Rebels Get Arms Through Burkina Faso, Sources Say

By Douglas Farah
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 6, 2000; Page A15

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso, May 5 –– The United Nations has long been trying to rein in the rebels in Sierra Leone, who this week killed four U.N. peacekeepers and seized more than 300 others. But international efforts have failed in part because the isolated and impoverished nation of Burkina Faso has provided a key lifeline in the rebels' procurement of weapons, intelligence sources and diplomats say.

Despite being under an international arms embargo, leaders of Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front (RUF) procured at least five large planeloads of weapons from the former Soviet bloc through Burkina Faso in 1998 and 1999, the sources said, and the government was paid with diamonds. RUF leader Foday Sankoh traveled here this year and visited President Blaise Campaore at least once despite being under an international travel ban.

And the Sierra Leone group isn't the only one to get Campaore's help. Angola's UNITA rebels and the Liberian government of Charles Taylor, both of which are under international arms embargoes, are also recipients, according to sources and a recent hard-hitting report to the U.N. Security Council. These groups' self-financing and ability to circumvent international arms and travel sanctions through payoffs and friendships with often-ignored countries are a key obstacle to finding lasting peace, diplomats say.

"That is what makes it so difficult for the United Nations or anyone else to come in and make peace a lasting proposition," said one longtime diplomat in the region. "You are touching the lucrative livelihood, not just of rebel groups but of the states that support them. That reality should give us all pause."

Ouagadougou, the sweltering capital city where motor scooters far outnumber cars, has long been a favorite haven for the region's outcasts, regional intelligence sources and diplomats say.

"Campaore hosts every pariah in the world," said one diplomat. "You cannot really speak of the government apart from him. The question is, is there money to be made and who is making it? The answer is yes, and it is being made by the president and his family."

The president's office and the foreign and communications ministries declined numerous requests for comment on the allegations.

Campaore, Sankoh, many Liberian leaders and revolutionaries involved in the struggle in Congo came of age together in the mid-1980s, under the auspices of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who promoted pan-African unity. That common experience, a knowledgeable source said, gives the groups a loose ideological and personal affinity, as well as financial incentives to work together.

The RUF and UNITA make millions of dollars a year by selling diamonds. And the regions in Sierra Leone where RUF fighters killed U.N. peacekeepers were areas where the rebels mine their stones.

And in Congo, where U.N. troops will soon begin deploying to monitor another fragile cease-fire, all sides in the multifaceted conflict finance their activities through the mining of diamonds and gold.

The money is used in part to buy arms from the former Soviet bloc, sources say. The sales are facilitated by Burkina Faso, which often, for a price, signs papers saying the weapons are being bought by the government in Ouagadougou, sources say. Such "end-user certificates" are necessary for the sale of combat weapons, and the buyer promises that the weapons will not be passed to a third party.

In a March 28 letter to Campaore, the New York-based group Human Rights Watch asked for an "urgent" investigation into evidence that 68 tons of weapons and ammunition destined for Burkina Faso's army and flown from Ukraine were diverted to the RUF in March 1999. The shipment included 3,000 AKM Kalashnikov assault rifles, 50 machine guns, 25 rocket-propelled grenades, five SA-7 surface-to-air missiles and five Metis antitank guided missile systems. The letter noted that while Burkina Faso signed the end-user certificate for the shipment, the military here has been using NATO-standard weapons.

The president has not responded to the letter or the allegations, but knowledgeable sources in the region said the flight was one of at least five that were used to bring large quantities of weapons to the RUF in 1998 and 1999.

According to the U.N. report released March 15, UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi personally and through intermediaries sent packets of diamonds to Campaore and Togo President Gnassingbe Eyadema in exchange for weapons, fuel and protection.

Typically, the report said, Savimbi would call Campaore to alert him to the arrival of diamond dealers, and the delegations would be met by "someone from the president's office and provided with protection and an escort . . . to ensure the safety of the diamonds or cash."

The report said there was "specific evidence" that flights carrying weapons from eastern Europe, principally Bulgaria and Ukraine, landed in Ouagadougou and Burkina Faso's second-largest city, Bobo-Dioulasso, "with the arms then being transshipped from there to other end users, including UNITA."

Michel Kafando, Burkina Faso's ambassador to the United Nations, said the U.N. report was "built on illusions rather than certainties," and blamed the "frivolity" and "selective nature" of the information on an anti-African bias in the investigating committee.

Last year, Campaore was forced to publicly acknowledge that in the early 1990s he secretly sent 700 troops to Liberia, along with arms and ammunition, to help Taylor fight an ultimately successful conflict. The admission came when the combatants went public, saying that if they were not paid for their services they would revolt. In a public letter, the combatants said that Taylor had told them he had signed a contract with Campaore for their services and had paid about $800 per soldier, but that they had never been paid. A parliamentary investigator said Campaore then paid the money out of his own pocket.

In Congo, the mineral wealth is sustaining the complex civil war and complicating peacekeeping efforts. Rich copper mines in the southeast have provided substantial revenue for the government of President Laurent Kabila.

Congolese rebels and soldiers from the nations backing them occupy almost half of the nation, including regions rich in diamonds and gold. One Uganda-backed rebel faction is based in Bunia, long the seat of Congo's gold-mining industry.

Uganda and Rwanda, its ally in the fight against Kabila, control the Congo River city of Kisangani, long a major trading center for the diamonds pulled from the surrounding jungles.

Should the Congo cease-fire collapse, the decisive battle likely will be for Mbuji-Mayi, the capital of the southeastern province of East Kasai and center of Congo's diamond mining.

Analysts say that if the city falls, Kabila's ability to finance a defense will collapse with it.

Correspondent Karl Vick in Cape Town, South Africa, and staff researcher Robert Thomason contributed to this report.