Rogue Planet

US circles hijacked ship with Sudan-bound weapons

By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN and BARBARA SURK, Associated Press Writers

U.S. warships and helicopters on Monday surrounded a hijacked cargo ship loaded with Sudan-bound tanks and other arms to keep the weapons from falling "into the wrong hands," an American Navy spokesman said.

The shipment of 33 Russian-designed tanks, rifles and ammunition on the Ukrainian-operated Faina was headed for Sudan — not Kenya as previously claimed by Kenyan officials, said Lt. Nathan Christensen, a deputy spokesman for the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet.

The pirates who seized the ship are demanding a $20 million ransom.

Christensen said an unspecified number of destroyers and cruisers have joined the San Diego-based USS destroyer Howard within a 10-mile radius of the Faina.

"The safety of the ship's crew and cargo is a paramount concern to us," Christensen said, adding additional warships and helicopters were deployed to prevent the weapons from falling "into the wrong hands."

The U.S. fears the armaments onboard the Ukrainian vessel may end up with al-Qaida-linked Islamic insurgents who have been fighting the shaky U.N.-backed Somali transitional government since late 2006.

"We maintain a vigilant watch over the ship and we will remain on station while negotiations between the pirates and the shipping company are going on," Christensen told The Associated Press.

Pirates seized the Faina's Ukrainian, Russian and Latvian crew off Somalia's lawless coast on Thursday as it headed to Kenya and anchored the vessel off Somalia's coast near the central town of Hobyo. One of the 21 crew members has died.

Uganda, Sudan in Talks Over Arms Trafficking

The Monitor (Kampala)
15 January 2008
By David Mafabi

Security chiefs from the governments of Uganda and South Sudan have started discussions to end the long persistent arms trafficking in the region.

According to the UPDF, the strategy is aimed at reducing gun flow in to Karamoja region and to ensure that the UPDF disarmament exercise achieves the 100 per cent result for peace in Karamoja.

The UPDF and local leaders in Karamoja region have on several occasions hinted that the greatest undoing to the disarmament exercise in the area has been the free in flow of guns from Sudan through Kitgum to the area.

Sources in the UPDF said the move is to ensure that armed cattle rustling is stopped to create peace in Karamoja region, and also with her neighbours in Uganda and western parts of Kenya.

A meeting held last Tuesday at Kidepo in Kotido, sought among other things to boost co-operation with the government of South Sudan to end the arms trafficking.

The State Minister for Defence, Ms Ruth Nankabirwa, said the commissioner in charge of rehabilitation and reconstruction, Dr Mayo Nailo and other commissioners in the Southern Sudan government met Chief of Defence Forces, Maj. Gen. Aronda Nyakairima, and State Minister for Karamoja, Mr Aston Kajara and other security chiefs.

Ms Nankabirwa said the meeting resolved to, besides monitoring the major routes for arms trafficking, lay strategies to involve local leadership in the struggle to end arms trafficking in the East African cattle corridor.

"The meeting dealt greatly on bringing to an end arms trafficking in the region and we have resolved to co-operate in monitoring to ensure that illegal arms don't cross the boarders of another country," Ms Nankabirwa said.

She said the bringing of Sudan on board in the struggle to end arms trafficking in Karamoja region is the greatest achievement because Sudan has been the source of most arms in Karamoja region and neighbouring districts.

The two countries also agreed to construct three major roads from Karamoja through northern Uganda to provide good communication for monitoring arms trafficking.

The Monitor via [sudan.net]

Photos Prove Darfur Arms Embargo Violations, Says Amnesty International

By Joe De Capua
Washingtgon
24 August 2007

Amnesty International has released photographs that it says prove Sudan is violating the UN arms embargo for Darfur. The Khartoum government describes the photos as fake.

Brian Wood is Amnesty’s arms control research manager. From London, he told VOA English to Africa Service reporter Joe De Capua that Sudan is deploying weapons -- in what he calls –“ breathtaking defiance of the UN embargo.”

He says, “The photographs show the military equipment that the government of Sudan has been deploying in the region of Darfur of Sudan. And there are attack helicopters; there are utility helicopters that ferry arms into places where the militia, these janjaweed militia, are based. And there’s a cargo plane. Soldiers are unloading it onto Chinese military trucks. And that plane is run by a company that’s been trafficking in arms to Darfur in the last months.”

Wood says the photos were taken at the El Geneina airport in western Darfur, near the Chad border. He won’t reveal who took the photos or when.