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Last Updated: Nov 10, 2008 - 10:01:42 AM |
After a seven-year investigation, the trial of those involved in the
so-called Angolagate-affair started last month in France. Several
prominent French nationals including Jean-Christophe Mitterand, the son
of former French President Francois Mitterand and former interior
minister Charles Pasqua were allegedly involved in the 1990s
arms-for-oil deal worth $790 million at the height of Angola’s civil
war. The deal violated a United Nations arms embargo; it fuelled
Luanda’s potential for waging war while peace negotiations between the
ruling MPLA and rebel movement UNITA were under way; it propagated an
already endemic culture of corruption and impunity and it contributed
to the looting of Angola’s natural resources.
The trial will last over 5 months, and has so far 42 accused including
Mitterand, Pasqua, French businessmen Pierre Falcone, the Israeli
billionaire Arcady Gaydamak, and former presidential advisor and the
first president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development, Jacques Attali. No Angolans have so far been summoned and
it is probable that they may never stand trial, although among those
implicated in the scandal are the Angolan President José Eduarado Dos
Santos, General Kopelipa, head of the Intelligence Services and the
second man in the Presidency, Antonio Neto, president of the National
Bank of Angola, and several other senior officials. The Angolan ruling
elite and the powerful Dos Santos have shown that they have been until
now untouchable. In a move to assure this, they extended their mantle
of impunity to Falcone by making him the Angolan Ambassador to UNESCO.
Both Falcone and Gaydamak were declared “heroes” in Angola for having
made ‘an enormous contribution to preserving democracy and the rule of
law’ in Angola.
The affair started when war resumed in Angola after the 1992 elections
and UNITA managed to occupy over 70% of the national territory. Dos
Santos then allegedly made an appeal to the French government, who
turned him down given that they were supporting UNITA. However, through
unofficial channels Luanda managed to get Jean-Bernard Curial, Africa
advisor to the French Socialist party and Jean-Christophe Mitterrand to
assist it, at which point the government at the time was introduced to
Falcone. The service provided by Falcone and Gaydamak as intermediaries
for an insolvent Angolan government and Russian state arms supplier,
Spetsvneshtekhnika, allegedly included the bribing of both right-wing
and left-wing French politicians, an aspect of this case, that if
proved to be true, could have great national implications for France.
The first deal worth $46 million went through in late 1993 and in April
of 1994 during a state visit to Paris, Dos Santos allegedly arranged
for Falcone and Gaydamak to receive 20,000 barrels of oil a day over a
period of 4 years from national oil company Sonangol. As a result,
Luanda managed to secure 450 armored vehicles, 12 helicopters, six
warships, 170,000 anti-personnel land mines, and 150,000 howitzers to
fight a war that killed over 1 million Angolans.
Luanda is using its ‘state sovereignty’ to avoid facing trial, given
that the case is before French courts and it is not an international
trial. Angola has gone as far as to threaten to take France to the
International Criminal Court if the case isn’t dismissed by invoking
French confidentiality laws protecting military secrets of foreign
countries, and national security.
This is a highly embarrassing moment for France and a test of how far
President Nicholas Sarkozy’s government is willing to go in order to
avoid denting the little progress that was achieved during his May
visit to Angola. The French Minister of Justice is adamant in
proceeding with this case while the Minister of Defense, Herve Morin,
is apparently attempting to have it simply ‘go away’. This was evident
from an exposé by the French weekly Le Point that published a letter by
Morin to the Parisian investigative judge Philippe Courroye claiming
that ‘Angolagate’ had never happened. French companies operating in
Angola, like Total, have already been warned by unnamed sources in
Luanda that their ability to continue doing business will depend on
what the court decides when it hands down its sentences on March 4th
2009.
The investigation revealed, amongst other things, how more than $21
million worth of illicit arms sales from Russia to Angola were
transferred through Portuguese banks, in particular the state-run Caixa
Geral de Depositos, and Banco Comercial Portugues. It is thought that
other European banks were also involved.
Whatever the outcome of this trial, even if Angola’s oil-backed
pressure on France manages to sabotage the legal proceedings, one thing
that will have been exposed is the perverse relationship that
geopolitical interests of powerful nations have with an ethically blind
oil trading and international banking system. Angola’s attempt to
re-write its history and ‘cleanse’ Dos Santos’ legacy through Luanda’s
recent acquisition of democratic credentials by holding election after
16 years, will once again be delayed. What will not be challenged is
the MPLA’s rule in Angola that claims to have another 25 years of
uncontested power in Luanda. In this particular case it is France that
will have to deal with the severest implications of having exposed the
greed and shady political maneuverings of its ruling class who, for
almost a decade, were complicit in corruption, illegal arms trading and
money laundering.
Source:Ocnus.net 2008
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