Canadian diplomat queries company’s arms sale to South Sudan
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September 5, 2017 (KAMPALA) - A former Canadian ambassador has
questioned the ethics of a Canadian company’s sale of dozens of
armoured vehicles to the South Sudanese military, reports say.
JPEG - 74.6 kb
Arms and light weapons have been used by both warring parties in South
Sudan to commit abuses (Photo courtesy of SSANSA)
Nicholas Coghlan, The Mail and Globe reported, raised questions about
the armoured vehicles sale when he learned of it while he still served
as the Canadian ambassador to the war-torn nation.
Coghlan reportedly said he was tipped off to the export deal in early
2015 on social media when someone sent him a photo of the South Sudan
military using the armoured vehicles to attack rebel positions.
"I followed up and the allegation was correct," he reportedly writes
in his book, Collapse of a Country, which was published this month.
Coghlan was first posted to South Sudan’s capital in 2012, a year
after it won independence and became the world’s newest country.
Last year, United Nations experts’ report said South Sudan purchased
173 armoured vehicles from Streit in the United Arab Emirates in 2014,
after the civil war began.
Lawyers in the federal government reportedly said the vehicle export
could not be prohibited by export-control laws because the vehicles
were manufactured at an overseas Streit factory in the United Arab
Emirates, even though it was a Canadian-owned company.
Coghlan, according to Mail and Globe, observed that the vehicle export
made it possible for people to accuse Canadian diplomats of
"hypocrisy" for criticizing South Sudan’s crimes while a Canadian
company was simultaneously selling arms to the East African nation.
In his book, the former Canadian ambassador reportedly described South
Sudan’s city of Malakal as “a lawless wasteland where all that
mattered was your ethnicity and the calibre of your weapon."
Several reports from UN agencies UN and other human-rights entities
have implicated the parties involved in the South Sudanese conflict of
gross human rights violations such as massacres, rapes and lootings.
More than 80 humanitarian workers have been killed; food convoys
looted and relief agencies harassed by government troops and rebels as
the agencies try to provide aid to the displaced civilians.
In one incident, South Sudanese soldiers hijacked and looted a large
convoy of UN food aid, including $300,000 in Canadian food aid,
Coghlan wrote, and that the UN wanted the incident covered up.
Under a resolution the UN Security Council approved in August, former
Secretary General, Ban ki-Moon’s list of South Sudan government
obstructions of the U.N. peacekeeping mission was meant to trigger a
council meeting within a few days to consider imposing an arms embargo
and other options on the young nation.
The world’s youngest country, which gained independence in 2011 from
Sudan, saw civil war break out in December 2013. Tens of thousands of
people have been killed, and both President Salva Kiir and rebel
leader Riek Machar have been accused of war crimes.
(ST)
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6 September 13:52, by Eastern
This is a very stupid POSTHUMOUS QUERY....! The weapons and
equipment sale by Canada to South Sudan was done with the full
knowledge of the Canadian government, what is Nicholas Coghlan saying,
Moron...!
repondre message
6 September 15:28, by Kuch
Mr. Eastern,
South Sudanese have a lot relationship with Canada, my own
humble self studied in their own university of McGill, in Montriel.
The Canadians however tried to toy with our counry before our
country’s independence. Do you know Mr. Eastern, the phase "blood
oil": http://www.paxvoorvrede.nl/media/files/soilandoildirtybusinessinsudan.pdf
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10
repondre message
6 September 15:38, by Kuch
Mr. Eastern,
l always advise you fool to get lost from our counry. Do
you remember Mr. Eastern that you said a few Months ago that you
"depended the ownership of Kaffie Kingi by the cloned so-called arabs
of North Sudan, that our Ngok Dinkas/Jiengs want to be your damn
cloned arabs of North Sudan. Mr. Eastern, here in our Nilotic plains,
we are going bomb you evils with your damn evil>>>
repondre message
6 September 15:55, by Kuch
corporate America, the UK, their UN, their damn sleazy
NGOs, their evil juus & some of their evil allies in between out of
our country once and for all.
repondre message
6 September 15:37, by South South
Eastern,
Yes, weapons were sold with full knowledge of Canadian
government, so what is the question? Nicholas Coghlan saw green and he
wants to make money as individual. Moron!!!!!!!
repondre message
6 September 15:44, by Midit Mitot
South Sudan has become the worse world supper market whereby
every one should sale whatever he/she want, sorry!
repondre message
6 September 15:49, by South South
Midit Mitot,
I do believe your hands are shaking right now from this
news. This is why peace is very important in our country. Let’s all
together work to bring peace so that Canadians can not find market for
their weapons.
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