices of Shanghai Cooperation Organization last month.
We discussed our interest in exploring a comprehensive dialogue on strengthening Euro-Atlantic and European security, including existing commitments and President Medvedevs June 2008 proposals on these issues. The OSCE is one of the key multilateral venues for this dialogue, as is the NATO-Russia Council.
We also agreed that our future meetings must include discussions of transnational threats such as terrorism, organized crime, corruption and narcotics, with the aim of enhancing our cooperation in countering these threats and strengthening international efforts in these fields, including through joint actions and initiatives.
We will strive to give rise to a new dynamic in our economic links, including the launch of an intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation and the intensification of our business dialogue. Especially during these difficult economic times, our business leaders must pursue all opportunities for generating economic activity. We both pledged to instruct our governments to make efforts to finalize as soon as possible Russias accession into the World Trade Organization and continue working towards the creation of favorable conditions for the development of Russia-U.S. economic ties.
We also pledge to promote cooperation in implementing Global Energy Security Principles, adopted at the G-8 summit in St. Petersburg in 2006, including improving energy efficiency and the development of clean energy technologies.
Today we have outlined a comprehensive and ambitious work plan for our two governments. We both affirmed a mutual desire to organize contacts between our two governments in a more structured and regular way. Greater institutionalized interactions between our ministries and departments make success more likely in meeting the ambitious goals that we have established today.
At the same time, we also discussed the desire for greater cooperation not only between our governments, but also between our societies — more scientific cooperation, more students studying in each others country, more cultural exchanges and more cooperation between our nongovernmental organizations. In our relations with each other, we also seek to be guided by the rule of law, respect for fundamental freedoms and human rights, and tolerance for different views.
We, the leaders of Russia and the United States, are ready to move beyond Cold War mentalities and chart a fresh start in relations between our two countries. In just a few months we have worked hard to establish a new tone in our relations. Now it is time to get down to business and translate our warm words into actual achievements of benefit to Russia, the United States, and all those around the world interested in peace and prosperity.
CNDP President is a Rwandan Lawyer
WNJ has learned from African sources that the Chairman of the CNDP, Mr. Desire Kamanzi, is a Rwandan citizen with a law office in Kigali located in the Kiyovu District called Kamanzi, Ntaganira & Associates.
http://www.employmentlawalliance.com/en/node/2282
http://ukinrwanda.fco.gov.uk/en/our-offices-in-rwanda/our-embassy-in-kigali/list-lawyers-attorneys
http://www.employmentlawalliance.com/en/node/2282
http://ukinrwanda.fco.gov.uk/en/our-offices-in-rwanda/our-embassy-in-kigali/list-lawyers-attorneys
Kla-Eldo Petroleum Pipeline Postponed.
East African Business Week
By Paul Mwijagye
30 March 2009
Kampala — The construction of the Eldoret-Kampala oil pipeline has been postponed yet again.
The works supposed to commence on April 1, 2009 have now been pushed to May 15.
The construction of the 320-kilometre pipeline was initially scheduled to begin before August, 2008 but has been postponed several times.
The delay has hampered stable fuel supply to Uganda, a situation that has contributed to high fuel prices.
Last Friday, Ahmed Elgembri, the project manager told East African Business Week: "We could not begin construction on April 1 as planned due to delays in land acquisition."
Ahmed said the construction will begin on May 15 this year and end mid May 2010.
On July 18, 2006 Tamoil East Africa Limited won a 20-year concession to finance and extend the oil pipeline from Eldoret to Kampala at a development cost of $72 million.
Early this month the commissioner for energy in the energy ministry Ben Twodo insisted that nothing would stop the commencement of the project.
"The survey has been completed and submitted to the chief government valuer. There is nothing that we can say will stop the commencement of the project in April," Twodo said in an interview with this reporter early this month.
Once complete, the pipeline is expected to ensure stable fuel supply, reduce on fuel prices and accidents involving fuel tankers and spare the roads of potholes. "The accidents of trucks and burning of people won't happen anymore once the pipeline is complete. Potholes in the roads as a result of heavy trucks will also be done away with," noted Habib Kagimu the chairman of Tamoil East Africa Ltd.
The pipeline will be constructed from Eldoret in Kenya via Malaba, Iganga to Kampala and will be 20km west of Kampala to avoid inconveniences such as traffic jam. Kagimu also noted that since the pipeline will be underground people who will be relocated as a result of the pipeline could continue using their land for cultivation. He said homes on the land will be relocated.
However the compensation of the affected people which was also expected to begin before the end of March has not taken place either.
By Paul Mwijagye
30 March 2009
Kampala — The construction of the Eldoret-Kampala oil pipeline has been postponed yet again.
The works supposed to commence on April 1, 2009 have now been pushed to May 15.
The construction of the 320-kilometre pipeline was initially scheduled to begin before August, 2008 but has been postponed several times.
The delay has hampered stable fuel supply to Uganda, a situation that has contributed to high fuel prices.
Last Friday, Ahmed Elgembri, the project manager told East African Business Week: "We could not begin construction on April 1 as planned due to delays in land acquisition."
Ahmed said the construction will begin on May 15 this year and end mid May 2010.
On July 18, 2006 Tamoil East Africa Limited won a 20-year concession to finance and extend the oil pipeline from Eldoret to Kampala at a development cost of $72 million.
Early this month the commissioner for energy in the energy ministry Ben Twodo insisted that nothing would stop the commencement of the project.
"The survey has been completed and submitted to the chief government valuer. There is nothing that we can say will stop the commencement of the project in April," Twodo said in an interview with this reporter early this month.
Once complete, the pipeline is expected to ensure stable fuel supply, reduce on fuel prices and accidents involving fuel tankers and spare the roads of potholes. "The accidents of trucks and burning of people won't happen anymore once the pipeline is complete. Potholes in the roads as a result of heavy trucks will also be done away with," noted Habib Kagimu the chairman of Tamoil East Africa Ltd.
The pipeline will be constructed from Eldoret in Kenya via Malaba, Iganga to Kampala and will be 20km west of Kampala to avoid inconveniences such as traffic jam. Kagimu also noted that since the pipeline will be underground people who will be relocated as a result of the pipeline could continue using their land for cultivation. He said homes on the land will be relocated.
However the compensation of the affected people which was also expected to begin before the end of March has not taken place either.
Central African Republic / Resumption of armed hostilities between Government and rebel forces.
BANGUI, Central African Republic, April 1, 2009
African Press Organization (APO)
Daily press briefing by the office of the spokesperson for the UN secretary-general
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says a resumption of armed hostilities between Government and rebel forces is dampening hopes for an end to a decade-old humanitarian crisis in the Central African Republic. The fighting has displaced some 24,000 people since January, including some 9,200 new refugees in neighbouring Chad. This cuts short a recent wave of refugee returns begun in the wake of a national reconciliation effort which led to an all-party dialogue in December. A total of 300,000 Central African nationals are now living as refugees across the region.
Meanwhile, only 22 per cent of a required $116 million in an OCHA-led appeal has been pledged or disbursed.
SOURCE : United Nations - Office of the Spokesperson of the Secretary-General
African Press Organization (APO)
Daily press briefing by the office of the spokesperson for the UN secretary-general
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says a resumption of armed hostilities between Government and rebel forces is dampening hopes for an end to a decade-old humanitarian crisis in the Central African Republic. The fighting has displaced some 24,000 people since January, including some 9,200 new refugees in neighbouring Chad. This cuts short a recent wave of refugee returns begun in the wake of a national reconciliation effort which led to an all-party dialogue in December. A total of 300,000 Central African nationals are now living as refugees across the region.
Meanwhile, only 22 per cent of a required $116 million in an OCHA-led appeal has been pledged or disbursed.
SOURCE : United Nations - Office of the Spokesperson of the Secretary-General
31 March, 2009
Guinea mining minister accused of embezzlement.
Reuters
31 March 2009
By Saliou Samb
Guinea's ruling military junta has arrested a fourth former mines minister on embezzlement charges, a week after it detained three ex-ministers on the same grounds, a senior source at the ministry said late on Monday.
Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, who vowed to fight corruption when he seized power in the world's biggest bauxite producer last December, has launched several attacks on people connected with the government of late President Lansana Conte, whose death ushered in the army takeover.
Camara has singled out the mining industry, a cornerstone of Guinea's economy, for particular scrutiny.
"Ahmed Kante has been arrested and placed in detention," a senior official at the mines ministry said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Another civil servant confirmed Kante had been arrested.
Last August, Kante was fired as mines minister in the West African country which is deeply impoverished despite its reserves of bauxite, used to make aluminium, gold and iron ore.
His replacement Louceny Nabe and two of his predecessors, Ahmed Tidiane Souare and Ousmane Sylla, were arrested last week after being accused on television of syphoning off state funds earmarked for the promotion of Guinea's mining industry.
Earlier this month the junta's audit committee used a television broadcast to accuse the former ministers of embezzling around $5,3-million in total.
At the time, Souare said he had taken money from a designated mining development fund, but used it only to pay for the day-to-day running of the ministry.
Those accusations came less than a month after security forces detained the former president's son, whose confession of involvement in drug smuggling was also televised.
Since taking power, Camara and his National Council for Development and Democracy (CNDD) has won popular support for his anti-corruption stance, but analysts say his inexperienced administration is showing increasingly authoritarian tendencies.
The CNDD says it is just trying to root out widespread corruption. The junta said at the weekend it would hold presidential elections this December.
Last week, Camara threatened to invalidate Guinea's contract with minerals firm Global Alumina, and earlier this month told AngloGold Ashanti to shut down operations, a decision he later reversed.
31 March 2009
By Saliou Samb
Guinea's ruling military junta has arrested a fourth former mines minister on embezzlement charges, a week after it detained three ex-ministers on the same grounds, a senior source at the ministry said late on Monday.
Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, who vowed to fight corruption when he seized power in the world's biggest bauxite producer last December, has launched several attacks on people connected with the government of late President Lansana Conte, whose death ushered in the army takeover.
Camara has singled out the mining industry, a cornerstone of Guinea's economy, for particular scrutiny.
"Ahmed Kante has been arrested and placed in detention," a senior official at the mines ministry said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Another civil servant confirmed Kante had been arrested.
Last August, Kante was fired as mines minister in the West African country which is deeply impoverished despite its reserves of bauxite, used to make aluminium, gold and iron ore.
His replacement Louceny Nabe and two of his predecessors, Ahmed Tidiane Souare and Ousmane Sylla, were arrested last week after being accused on television of syphoning off state funds earmarked for the promotion of Guinea's mining industry.
Earlier this month the junta's audit committee used a television broadcast to accuse the former ministers of embezzling around $5,3-million in total.
At the time, Souare said he had taken money from a designated mining development fund, but used it only to pay for the day-to-day running of the ministry.
Those accusations came less than a month after security forces detained the former president's son, whose confession of involvement in drug smuggling was also televised.
Since taking power, Camara and his National Council for Development and Democracy (CNDD) has won popular support for his anti-corruption stance, but analysts say his inexperienced administration is showing increasingly authoritarian tendencies.
The CNDD says it is just trying to root out widespread corruption. The junta said at the weekend it would hold presidential elections this December.
Last week, Camara threatened to invalidate Guinea's contract with minerals firm Global Alumina, and earlier this month told AngloGold Ashanti to shut down operations, a decision he later reversed.
GEORGIA: PENTAGON TO START MILITARY TRAINING PROGRAM.
EurasiaNet
30 March 2009
By Giorgi Lomsadze
US Joint Chiefs of Staff Deputy Chairman General James Cartwright stated on March 30 that the US will "soon" begin training Georgian soldiers for "homeland defense." The announcement comes as the most specific indication to date of how the United States plans to assist Georgia’s post-war military reforms.
Details about either side’s role in this new stage of US-Georgian military cooperation were not immediately available. Gen. Cartwright’s March 30-April 2 visit to Georgia is the second such trip by a high-ranking US military official since mid-February.
"We will start with the training," Cartwright announced at a news conference in Tbilisi. "That is the core and the foundation of the activity, but the training will be focused on the defense of Georgia, on its self and internal defense and we will work hard to get both the skill levels that are necessary to do that and work as partners on the equipment necessary."
US assessments of the Georgian military’s state of health after its August 2008 war with Russia "have helped us understand what the priorities should be on that equipment, both in what the Georgian have been able to put together on their own . . . what equipment needs to be upgraded and what new types of equipment is necessary for their homeland defense," the general continued. A review of the assessments is ongoing, he indicated.
For the Georgian government, the target of increasingly vociferous opposition attacks for the lost war against Russia, the news is timely. "Of course, an army is not created in three or four years," said President Mikheil Saakashvili. "Of course, the trainings we received in the past years were not meant for large-scale war operations. These were peacekeeping police operations. We are preparing a new -- in terms of quality -- armed forces."
On the to-do list, according to Saakashvili, is "increasing the number of soldiers, increasing the supply of armaments and, most importantly [and] increasing the level of readiness." The president also stressed that the training would help Georgia to expand its participation in the US-led coalition in Afghanistan. Georgian Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze announced in February that Georgia would be sending one company of troops to Afghanistan. Saakashvili added that he has discussed the issue with US President Barack Obama.
But the two sides’ cooperation plan comes with risks. Chances that the United States will supply Georgia with fresh military hardware have sparked multiple warnings from Moscow hawks that such shipments could prompt Russia to take military action again.
Defense Minister Vasil Sikharulidze told EurasiaNet, however, that Georgia is "looking into all options."
Some commentators have been quick to say that Georgia’s own heavy investments in defense as well as years of funding and training by the United States have gone up in smoke.
While denying that claim, Georgian defense officials say that before moving on with developing combat capabilities, the military is trying to get its national defense concepts and goals straight.
Defense Ministry insiders say that a new military doctrine will identify open warfare with Russia as the country’s primary threat and that military development objectives will be modified accordingly.
One Georgian military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told EurasiaNet that the previous military doctrine, as well as other strategic papers, contained large chunks "copy-pasted" from the US military doctrine, and had failed to address adequately the sources and nature of national security threats.
That copy-paste approach meant that tactical decisions often happened on the fly during last summer’s war with Russia. At the time of the conflict, Georgia "had not developed a comprehensive military doctrine that dictated how it would employ its forces," said Lt. Col. Robert Hamilton, who served as chief of the US Office of Defense Cooperation in Georgia until 2008.
The plan of operations "contained no branches [alternative plans of action -- ed], it designated no reserve force, it contained no concept for gaining and disseminating intelligence, and it contained no defined end state," Hamilton continued. "[N]o written plan with a map overlay was ever distributed to the units which did the fighting."
Tactical mistakes also contributed to Georgian troops’ precipitous defeat. In one critical instance, Hamilton related, a unit of the 4th Brigade that was given the mission of securing a key junction northeast of the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali was ordered to abandon the position and move into Tskhinvali to reinforce Georgian troops there. "This left the critical road junction unsecured and Russian forces were able to move into Tskhinvali unopposed," said Hamilton.
How exactly post-war US military assistance will correct such problems remains unclear. US Vice President Joseph Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have expressed the desire to improve relations with Russia, but said that US ties with regional allies would not be compromised.
The Georgian Ministry of Defense, for its part, has promised it would streamline the organization of the Georgian armed forces, acquire new combat hardware and retrain personnel to tackle the threats posed by the Russian military presence in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Defense Minister Sikharulidze, a former Georgian ambassador to Washington, has penned a white paper that says that the ministry will focus on developing C4ISR, a US military term for command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Details about the particulars remain outstanding.
The ministry has also said it is developing "a new concept" for its reserve forces. Several who served during the 2008 war have told EurasiaNet that large numbers of reservists loitered aimlessly, futilely awaiting orders, just a few miles away from the scene of a fierce battle. No centralized roster of reservists exists.
How the reforms will handle the sensitive issue of senior appointments also remains in doubt. The March 5 removal of head of the Georgian joint chiefs of staff, Colonel Vladimir Chachibaia, after four months at the post, has resurrected complaints that senior officials are chosen based on personal loyalties. The ministry denies the allegation.
But identifying the enemy is one task already accomplished, military observers say.
A Threat Assessment Paper approved by Saakashvili just months before the August 2008 war opined that "there is little possibility of open and large scale military aggression against Georgia." Primary threats were identified as a spillover from tensions in the Russian-controlled North Caucasus, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and international terrorism.
"You can tell from these papers as well as the trends in the defense system that the Georgian military didn’t take Russia seriously," commented military analyst Vakhtang Maisia.
It does now, local observers wryly note.
Editor's Note: Giorgi Lomsadze is a freelance reporter based in Tbilisi.
30 March 2009
By Giorgi Lomsadze
US Joint Chiefs of Staff Deputy Chairman General James Cartwright stated on March 30 that the US will "soon" begin training Georgian soldiers for "homeland defense." The announcement comes as the most specific indication to date of how the United States plans to assist Georgia’s post-war military reforms.
Details about either side’s role in this new stage of US-Georgian military cooperation were not immediately available. Gen. Cartwright’s March 30-April 2 visit to Georgia is the second such trip by a high-ranking US military official since mid-February.
"We will start with the training," Cartwright announced at a news conference in Tbilisi. "That is the core and the foundation of the activity, but the training will be focused on the defense of Georgia, on its self and internal defense and we will work hard to get both the skill levels that are necessary to do that and work as partners on the equipment necessary."
US assessments of the Georgian military’s state of health after its August 2008 war with Russia "have helped us understand what the priorities should be on that equipment, both in what the Georgian have been able to put together on their own . . . what equipment needs to be upgraded and what new types of equipment is necessary for their homeland defense," the general continued. A review of the assessments is ongoing, he indicated.
For the Georgian government, the target of increasingly vociferous opposition attacks for the lost war against Russia, the news is timely. "Of course, an army is not created in three or four years," said President Mikheil Saakashvili. "Of course, the trainings we received in the past years were not meant for large-scale war operations. These were peacekeeping police operations. We are preparing a new -- in terms of quality -- armed forces."
On the to-do list, according to Saakashvili, is "increasing the number of soldiers, increasing the supply of armaments and, most importantly [and] increasing the level of readiness." The president also stressed that the training would help Georgia to expand its participation in the US-led coalition in Afghanistan. Georgian Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze announced in February that Georgia would be sending one company of troops to Afghanistan. Saakashvili added that he has discussed the issue with US President Barack Obama.
But the two sides’ cooperation plan comes with risks. Chances that the United States will supply Georgia with fresh military hardware have sparked multiple warnings from Moscow hawks that such shipments could prompt Russia to take military action again.
Defense Minister Vasil Sikharulidze told EurasiaNet, however, that Georgia is "looking into all options."
Some commentators have been quick to say that Georgia’s own heavy investments in defense as well as years of funding and training by the United States have gone up in smoke.
While denying that claim, Georgian defense officials say that before moving on with developing combat capabilities, the military is trying to get its national defense concepts and goals straight.
Defense Ministry insiders say that a new military doctrine will identify open warfare with Russia as the country’s primary threat and that military development objectives will be modified accordingly.
One Georgian military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told EurasiaNet that the previous military doctrine, as well as other strategic papers, contained large chunks "copy-pasted" from the US military doctrine, and had failed to address adequately the sources and nature of national security threats.
That copy-paste approach meant that tactical decisions often happened on the fly during last summer’s war with Russia. At the time of the conflict, Georgia "had not developed a comprehensive military doctrine that dictated how it would employ its forces," said Lt. Col. Robert Hamilton, who served as chief of the US Office of Defense Cooperation in Georgia until 2008.
The plan of operations "contained no branches [alternative plans of action -- ed], it designated no reserve force, it contained no concept for gaining and disseminating intelligence, and it contained no defined end state," Hamilton continued. "[N]o written plan with a map overlay was ever distributed to the units which did the fighting."
Tactical mistakes also contributed to Georgian troops’ precipitous defeat. In one critical instance, Hamilton related, a unit of the 4th Brigade that was given the mission of securing a key junction northeast of the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali was ordered to abandon the position and move into Tskhinvali to reinforce Georgian troops there. "This left the critical road junction unsecured and Russian forces were able to move into Tskhinvali unopposed," said Hamilton.
How exactly post-war US military assistance will correct such problems remains unclear. US Vice President Joseph Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have expressed the desire to improve relations with Russia, but said that US ties with regional allies would not be compromised.
The Georgian Ministry of Defense, for its part, has promised it would streamline the organization of the Georgian armed forces, acquire new combat hardware and retrain personnel to tackle the threats posed by the Russian military presence in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Defense Minister Sikharulidze, a former Georgian ambassador to Washington, has penned a white paper that says that the ministry will focus on developing C4ISR, a US military term for command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Details about the particulars remain outstanding.
The ministry has also said it is developing "a new concept" for its reserve forces. Several who served during the 2008 war have told EurasiaNet that large numbers of reservists loitered aimlessly, futilely awaiting orders, just a few miles away from the scene of a fierce battle. No centralized roster of reservists exists.
How the reforms will handle the sensitive issue of senior appointments also remains in doubt. The March 5 removal of head of the Georgian joint chiefs of staff, Colonel Vladimir Chachibaia, after four months at the post, has resurrected complaints that senior officials are chosen based on personal loyalties. The ministry denies the allegation.
But identifying the enemy is one task already accomplished, military observers say.
A Threat Assessment Paper approved by Saakashvili just months before the August 2008 war opined that "there is little possibility of open and large scale military aggression against Georgia." Primary threats were identified as a spillover from tensions in the Russian-controlled North Caucasus, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and international terrorism.
"You can tell from these papers as well as the trends in the defense system that the Georgian military didn’t take Russia seriously," commented military analyst Vakhtang Maisia.
It does now, local observers wryly note.
Editor's Note: Giorgi Lomsadze is a freelance reporter based in Tbilisi.
NATO To Launch Propaganda Videos Via YouTube.
Deutsche Presse Agentur
31 March 2009
NATO is reaching out to young audiences in the West by posting three unconventional advertisement videos on the popular You Tube website, alliance officials said Monday.
The videos, which last about 45 seconds each, are designed to raise awareness about the trans-Atlantic alliance's role in the world by arguing that security should not be taken for granted, even in developed countries.
The videos are composed of rapid, chaotic sequences suggesting that a conflict or some other form of major scare is taking place. Their finales reveal that the images, in actual fact, concern mundane events such as disco dancing or a football game.
The accompanying slogan recites:: 'Peace and security. That's our mission.'
NATO officials said the purpose of the videos is to show how perceptions of security can be easily changed.
Officials decided to launch the campaign after viewing surveys which revealed that while many youths know about NATO, few know about what it does.
The videos, which will eventually be posted on You Tube, cost about 500,000 euros (666,000 dollars) in budget money.
'This is a much cheaper method than advertising on television,' officials at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels said.
NATO heads of state and government are to hold a summit in Strasbourg on Friday and Saturday.
31 March 2009
NATO is reaching out to young audiences in the West by posting three unconventional advertisement videos on the popular You Tube website, alliance officials said Monday.
The videos, which last about 45 seconds each, are designed to raise awareness about the trans-Atlantic alliance's role in the world by arguing that security should not be taken for granted, even in developed countries.
The videos are composed of rapid, chaotic sequences suggesting that a conflict or some other form of major scare is taking place. Their finales reveal that the images, in actual fact, concern mundane events such as disco dancing or a football game.
The accompanying slogan recites:: 'Peace and security. That's our mission.'
NATO officials said the purpose of the videos is to show how perceptions of security can be easily changed.
Officials decided to launch the campaign after viewing surveys which revealed that while many youths know about NATO, few know about what it does.
The videos, which will eventually be posted on You Tube, cost about 500,000 euros (666,000 dollars) in budget money.
'This is a much cheaper method than advertising on television,' officials at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels said.
NATO heads of state and government are to hold a summit in Strasbourg on Friday and Saturday.
30 March, 2009
The Darfur the West Isn’t Recognizing as It Moralizes About the Region.
New York Times
30 March 2009
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
WNJ Editor's Note: Respectfully, the posting of this article does not necessarily represent my endorsement of Mr. Mamdani's book.
For many who survey an African landscape strewn with political wreckage, nowadays merely to raise the subject of European colonialism, which formally ended across most of the continent five decades ago, is to ring alarm bells of excuse making.
Clearly, the African disaster most in view today is Sudan, or more specifically the dirty war that has raged since 2003 in that country’s western region, Darfur.
Rare among African conflicts, it exerts a strong claim on our conscience. By instructive contrast, more than five million people have died as a result of war in Congo since 1998, the rough equivalent at its height of a 2004 Asian tsunami striking every six months, without stirring our diplomats to urgency or generating much civic response.
Mahmood Mamdani, a Ugandan-born scholar at Columbia University and the author of “When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and Genocide in Rwanda,” is one of the most penetrating analysts of African affairs. In “Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror,” he has written a learned book that reintroduces history into the discussion of the Darfur crisis and questions the logic and even the good faith of those who seek to place it at the pinnacle of Africa’s recent troubles. It is a brief, he writes, “against those who substitute moral certainty for knowledge, and who feel virtuous even when acting on the basis of total ignorance.”
Mr. Mamdani does not dismiss a record of atrocities in Darfur, where 300,000 have been killed and 2.5 million been made refugees, yet he opposes the label of genocide as a subjective judgment wielded for political reasons against a Sudanese government that is out of favor because of its history of Islamism and its suspected involvement in terror.
At his most provocative Mr. Mamdani questions the distinction between what is often labeled counterinsurgency and genocide, saying the former, even when it kills more people, is deemed “normal violence” while the latter is considered “amoral, evil,” and typically it is the West that does the labeling.
Although he uses the United States war in Iraq as an example, with the International Criminal Court recently issuing an arrest warrant for Sudan’s leader, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Mr. Mamdani’s most compelling example is the treatment of a crisis in neighboring Uganda.
In Uganda, long one of Washington’s closest African friends, Mr. Mamdani traces the history of ethnically targeted “civilian massacres and other atrocities” against the brutal insurgency known as the Lord’s Resistance Army. In 1996, under President Yoweri Museveni, a second phase of that war began “with a new policy designed to intern practically the entire rural population of the three Acholi districts in northern Uganda,” Mr. Mamdani writes. “It took a government-directed campaign of murder, intimidation, bombing and burning of whole villages to drive the rural population into I.D.P. (internally displaced persons) camps.”
In 2005 Olara Otunnu, a former Ugandan ambassador to the United Nations, denounced the government’s tactics, saying, “An entire society is being systematically destroyed — physically, culturally, socially and economically — in full view of the international community.”
But as elsewhere in Africa, Mr. Mamdani says, the International Criminal Court has brought a case against only the enemy of Washington’s friend, the Lord’s Resistance Army, remaining mute about large-scale atrocities that may have been committed by the Ugandan government. In this pattern the author sees the hand of politics more than any real attachment to justice.
Many argue that what makes Darfur different from other African crises is race, with the conflict there pitting Arabs against people often called “black Africans,” but here again Mr. Mamdani takes on conventional wisdom. “At no point,” he states flatly, “has this been a war between ‘Africans’ and ‘Arabs.’ ”
Much foreign commentary about Sudan speaks of its Arabs as settlers, with the inference that they are somehow less African than people assumed to be of pure black stock. If whites in Kenya and Zimbabwe, not to mention South Africa, vociferously maintain their African-ness, what then to make of the Arab presence in Sudan, whose slow penetration and widespread intermarriage, Mr. Mamdani writes, “commenced in the early decades of Islam” and “reached a climax” from the 8th to the 15th century, “when the Arab tribes overran much of the country”?
More interestingly, the author maintains that much of what we see today as a racial divide in Sudan has its roots in colonial history, when Britain “broke up native society into different ethnicities, and ‘tribalized’ each ethnicity by bringing it under the absolute authority of one or more British-sanctioned ‘native authorities,’ ” balancing “the whole by playing one off against the others.”
Mr. Mamdani calls this British tactic of administratively reinforcing distinctions among colonial subjects “re-identify and rule” and says that it was copied by European powers across the continent, with deadly consequences — as in Rwanda, where Belgium’s intervention hardened distinctions between Hutu and Tutsi.
In Sudan the result was to create a durable sense of land rights rooted in tribal identity that favored the sedentary at the expense of the nomad, or, in the crude shorthand of today, African and Arab.
Other roots of the Darfur crisis lie in catastrophic desertification in the Sahel region, where the cold war left the area awash in cheap weapons at the very moment that pastoralists could no longer survive in their traditional homelands, obliging many to push southward into areas controlled by sedentary farmers.
He also blames regional strife, the violent legacy of proxy warfare by France, Libya and the United States and, most recently, the global extension of the war on terror.
This important book reveals much on all of these themes, yet still may be judged by some as not saying enough about recent violence in Darfur.
Mr. Mamdani’s constant refrain is that the virtuous indignation he thinks he detects in those who shout loudest about Darfur is no substitute for greater understanding, without which outsiders have little hope of achieving real good in Africa’s shattered lands.
30 March 2009
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
WNJ Editor's Note: Respectfully, the posting of this article does not necessarily represent my endorsement of Mr. Mamdani's book.
For many who survey an African landscape strewn with political wreckage, nowadays merely to raise the subject of European colonialism, which formally ended across most of the continent five decades ago, is to ring alarm bells of excuse making.
Clearly, the African disaster most in view today is Sudan, or more specifically the dirty war that has raged since 2003 in that country’s western region, Darfur.
Rare among African conflicts, it exerts a strong claim on our conscience. By instructive contrast, more than five million people have died as a result of war in Congo since 1998, the rough equivalent at its height of a 2004 Asian tsunami striking every six months, without stirring our diplomats to urgency or generating much civic response.
Mahmood Mamdani, a Ugandan-born scholar at Columbia University and the author of “When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and Genocide in Rwanda,” is one of the most penetrating analysts of African affairs. In “Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror,” he has written a learned book that reintroduces history into the discussion of the Darfur crisis and questions the logic and even the good faith of those who seek to place it at the pinnacle of Africa’s recent troubles. It is a brief, he writes, “against those who substitute moral certainty for knowledge, and who feel virtuous even when acting on the basis of total ignorance.”
Mr. Mamdani does not dismiss a record of atrocities in Darfur, where 300,000 have been killed and 2.5 million been made refugees, yet he opposes the label of genocide as a subjective judgment wielded for political reasons against a Sudanese government that is out of favor because of its history of Islamism and its suspected involvement in terror.
At his most provocative Mr. Mamdani questions the distinction between what is often labeled counterinsurgency and genocide, saying the former, even when it kills more people, is deemed “normal violence” while the latter is considered “amoral, evil,” and typically it is the West that does the labeling.
Although he uses the United States war in Iraq as an example, with the International Criminal Court recently issuing an arrest warrant for Sudan’s leader, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Mr. Mamdani’s most compelling example is the treatment of a crisis in neighboring Uganda.
In Uganda, long one of Washington’s closest African friends, Mr. Mamdani traces the history of ethnically targeted “civilian massacres and other atrocities” against the brutal insurgency known as the Lord’s Resistance Army. In 1996, under President Yoweri Museveni, a second phase of that war began “with a new policy designed to intern practically the entire rural population of the three Acholi districts in northern Uganda,” Mr. Mamdani writes. “It took a government-directed campaign of murder, intimidation, bombing and burning of whole villages to drive the rural population into I.D.P. (internally displaced persons) camps.”
In 2005 Olara Otunnu, a former Ugandan ambassador to the United Nations, denounced the government’s tactics, saying, “An entire society is being systematically destroyed — physically, culturally, socially and economically — in full view of the international community.”
But as elsewhere in Africa, Mr. Mamdani says, the International Criminal Court has brought a case against only the enemy of Washington’s friend, the Lord’s Resistance Army, remaining mute about large-scale atrocities that may have been committed by the Ugandan government. In this pattern the author sees the hand of politics more than any real attachment to justice.
Many argue that what makes Darfur different from other African crises is race, with the conflict there pitting Arabs against people often called “black Africans,” but here again Mr. Mamdani takes on conventional wisdom. “At no point,” he states flatly, “has this been a war between ‘Africans’ and ‘Arabs.’ ”
Much foreign commentary about Sudan speaks of its Arabs as settlers, with the inference that they are somehow less African than people assumed to be of pure black stock. If whites in Kenya and Zimbabwe, not to mention South Africa, vociferously maintain their African-ness, what then to make of the Arab presence in Sudan, whose slow penetration and widespread intermarriage, Mr. Mamdani writes, “commenced in the early decades of Islam” and “reached a climax” from the 8th to the 15th century, “when the Arab tribes overran much of the country”?
More interestingly, the author maintains that much of what we see today as a racial divide in Sudan has its roots in colonial history, when Britain “broke up native society into different ethnicities, and ‘tribalized’ each ethnicity by bringing it under the absolute authority of one or more British-sanctioned ‘native authorities,’ ” balancing “the whole by playing one off against the others.”
Mr. Mamdani calls this British tactic of administratively reinforcing distinctions among colonial subjects “re-identify and rule” and says that it was copied by European powers across the continent, with deadly consequences — as in Rwanda, where Belgium’s intervention hardened distinctions between Hutu and Tutsi.
In Sudan the result was to create a durable sense of land rights rooted in tribal identity that favored the sedentary at the expense of the nomad, or, in the crude shorthand of today, African and Arab.
Other roots of the Darfur crisis lie in catastrophic desertification in the Sahel region, where the cold war left the area awash in cheap weapons at the very moment that pastoralists could no longer survive in their traditional homelands, obliging many to push southward into areas controlled by sedentary farmers.
He also blames regional strife, the violent legacy of proxy warfare by France, Libya and the United States and, most recently, the global extension of the war on terror.
This important book reveals much on all of these themes, yet still may be judged by some as not saying enough about recent violence in Darfur.
Mr. Mamdani’s constant refrain is that the virtuous indignation he thinks he detects in those who shout loudest about Darfur is no substitute for greater understanding, without which outsiders have little hope of achieving real good in Africa’s shattered lands.
TOUAREG REBELS READY TO NEGOTIATE PEACE WITH LIBYAN MEDIATION.
MISNA
27 March 2009
The Niger Patriotic Front (FPN), a Touareg rebel group created within the Nigerine Justice Movement (MNJ) said that it ise ready to engage in a peace process with Libya's help. The movement's leader Aklu Sidisidi made the announcement during a press conference in Tripoli. Sidisidi said that he has started talks with libyan officials, in the past two months, that have led to the drafting of an accord that describes the conditions for the “return to a lasting peace in northern Niger” and a detailed plan “for the implementation of an immediate ceasefire and an official ceremony for the handing over of weapons”. The FNP has also deplored the war in northern Niger, saying that the peoples of the region “are more than ever interested in a return to peace and security and the renewal of social and economic development”.
27 March 2009
The Niger Patriotic Front (FPN), a Touareg rebel group created within the Nigerine Justice Movement (MNJ) said that it ise ready to engage in a peace process with Libya's help. The movement's leader Aklu Sidisidi made the announcement during a press conference in Tripoli. Sidisidi said that he has started talks with libyan officials, in the past two months, that have led to the drafting of an accord that describes the conditions for the “return to a lasting peace in northern Niger” and a detailed plan “for the implementation of an immediate ceasefire and an official ceremony for the handing over of weapons”. The FNP has also deplored the war in northern Niger, saying that the peoples of the region “are more than ever interested in a return to peace and security and the renewal of social and economic development”.
President Says Amisom Troops Will Stay Until Country Gets Its Own Forces.
Shabelle News Network
28 March 2009
Somali president Sharif Sheik Ahmed held a press conference in Mogadishu on Saturday and said he talked about Uganda and Burundi governments about Somalia's issues and how they can help the Somali government.
"AMSOM troops are part of the peace agreement signed in Djibouti and we told Uganda and Burundi that we want to build our forces and to reconcile with the opposition," said president Sharif Sheik Ahmed.
He also said that they met with Libyan and Sudan's leaders and had told them they would mediate between his government and the opposition.
28 March 2009
Somali president Sharif Sheik Ahmed held a press conference in Mogadishu on Saturday and said he talked about Uganda and Burundi governments about Somalia's issues and how they can help the Somali government.
"AMSOM troops are part of the peace agreement signed in Djibouti and we told Uganda and Burundi that we want to build our forces and to reconcile with the opposition," said president Sharif Sheik Ahmed.
He also said that they met with Libyan and Sudan's leaders and had told them they would mediate between his government and the opposition.
Halliburton - Nigerian Federal Government Asks U.S. to Name Indicted Citizens.
This Day
By Davidson Iriekpen
30 March 2009
The Federal Government has written to the United States government, demanding that individuals involved in the Halliburton bribery scandal be named.
In a letter signed by the Attorney-General of Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Mr. Michael Aondoakaa (SAN), and addressed to the US Attorney-General, Mr. Eric Holder, Aondoakaa asked his US counterpart to avail the Nigerian government with all the evidence in his possession on the scandal.
The letter, dated February 17, 2009, said it was obvious from the allocution and indictment of Mr. Albert Stanley Jackson that the US was aware of the identities of the persons who assisted Jackson in committing the crimes.
He demanded that all information and names of the individuals involved in the scandal be named.
Aondoakaa also introduced Messrs Kayode Oladele and Jack Blum as attorneys appointed by the Nigerian government to liaise with the US government's relevant authorities, to release all the information and documents in their possession on the investigation of Jackson relating to the evidence gathered and presented to the grand jury during the trial.
While urging the "relevant authorities" to give the attorneys all the necessary cooperation and assistance, the AGF said the Nigerian government was inclined to commence criminal action against the Nigerian officials involved immediately the records were received.
In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by THISDAY at the weekend, the AGF said the scandal was in violation of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Act 2000 and Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act of 2004.
Disclosing that the request was in pursuant to the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) between the US and Nigeria reached in 2003, Aondoakaa said to the extent that funds related to the commission of these crimes in Nigeria could be located, the US should assist in the repatriation of the funds to Nigeria.
He promised that the Nigerian government would not use the information or evidence supplied under the MLAT for any case or investigation other than that for which the information or evidence was requested.
The AGF argued that owing to the zero tolerance of the Nigerian government for corruption and in order to further demonstrate its commitments to fighting the malaise, it was necessary and urgent for the identities of the Nigerians and other foreign nationals involved in the matter to be revealed.
Jackson who is a principal defendant in the case, is currently in custody of the US Marshall having been sentenced to prison by the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
He was sentenced in September 2008 following his plea agreement with the US Attorney's office in which he confessed to commission of the offences charged in violation of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and other US laws.
The letter reads: "Specifically, the Government of Nigeria requests all the evidence in possession of the United States as the result of its investigation of Mr. Stanley. The Nigerian government requests access to all the documents, records of interviews, transcripts, and records relating to the Stanley case including but not limited to evidence gathered and presented to the grand jury.
"Further, as the Nigerian investigation develops, the Nigerian government requests that the United States allow it to take testimony under oath from Mr. Stanley. It requests that the United States help locate and compel the testimony under oath of other witnesses within the jurisdiction of the United States who may have relevant information. It also asks that the United States assist by compelling United States persons and corporations identified in the investigation to turn over additional documents and evidence as the need arises.
"This investigation involves a suspected criminal conspiracy among Nigerian government officials, Nigerian nationals, and foreign nationals all as yet unidentified, to obtain a contract for the construction of LNG facilities in exchange for bribes. The underlying facts are known to the government of the United States as a result of the conviction of Albert Stanley Jackson, a U.S citizen and resident of Houston, Texas for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
"According to the Court records, on September 3, 2008, Albert Stanley Jackson, a former officer and director of Kellogg, Brown & Root, Inc. (KBR), a global engineering and construction services company based in Houston, Texas, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the FCPA in connection with a scheme to bribe Federal Government of Nigeria officials in order to obtain engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contracts worth more than $6 billion.
"As set forth in the criminal information, between March 1991 and June 2004, he served in various capacities as an officer and director of KBR, and KBR's predecessor, The M.W. Kellogg Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dresser Industries, Inc, including serving on the steering committee of a joint venture in which these companies, at various times, had an interest.
"According to the criminal information, the joint venture hired Consultant A (a citizen of the United Kingdom) to help it obtain business in Nigeria, including by offering to pay and paying bribes to high level Nigerian government officials, including employees of The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (an entity owned and controlled by the Government of Nigeria). In addition, the joint venture hired another consulting company headquartered in Japan to also help it obtain business in Nigeria, including by offering to pay and paying bribes to Nigerian foreign officials. The joint venture paid the Japanese consulting company several millions of Dollars for use in bribing Nigerian government officials. According to Stanley's admission, these illegal payments assisted the joint venture in obtaining four EPC contracts to build the Bonny Island (Nigeria) Liquefied Natural Gas Project valued at over $6 billion.
"By pleading guilty to the charges, Mr. Stanley acknowledged that he and his co-conspirators willfully and knowingly agreed to make improper payments to Nigeria foreign officials in order to obtain the contract for the construction of the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG - Bonny Island) Project. In the criminal information filed by the U.S Department of Justice, Mr. Stanley detailed various meetings he participated in with his co-conspirators during which discussions occurred as to the use of particular consultants to pay bribes to Nigerian officials to secure support for the joint venture to obtain and retain contracts in connection with the Liquefied Natural Gas project. The records also indicated that the primary purpose of the joint venture consulting contracts was to facilitate the payment of bribes to Nigerian officials through which various payment were made to the con-conspirators using several banks in the Netherlands, the U.S., Switzerland, Monaco, and Japan for this enterprise.
"At his allocution before the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Mr. Stanley, in addition to pleading guilty to conspiring to violate the FCPA, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud in connection with a kickback scheme he participated in with a consultant in connection with LNG projects around the world in which he received several millions of Dollars in kickbacks.
"Under a plea agreement between the United States Department of Justice and Mr. Stanley, which formed the basis for the Court's judgment, Mr. Stanley was sentenced to seven years in prison in addition to payment of restitution in the amount of $250,000. He also agreed to cooperate in ongoing investigations related to the above conduct. The Federal Government of Nigeria wishes to make use of his cooperation agreement.
"The Nigerian Attorney -General has opened an investigation of this matter and now requests assistance from the United States Government. The Attorney General is determined to prosecute all of the participants in this case of grand corruption wherever they may be located, to the full extent of Nigerian law.
"The victim of the illegal overt acts and criminal conspiracy described in the Stanley indictment and allocution is the Federal Government of Nigeria. Between 1995 and 2004, the Federal Government of Nigeria awarded various contracts to the Joint Venture through LNG Limited, a corporation created by the Nigeria Government to develop an NLG facility on Bonny Island.
"During that time the contracts that were awarded to the Joint venture were valued at over US$6 billion. Most of the money went into kickbacks which were channeled through Mr. Stanley and various other consultants in active connivance with top government functionaries in Nigeria. Mr. Stanley's investigation also revealed that these monies were routed through Swiss bank accounts including accounts held in the names of nominees and Shell companies in order to conceal their scheme.
"The Federal Government of Nigeria wants to initiate criminal proceedings against the Nigerian public officers involved for violating the Nigerian laws relating to Financial and other Economic Crimes. The Government also wants to seek forfeiture of assets related to violations of Economic Crime and other Financial control and regulation laws in Nigeria.
"In order to do this, the Federal Government of Nigeria would require all the reports of the investigation conducted by the U.S Government including all documents recovered from Mr. Stanley or under the control or custody of Mr. Stanley or a competent authority relating to all inquiry and investigation and any other investigative files. The Federal Government of Nigeria would also require the assistance of the U.S Government to compel Mr. Stanley to provide substantial assistance to the Nigerian Government including providing truthful, complete and accurate information to the Nigerian government pursuant to his plea agreement with U.S government."
By Davidson Iriekpen
30 March 2009
The Federal Government has written to the United States government, demanding that individuals involved in the Halliburton bribery scandal be named.
In a letter signed by the Attorney-General of Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Mr. Michael Aondoakaa (SAN), and addressed to the US Attorney-General, Mr. Eric Holder, Aondoakaa asked his US counterpart to avail the Nigerian government with all the evidence in his possession on the scandal.
The letter, dated February 17, 2009, said it was obvious from the allocution and indictment of Mr. Albert Stanley Jackson that the US was aware of the identities of the persons who assisted Jackson in committing the crimes.
He demanded that all information and names of the individuals involved in the scandal be named.
Aondoakaa also introduced Messrs Kayode Oladele and Jack Blum as attorneys appointed by the Nigerian government to liaise with the US government's relevant authorities, to release all the information and documents in their possession on the investigation of Jackson relating to the evidence gathered and presented to the grand jury during the trial.
While urging the "relevant authorities" to give the attorneys all the necessary cooperation and assistance, the AGF said the Nigerian government was inclined to commence criminal action against the Nigerian officials involved immediately the records were received.
In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by THISDAY at the weekend, the AGF said the scandal was in violation of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Act 2000 and Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act of 2004.
Disclosing that the request was in pursuant to the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) between the US and Nigeria reached in 2003, Aondoakaa said to the extent that funds related to the commission of these crimes in Nigeria could be located, the US should assist in the repatriation of the funds to Nigeria.
He promised that the Nigerian government would not use the information or evidence supplied under the MLAT for any case or investigation other than that for which the information or evidence was requested.
The AGF argued that owing to the zero tolerance of the Nigerian government for corruption and in order to further demonstrate its commitments to fighting the malaise, it was necessary and urgent for the identities of the Nigerians and other foreign nationals involved in the matter to be revealed.
Jackson who is a principal defendant in the case, is currently in custody of the US Marshall having been sentenced to prison by the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
He was sentenced in September 2008 following his plea agreement with the US Attorney's office in which he confessed to commission of the offences charged in violation of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and other US laws.
The letter reads: "Specifically, the Government of Nigeria requests all the evidence in possession of the United States as the result of its investigation of Mr. Stanley. The Nigerian government requests access to all the documents, records of interviews, transcripts, and records relating to the Stanley case including but not limited to evidence gathered and presented to the grand jury.
"Further, as the Nigerian investigation develops, the Nigerian government requests that the United States allow it to take testimony under oath from Mr. Stanley. It requests that the United States help locate and compel the testimony under oath of other witnesses within the jurisdiction of the United States who may have relevant information. It also asks that the United States assist by compelling United States persons and corporations identified in the investigation to turn over additional documents and evidence as the need arises.
"This investigation involves a suspected criminal conspiracy among Nigerian government officials, Nigerian nationals, and foreign nationals all as yet unidentified, to obtain a contract for the construction of LNG facilities in exchange for bribes. The underlying facts are known to the government of the United States as a result of the conviction of Albert Stanley Jackson, a U.S citizen and resident of Houston, Texas for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
"According to the Court records, on September 3, 2008, Albert Stanley Jackson, a former officer and director of Kellogg, Brown & Root, Inc. (KBR), a global engineering and construction services company based in Houston, Texas, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the FCPA in connection with a scheme to bribe Federal Government of Nigeria officials in order to obtain engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contracts worth more than $6 billion.
"As set forth in the criminal information, between March 1991 and June 2004, he served in various capacities as an officer and director of KBR, and KBR's predecessor, The M.W. Kellogg Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dresser Industries, Inc, including serving on the steering committee of a joint venture in which these companies, at various times, had an interest.
"According to the criminal information, the joint venture hired Consultant A (a citizen of the United Kingdom) to help it obtain business in Nigeria, including by offering to pay and paying bribes to high level Nigerian government officials, including employees of The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (an entity owned and controlled by the Government of Nigeria). In addition, the joint venture hired another consulting company headquartered in Japan to also help it obtain business in Nigeria, including by offering to pay and paying bribes to Nigerian foreign officials. The joint venture paid the Japanese consulting company several millions of Dollars for use in bribing Nigerian government officials. According to Stanley's admission, these illegal payments assisted the joint venture in obtaining four EPC contracts to build the Bonny Island (Nigeria) Liquefied Natural Gas Project valued at over $6 billion.
"By pleading guilty to the charges, Mr. Stanley acknowledged that he and his co-conspirators willfully and knowingly agreed to make improper payments to Nigeria foreign officials in order to obtain the contract for the construction of the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG - Bonny Island) Project. In the criminal information filed by the U.S Department of Justice, Mr. Stanley detailed various meetings he participated in with his co-conspirators during which discussions occurred as to the use of particular consultants to pay bribes to Nigerian officials to secure support for the joint venture to obtain and retain contracts in connection with the Liquefied Natural Gas project. The records also indicated that the primary purpose of the joint venture consulting contracts was to facilitate the payment of bribes to Nigerian officials through which various payment were made to the con-conspirators using several banks in the Netherlands, the U.S., Switzerland, Monaco, and Japan for this enterprise.
"At his allocution before the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Mr. Stanley, in addition to pleading guilty to conspiring to violate the FCPA, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud in connection with a kickback scheme he participated in with a consultant in connection with LNG projects around the world in which he received several millions of Dollars in kickbacks.
"Under a plea agreement between the United States Department of Justice and Mr. Stanley, which formed the basis for the Court's judgment, Mr. Stanley was sentenced to seven years in prison in addition to payment of restitution in the amount of $250,000. He also agreed to cooperate in ongoing investigations related to the above conduct. The Federal Government of Nigeria wishes to make use of his cooperation agreement.
"The Nigerian Attorney -General has opened an investigation of this matter and now requests assistance from the United States Government. The Attorney General is determined to prosecute all of the participants in this case of grand corruption wherever they may be located, to the full extent of Nigerian law.
"The victim of the illegal overt acts and criminal conspiracy described in the Stanley indictment and allocution is the Federal Government of Nigeria. Between 1995 and 2004, the Federal Government of Nigeria awarded various contracts to the Joint Venture through LNG Limited, a corporation created by the Nigeria Government to develop an NLG facility on Bonny Island.
"During that time the contracts that were awarded to the Joint venture were valued at over US$6 billion. Most of the money went into kickbacks which were channeled through Mr. Stanley and various other consultants in active connivance with top government functionaries in Nigeria. Mr. Stanley's investigation also revealed that these monies were routed through Swiss bank accounts including accounts held in the names of nominees and Shell companies in order to conceal their scheme.
"The Federal Government of Nigeria wants to initiate criminal proceedings against the Nigerian public officers involved for violating the Nigerian laws relating to Financial and other Economic Crimes. The Government also wants to seek forfeiture of assets related to violations of Economic Crime and other Financial control and regulation laws in Nigeria.
"In order to do this, the Federal Government of Nigeria would require all the reports of the investigation conducted by the U.S Government including all documents recovered from Mr. Stanley or under the control or custody of Mr. Stanley or a competent authority relating to all inquiry and investigation and any other investigative files. The Federal Government of Nigeria would also require the assistance of the U.S Government to compel Mr. Stanley to provide substantial assistance to the Nigerian Government including providing truthful, complete and accurate information to the Nigerian government pursuant to his plea agreement with U.S government."
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