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IV. ARMS TRANSFERS TO THE GOVERNMENT OF SUDAN

A number of states have supplied arms, military equipment, or military training to the government of Sudan, or have failed to prevent their nationals from providing arms or services to Sudan. Very few of these transfers have been publicly documented (for example, via submissions to the U.N. register on conventional arms). Below we list some of the transfers that have surfaced; they are by no means exhaustive, but merely indicative of the scope of the trade. Human Rights Watch has written to a number of governments to inquire about particular transfers or training arrangements. The replies received are referred to below.

China

The People’s Republic of China, which has sold arms to successive Sudanese governments since the early 1980s, became one of the country’s principal arms suppliers in 1994 and remained so into 1998, largely because China had what Sudan wanted and attached no conditions, other than monetary ones and oil concessions, to their sale. Chinese weapons are relatively cheap, and much of what Sudan has been purchasing is fairly old stock. In perhaps one of the most significant transactions, China is said to have sold the government of Sudan SCUD missiles at the end of 1996 in a deal underwritten by a $200 million Malaysian government loan against future oil extraction, according to a high-level Sudanese defector, who claimed the deal, which he said he witnessed, was arranged by Sudan’s state minister for external relations, Dr. Mustafa Osman Ismail.83 SCUD missiles are notoriously inaccurate medium-range rockets that have been used against civilian population centers in past conflicts, such as the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War and the 1991 Gulf War.

The government of Sudan began to increase its purchases of new weapons from China under the Nimeiri government, according to ex-Sudanese military officers based in Eritrea who were in the government of deposed president Sadiq al-Mahdi at the time these transactions took place.84 But these and other purchases have risen in the 1990s due to Sudan’s enhanced capacity to pay for new arms as a result of financial support from Iran and Malaysia and enhanced international credit based upon efforts to exploit the country’s oil reserves. Weapons deliveries since 1995 include ammunition, tanks, helicopters, and fighter aircraft. According to at least one published report, in late 1995 China supplied the government of Sudanwith fifty Z-6 helicopters, a hundred 82mm and 120mm mortars, and other equipment.85 Sudan reportedly also bought six Chinese Chengdu F-7s (MiG-21s) financed by Iran.86 In 1997, the government of Sudan also was reported to have a new type of Chinese-made, light-weight antitank weapon in its arsenal—probably a Chinese copy of the Russian SPG-9—mounted on two wheels that could be pulled by hand by soldiers.87 One Sudanese army defector, formerly with an air defense unit, claimed he witnessed Chinese experts assembling Chinese-supplied jet fighters at the Wadi Saydna base north of Omdurman in 1993.88 China also became a major supplier of antipersonnel and antitank mines to Sudan after 1980, according to a high-ranking government official, who claimed, however, that Sudan has not received any new landmines since 1993.89

While China’s motivation for this trade appears to be primarily economic, it has provided easy financing for some of these purchases, including one soft loan payable in 2005, according to a high-ranking Eritrean military official who said he pointedly criticized these arms transfers in discussions with Chinese officials, who in turn defended their right to make the sales.90 Human Rights Watch wrote to the government of China in March 1998 to solicit its comments on some of the above allegations, as well as the discovery of large amounts of Chinese weapons, especially landmines, in captured Sudanese army stocks (see chapter 3), and as of mid-August 1998 had not yet received a reply.

Iran

Iran has given the government of Sudan a wide range of military assistance, from the provision of arms and financing to purchase arms to internal security training. This support has also included: financing the expansion of the harbor at Port Sudan; selling oil to Sudan at concessionary rates; providing spare parts for aging U.S. C-130 transport planes and other western equipment acquired (in both cases) under previous governments; and furnishing its forces with both small arms and ammunition.91 In addition, Iran has financed non-Sudanese armed Islamist groups based in Sudan, according to a defecting former Sudanese army officer.92

Iran’s military support comes in part from its own growing arms industry, as the country has become a significant arms producer in recent years, exporting its equipment to the Middle East and Africa, among other expanding markets. Major product lines include missiles, military vehicles, communications, marineequipment, chemical products, and aviation. Each line is organized as a separate industry under the Defence Industries Organization, run by the Ministry of Defence. Among its new products are rockets for RPG-7s and SPG-9 antitank weapons. Iran also makes 122mm rockets for Russian BM-21 multiple rocket launchers, large-caliber ammunition for tanks, artillery and mortars, and a wide range of small arms and ammunition.93

A high-ranking Sudanese government official confirmed that Iran had supplied Sudan with G-3 rifles, but he claimed they were of such poor quality that the government was shifting to Kalashnikov assault rifles. He also told Human Rights Watch that the government had purchased medium-range artillery from Iran.94 One former army captain, who had recently defected, told Human Rights Watch in 1996 that he personally saw G-3 rifles, mortars (60mm and 82mm) and ammunition unloaded at the Khartoum airport that had come from Iran.95 He also claimed that he had met an Iranian citizen at Sudan’s military headquarters in Khartoum who held a managerial position at the Sudan Military Industries Corporation.

Sudanese army defectors from units throughout the country independently confirmed that Iran has long been a major supplier of light arms and artillery, with Iranian experts coming to Sudan to provide special training for these weapons. The only U.S.-supplied Sudanese C-130 still functioning in 1997 was used to ferry light arms and ammunition, such as medium-range mortars and G-3 assault rifles, directly from Iran to Khartoum, according to a former army officer who claimed that he witnessed the arrival of these flights in Khartoum.96 Other sources said that Iran accelerated its airlift of arms and ammunition to Khartoum after Sudan’s battlefield losses in January 1997. The new arms included 120mm mortars, antitank rockets, and ammunition.97

Other defectors from artillery units based in several different regions and interviewed separately confirmed that Iranian-supplied artillery, accompanied by Iranian military experts, has arrived steadily in Sudan since 1990. One cited three 130mm long-range artillery pieces he saw transported by river steamer and truck to Juba in November 1996, adding that he had only seen a single such gun in the south prior to that.98

Iran has also provided Sudan with thousands of advisers who have carried out both ideological and internal security training, according to many former Sudanese army officers, enlisted men, and other sources interviewed separately over the course of this investigation.99 In 1992 there were as many as 2,000 Iranianpolitical advisers in Khartoum training mainly Sudan’s Popular Defense Forces (PDF).100 Iran later began to play a lead role in advising Khartoum on matters of internal security, including the reorganization of both Sudan’s police and military forces, in a continuing effort to purge potentially disloyal elements and to develop a loyal level of NIF cadres, according to defecting military officers and enlisted men.101

Two former Sudanese army officers told Human Rights Watch that Iran has helped to train a new “People’s Police” side by side with, and under separate command from, the National Police.102 NIF cadres were also sent to Iran for special training, these sources said. Their mission was “to carry out security work under the camouflage of police work.” The NIF has also slowly purged members of the National Police, with 1,200 new officers replacing some 2,500-3,000 officers who have been discharged since the NIF seized power in 1989. A similar process of purging and replacing officers and mid-level cadres was underway in the army, they said.103

Human Rights Watch wrote to the government of Iran in March 1998 to solicit its comments on some of the above allegations, as well as the discovery of large amounts of Iranian weapons, especially landmines, in captured Sudanese army stocks (see chapter 3), and as of mid-August 1998 had not yet received a reply.

Iraq

Iraq’s main form of military support to the government of Sudan has come in the form of technical assistance and training. The role of the Iraqi technicians was pieced together from interviews with over a dozen Sudanese army defectors who claimed to have had direct experience with the Iraqis and whose independently acquired testimony was internally consistent. According to one well-placed defector, sixty Iraqi military experts rotated in and out of the country every six months to work on special military projects. They were part of an agreement with the Sudan Air Force for training and technical maintenance that included twenty engineers and pilots on two-month rotations. Others of the sixty were involved in munitions development with the Military Industries Corporation in Khartoum North. Those who arrived with their families lived in the Al-Amarat district of Khartoum (a middle-class neighborhood near the airport), while bachelors lived in the Karfouri military complex in Khartoum North.104

A Sudanese officer who served as a forward air controller in southern Sudan in March 1994 claimed he saw Iraqi pilots flying combat missions against SPLA positions. Five Iraqi pilots were based in Juba, he said, adding that there was a shortage of qualified Sudanese pilots due to continuing political purges by the NIF since 1990.105 Other defectors confirmed the appearance of Iraqi technicians and pilots with the Sudan Air Force. One claimed he saw Iraqi pilots in Juba flying helicopter gunships between 1995 and 1996, when he defected.106

Iraq has also provided the government of Sudan with Soviet model T-55 tanks and 130mm artillery since before the Gulf War, these sources said. Iraq may also have provided other artillery, as well as various dual-use items involving military transport. Diplomatic sources in the region claimed that in 1996 Iraq provided Sudan with kits to adapt Antonov cargo planes to carry three 500-pound bombs on each side of their fuselages, turning them into medium-range bombers.107

Human Rights Watch wrote to the government of Iraq in March 1998 to solicit its comments on some of the above allegations, and as of mid-August 1998 had not yet received a reply.

The Russian Federation

Military cooperation between Russia and Sudan resumed after an agreement between the two countries was signed in 1993. A former Sudanese Army officer who claimed to have direct knowledge of the agreement asserted that the cornerstone was a deal involving Russian participation in Sudan’s oil industry.108 This source said that Russia supplied two squadrons (sixteen in each squadron) of Sukhoi bombers, which he personally witnessed being delivered in April and May 1996 in crates carried by Ilyushin cargo planes landing in Khartoum, where they were off-loaded by Russian-speaking experts. The defector also insisted that ten Mi-24 helicopter gunships were shipped to Khartoum at approximately the same time, arriving with Russian-speaking crews. He said he saw their passports, which, like those of all foreign military experts, were not stamped with any Sudanese markings. However, the nationality of the technicians who service such equipment is not a signal of the source of the purchase, as arms experts and technicians from many former Soviet republics, like the arms themselves, are now available on the open market to the highest bidder.

Russia also supplied twenty to forty T-55 tanks, according to the defecting military officer who claimed that they were delivered by the end of 1996. Russian experts have maintained and repaired other equipment, including MiG-19 and MiG-21 fighter aircraft, he said. Diplomatic sources in the region alsoasserted that Russia has supplied the government of Sudan with large quantities of military vehicles—trucks and jeeps.109

Human Rights Watch wrote to the government of the Russian Federation in March 1998 to solicit its comments on some of the above allegations, and as of mid-August 1998 had not yet received a reply.

Former Soviet Republics and Warsaw Pact States

Several former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact states have sold arms to Sudan, though it has proved difficult to identify the country of origin of particular weapons, such as the Soviet-model Mi-24B Hind helicopters, due to the fact that much of this trade appears to be carried out through privately-owned companies which buy and sell arms and hire personnel from many of the former Soviet republics. Belarus reported in 1997 that it supplied Sudan with six Russian-made Mi-24B attack helicopters and nine Russian-made T-55 battle tanks in 1996.110 The government of Ukraine reported selling Sudan six BMP-2 armored personnel carriers in 1996.111 Moreover, some diplomatic sources identified Ukraine as a supplier of Mi-24s to the government of Sudan.112 A former Sudanese diplomat claimed that mercenaries from Tajikistan were involved in training missions in Sudan, but maintained that they were not on an official assignment from their government.113 Both Kazakstan and Kyrgyztan were cited by former Sudanese army officers as sources of Soviet-era weapons.114 One Sudanese army defector claimed that Croatian experts worked with Sudan's Military Industries Corporation through the military's intelligence branch, rather than with the regular army, and that Croatian military experts came to Sudan in July 1996.115 Romania was cited by some western diplomats as a source of Soviet-made arms for Sudan.116 And Poland reportedly blocked a shipment of fifty T-55 tanks after protests by U.S. intelligence officers.117

One frequently mentioned former Eastern Bloc country said to be providing military expertise to Sudan was Bulgaria,118 which Human Rights Watch has found in other areas of Africa to have been both an active supplier and an important transshipment country of weapons.119 In response to a written query from Human Rights Watch, an official at the Bulgarian embassy in Washington, D.C. told us in April 1998 that “the Bulgarian government doesn’t have any role in arming the parties” in the Sudanese civil war, and stressed that a new government had taken office in April 1997 that did not wish to “return to the policies of the previous government,” while acknowledging that “it could be that some Bulgarian traders, without the government’s knowledge, buy and sell arms.”120

France

Among western countries, France has been closest to the government of Sudan. In exchange for the 1994 extradition of “Carlos the Jackal,” a Venezuelan national accused of carrying out armed attacks on French territory, France provided Sudan with satellite intelligence on SPLA positions, according to various sources and confirmed by a former high-ranking Sudanese military intelligence officer and western diplomatic sources. The Sudanese officer claimed he had worked as a liaison officer with a dissident SPLA group led by the late Cmdr. William Nyuon which had fought the dominant SPLA led by John Garang before Nyuon was killed. The officer said he was forced out of the Sudanese military in late 1995 under suspicion that he had switched loyalties to Nyuon, but he claimed that before that time he saw French intelligence information that was passed on to Sudanese government forces in southern Sudan.121

France has also provided other forms of military assistance, according to defectors and diplomatic sources in the region. These sources said that France brokered arrangements between Sudan and the former Zaire, prior to Mobutu Sese Seko’s overthrow by Rwandan-backed rebels under Laurent-Désiré Kabila, and between Sudan and the Central African Republic to allow Sudanese forces to use their territories to launch surprise attacks against the SPLA. France continued to aid Sudan with training and technical assistance, but not arms, in an effort to gain influence in Khartoum, these sources said.122


South Africa

The South African government and South African nationals appear to have sold or serviced arms to Sudan since the change in government in Pretoria in May 1994, despite denials by South African Deputy Defense Minister Ronny Kasrils.123 One high-level Sudanese army defector claimed personally to have seen twelve South African technicians, there to service South African and other military helicopters, who remainedin Khartoum for eight months after the African National Congress-led government of national unity came to power in Pretoria, pledging to halt arms traffic with Sudan. He also claimed that a representative of Atlas Aviation, a division of the South African parastatal Denel, visited Khartoum every three months through at least August 1996 (when the source defected), arriving each time on a Kenya Airways flight from Nairobi, continuing a pattern set—and acknowledged—by the previous South African government.124 Until early 1996, this man was met at the airport by El-Fatih Erwa before the latter’s appointment as Sudan’s permanent representative to the United Nations.125

According to the same defector, a high-ranking South African air force official visited Khartoum as recently as December 1994 and renewed an agreement to service Puma helicopters, originally supplied to Sudan in the 1980s under a previous South African government. Sudan sent four more Puma 330s (made under license from Eurocopter SA in Romania) to South Africa for repairs. The South African military experts mentioned above were in Sudan through January 1995 to work on this project, he said.

Former South African military personnel were involved in training and arms transfers to Sudan up to 1997, according to Sudanese opposition figures. The late NDA leader Gen. Fathi Ahmed Ali claimed that South Africa supplied Sudan with antiaircraft guns and medium-range artillery and mortars in the early 1990s, under the apartheid government.126 South Africans—possibly acting in a private capacity—also delivered two shipments of arms to Sudan in 1995, and a third shipment in 1997, using Yemen as a transit point to disguise the origin, according to an Eritrean military official. These shipments included light artillery, heavy machine guns, and spare parts for the Sudanese Navy.127

In May 1998, a Human Rights Watch researcher photographed a 40mm Armscor MGL six-shot grenade launcher and corresponding ammunition during a visit to the Nuba mountains, which the SPLA claimed were captured from Sudanese government forces in Delami in the Nuba mountains on August 8, 1997. One of the 40mm grenades for the grenade launcher was marked RD 40mm SMK BST, RED PHOS M8931A1, 005 C 94. The marks indicate that the red phosphorus smoke round was produced in South Africa by Swartklip Products (a division of Denel Ltd.) in 1994, and logically therefore would have been exported after the end of apartheid under the current ANC-led government.128

Media reports in South Africa in September 1997 charged that South African arms were finding their way to both sides in Sudan’s civil war, and specifically that SPLA units had captured South African arms from Sudanese government forces earlier in 1997. The National Intelligence Coordinating Committee, overseen by the Ministry of Defence, undertook an investigation into these charges later in the year, but hadnot yet announced its findings by the middle of August 1998.129 The chairman of South Africa’s National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC), Kader Asmal, said at that time, though, that the government had placed a moratorium on all arms sales to Sudan in 1995, and that the moratorium remained in force. He also said that no military- or security-related activities by South African nationals in Sudan, on any side, had been authorized by the South African government.130 In a letter to Human Rights Watch in December 1997, Kader Asmal stated that “our checks have shown that no current shipments of arms from South Africa are reaching the Sudan.”131 In March 1998, Human Rights Watch wrote to the South African government with a number of questions regarding information presented in this report, and including a question about previous shipments from South Africa that might have reached the Sudan. By the middle of August 1998, no reply had been received from the South African government aside from an acknowledgment of receipt of our correspondence.

Asian States

Jane’s Foreign Report mentioned India as an arms supplier in 1996; negotiations between the two governments reportedly involved spare parts from the former Soviet Union that were either made or held in stock in India.132 Other sources said they include ammunition for the G-3 rifles that are standard issue in the Sudanese Army, shipped by a private company and not the government.133 Diplomatic sources charged that Pakistan had supplied Sudan with parts for old U.S. M-48 tanks—which Sudan is still trying to use—in what appeared to be solely an economic transaction.134

Arab States Other Than Iraq

Libya provided Sudan with heavy artillery in 1995, according to high-level Eritrean officials.135 A former Sudanese army officer charged that Qatar, whose government attempted unsuccessfully to broker negotiations between the government of Sudan and the NDA, provided equipment for the Sudanese Army Signal Corps and for the Air Force.136 This source also claimed that several representatives from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) traveled to Khartoum in 1996, meeting with Minister of Defense Hassan AbdelRahman to discuss arms transactions.137 Eritrean officials have charged that the UAE, which has a large airport (Sharjah) that has served as a cargo hub for Africa and the Middle East, has been a base for airlifting arms to Khartoum, arranged by independent Islamist financiers rather than specific governments, and using cargo aircraft leased from Russia.138

One diplomatic source in the region claimed that Jordan and Yemen sent small arms shipments to the government of Sudan in January and February 1997 in solidarity with the government after opposition attacks from bases in neighboring Eritrea, Ethiopia and Uganda.139 A SAF field commander claimed that six C-130s landed in Khartoum in the third week of January 1997 to bring arms and ammunition from Yemen, Iran, and Qatar to replenish supplies for artillery and armor that were exhausted during the fighting that month.140 The late NDA military leader Gen. Fathi Ahmed Ali, former head of the Sudan armed forces under the Sadiq al-Mahdi government, claimed that a shipment of Iraqi arms arranged by the Yemen Reform Party was off-loaded in Port Sudan on February 20, 1997. The shipment, he said, included 600 antitank weapons of various types taken from a depot in Yemen, and the ship, sailing from the Yemeni port of Al-Mukalla, was the El Obeid, captained by Naji Asam Maki.141

During a July 1997 visit to SPLA-held areas in southern Sudan, Human Rights Watch found numerous Belgian PRB M3 plastic antitank mines in crates that were marked: “Ministry of Defence and Aviation, Dammam - Saudi Arabia, Exp. 5202, Package No. 12030.”142 In 1996, the government of Saudi Arabia declared, in response to a U.N. resolution seeking the views of member states on illicit arms transfers, that “there is no illicit transfer of arms through Saudi Arabia.”143 Taking this statement at face value, and given the Ministry of Defense marking on the crates, the implication is that this particular shipment was an official one, authorized by the government. In 1995 a U.S. company owned by an unnamed Saudi was said to have shipped to Sudan $120 million in arms, including howitzers, mortars and tank ammunition, according to published reports.144

Chile

Human Rights Watch also photographed cluster antipersonnel bomblets in October 1997 in Yei, Sudan, after a government bombing attack, that appeared to be Chilean-made. The bomblets were PM-1 antiarmor, antipersonnel bomblets dropped either in CB-130 (fifty bomblets), CB-250-K (240 bomblets), or CB-500 (240 bomblets) cluster bombs. These bombs appeared to match the configurations of cluster bombs that are produced by Industrias Cardoen Ltda., Chile, but if they are indeed the same, it is not clear how they came to the government of Sudan. Known sales to the region include a large quantity to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War and a shipment of 1,658 to Ethiopia in 1991, shortly before the Mengistu government was overthrown in Addis Ababa.145

In response to a query by Human Rights Watch, the Chilean government responded by stating that “the allegations made in your letter are erred [sic], for in the registers of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the War Undersecretariat and of the National Mobilization General Directorate, there are no indications whatsoever of Chilean manufactured weapons, including cluster bombs, ever having been exported to Sudan.”146 The letter also indicated that Sudan was on Chile’s list of states “over which there is a total and comprehensive prohibition of exporting any type of war materiel”; that the case of Ethiopia is “identical to Sudan’s, and Chile has not engaged in the sale of any war materiel to that State”; and that “[l]ikewise, and ever since the embargo imposed by the U.N.’s Security Council...as a consequence of Iraq’s war of aggression towards neighboring Kuwait, Chile has not sold any war materiel to Iraq.” Regrettably, the letter remained silent on the possible sale of weapons, including cluster bombs, to Ethiopia or Iraq during the government of President Augusto Pinochet in the 1980s.147

Ethiopia

Ethiopia provided the government of Sudan with a fleet of T-54 and T-55 Soviet-model tanks and other equipment in 1992, according to Jane’s, after rebels there deposed the government of Lt. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam. The arms were said to have been bartered to Khartoum for food.148

83 Human Rights Watch interview with Abdelaziz Ahmed Khattab, The Hague, November 15, 1997. Khattab also claimed, in a written statement, that the Malaysian national oil company was used as a cover to ship arms to Sudan: “Arms deals agreed upon have been shipped by sea in the name of the Malaysian National Petroleum Company and that of the Chinese National Petroleum Company, under the guise of petroleum exploration equipment according to an agreement concluded between the government in Khartoum and these companies in Kuala Lumpur under which they provide weaponry and military equipment in exchange for being given concessions for oil explorations.” “Statement by the Administrative Attaché, Embassy of Sudan, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: To the People of the Sudan and World Public Opinion,” signed by Abdelaziz Ahmed Abdelaziz Khattab, the Netherlands, September 29, 1997. Human Rights Watch has been unable to independently confirm this allegation. The Canadian oil company Arakis Energy Corporation is known to have been involved with a number of partners in an oil-exploration and development scheme in Sudan, the Sudan Petroleum Project, since November 1996. According to news reports, two of Arakis’s partners in the project, China National Petroleum Corp. and Petronas, the Malaysian state oil company, have covered start-up costs, giving credit to Arakis for its spending from 1993 until the formation of the consortium in November 1996. In July 1998, Arakis’s attempt to raise enough funds for its share in the development appeared to be faltering. Jeffrey Jones, “Cash crunch may force sale of Canada’s Arakis Energy,” Reuters, July 7, 1998. See also, “Arakis Announces 1997 Results,” Company Press Release, Business Wire, Calgary (Canada), April 1, 1998.

84 Human Rights Watch interviews with Gen. Fathi Ahmed Ali and other officers, Asmara, September 10, 1996.

85 Indian Ocean Newsletter, December 23, 1995.

86 International Security Digest (London), January 1996.

87 Human Rights Watch interview with a Sudanese prisoner in SPLA custody, a noncommissioned officer who said he was captured by the SPLA on March 22, 1997, western Ethiopia, March 29, 1997.

88 Human Rights Watch interview with a former Sudanese military officer, western Ethiopia, March 29, 1997.

89 Human Rights Watch interview with Maj. Gen. Muhammad Sanousi Ahmed, deputy chief of staff for military intelligence, Sudan People’s Armed Forces, Khartoum, November 20, 1997.

90 Human Rights Watch interview with Gen. Sebhat Ephrem, chief of staff of the Eritrean Defense Forces, Asmara, September 10, 1996.

91 Human Rights Watch interviews with former Sudanese military officers, Tessenei and Asmara, September 1996 and March 1997.

92 Human Rights Watch interview with a defector, Tessenei (Eritrea), March 10, 1997.

93 “Built in Iran: the push for self-sufficiency,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, October 15, 1997.

94 Human Rights Watch interview with Maj. Gen. Muhammad Sanousi Ahmed, deputy chief of staff for military intelligence, Sudan People’s Armed Forces, Khartoum, November 20, 1997.

95 Human Rights Watch interview, Tessenei (Eritrea), September 15, 1996. Re-interviewed by Human Rights Watch in March 1997, he confirmed the details of his earlier testimony.

96 Human Rights Watch interview with former Sudanese military officer, Tessenei (Eritrea), September 15, 1996.

97 Small Arms World Report, vol. 7, nos. 3 & 4 (March 1997), p. 48.

98 Human Rights Watch interview with a former noncommissioned officer, Tessenei (Eritrea), March 9, 1997.

99 Among those interviewed on these issues by Human Rights Watch were a former noncommissioned officer based in Juba in 1994 who claimed he saw Iranian security trainers there; a military veteran of eighteen years whoclaimed he saw Iranian specialists training Sudanese troops in the use of twelve-pipe multiple rocket launchers provided by Iran; and a military officer who claimed he saw six Iranian military trainers in Juba in 1995.

100 Robert Lowry, “Sudan Strengthens Forces as Fighting is Stepped Up,” Jane's Defence Weekly, May 9, 1992.

101 Human Rights Watch interviews with former Sudanese military officers, Tessenei and Asmara, September 1996 and March 1997.

102 The People’s Police Force was established by the government of Sudan in September 1992 with a mission, among other duties, to “mobilize popular energies towards maintaining security and public order, and to improve and rectify society in accordance with religious teachings and the precepts of superior morals.” (Article 4 of the 1992 Order Establishing the People’s Police Force). Female agents were to be responsible as well for enforcing women’s compliance with dress and behavior codes. For further information, see Human Rights Watch/Africa, Behind the Red Line, pp. 136-37.

103 Human Rights Watch interviews with defecting Sudanese military officers, Tessenei (Eritrea), September 15, 1996.

104 Human Rights Watch interview with a former Sudanese military officer, Tessenei (Eritrea), September 15, 1996.

105 Human Rights Watch interview with former Sudanese military officer, Tessenei (Eritrea), September 15, 1996.

106 Human Rights Watch interviews (in western Ethiopia, March 29, 1997) with a former noncommissioned officer based in Juba in 1994 and Damazin in 1995-97 who claimed he saw several Iraqi technicians and fighter pilots in Juba and two Iraqi helicopter pilots in Damazin; a former military officer who claimed he saw Iraqi technicians and fighter pilots in 1994 and 1995 before he defected; and a former military officer who claimed he saw four Iraqi pilots and technicians in Juba in 1995 and 1996.

107 Human Rights Watch interviews with diplomatic sources, Nairobi, September 5, 1996, and July 3-5, 1997.

108 Human Rights Watch interview with former Sudanese military officer, Tessenei (Eritrea), September 15, 1996.

109 Human Rights Watch interviews with diplomatic sources, Addis Ababa, March 18-19, 1997.

110 United Nations General Assembly, United Nations Register of Conventional Arms: Report of the Secretary-General, A/52/312 (August 28, 1997), p. 13. The government of Belarus had failed to respond to a March 1998 written query by Human Rights Watch as of the middle of August 1998.

111 United Nations General Assembly, United Nations Register of Conventional Arms: Report of the Secretary-General, A/52/312 (August 28, 1997), p. 58.

112 Human Rights Watch interviews with diplomatic sources, Nairobi, September 5, 1996. The government of Ukraine had failed to respond to a March 1998 written query by Human Rights Watch as of the middle of August 1998.

113 Human Rights Watch interview with Abdelaziz Ahmed Khattab, The Hague, November 15, 1997.

114 Human Rights Watch interview with a SAF commander (a former Sudanese military officer), Asmara, March 2, 1997.

115 Human Rights Watch interview with a former Sudanese military officer, Tessenei (Eritrea), September 15, 1996. The government of Croatia had failed to respond to a March 1998 written query by Human Rights Watch as of the middle of August 1998.

116 The government of Romania had failed to respond to a March 1998 written query by Human Rights Watch as of the middle of August 1998.

117 “Iran top ‘pariah state’ in arms buys,” Washington Times, January 12, 1998.

118 Human Rights Watch interview with Gen. Fathi Ahmed Ali and other former Sudanese military officers, Asmara, September 10, 1996.

119 See, for example, Human Rights Watch Arms Project, Stoking the Fires, p. 55.

120 Telephone conversation with Petio Petev, political counselor and acting deputy chief of mission, Embassy of Bulgaria, Washington, D.C., April 13, 1998.

121 Human Rights Watch interview with former Sudan military intelligence officer, Tessenei (Eritrea), September 15, 1996.

122 Human Rights Watch interview with Gen. Fathi Ahmed Ali, Asmara, September 10, 1996, supported by interviews with diplomatic sources in Asmara and Addis Ababa, September 1996 and March 1997.

123 See Pax Christi Netherlands, “Report on South African Military Involvement in Sudan’s Civil War to the Cameron Commission of Inquiry” (Utrecht, December 1994), p. 3.

124 Pax Christi Netherlands reported in 1994 that Atlas Aviation had been granted a permit by ARMSCOR, the state-owned arms industry, in consultation with both the South African Defence Forces and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the previous South African government, to carry out maintenance on Sudanese air force helicopters, including Soviet-model M-8 “Hip” military transports. Pax Christi Netherlands, “Report on South African Military Involvement,” p. 3.

125 Human Rights Watch interviews with a former Sudanese military officer, Tessenei (Eritrea), September 15, 1996 and March 10, 1997.

126 Human Rights Watch interview with Gen. Fathi Ahmed Ali, Asmara, September 10, 1996.

127 Human Rights Watch interview with a high-ranking Eritrean military official, Asmara, March 6, 1997.

128 A photograph of the grenade launcher is on file with Human Rights Watch.

129 Marion Edmunds, “SA Arms in the Sudan Conflict,” Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg), September 4, 1997; and “Sudan Envoy Clears SA Government of Links to Arms Deals,” SAPA-AFP, July 31, 1998.

130 “Arms Supplies to Sudan Illegal: Asmal,” SAPA, July 28, 1998.

131 Letter from Kader Asmal to Human Rights Watch, December 3, 1997. (Emphasis added by Human Rights Watch.)

132 “Sudan has odd friends,” Jane's Foreign Report (London), December 14, 1995. India has long used Soviet-type weapons, and it is therefore quite possible that it produces its own spare parts for these weapons, although it is equally possible that the 1996 negotiations referred to here involved spare parts originally purchased from the Soviet Union.

133 Human Rights Watch interviews with diplomats, Nairobi, September 5, 1996.

134 Human Rights Watch interviews with diplomats, Nairobi, September 5, 1996.

135 Human Rights Watch interview with a senior Eritrean official, Asmara, September 10, 1996.

136 Human Rights Watch interview with a former Sudanese military officer, Tessenei (Eritrea), September 15, 1996 and March 10, 1997.

137 The government of the United Arab Emirates had failed to respond to a March 1998 written query by Human Rights Watch as of the middle of August 1998.

138 Human Rights Watch interviews with Eritrean government officials, Asmara, September 1996 and March 1997.

139 Human Rights Watch interview with a western diplomat based in the region in the fall of 1997.

140 Human Rights Watch interview with SAF field commander Esam Mirghani, Asmara, June 28, 1997.

141 Human Rights Watch interview with Gen. Fathi Ahmed Ali, Asmara, March 7, 1997. See also, “Sudan Rebels Say Khartoum Receiving Iraqi Arms,” Reuters, February 28, 1997.

142 Dammam is a Saudi port on the Persian Gulf across from Bahrain. The side of the crate was marked: “SAP STOCK NUMBER 5205-19- 60261 NON-DETECTABLE ATK MINES.” ATK mines are antitank mines. The mines were marked: “LOT SAP,” followed by a serial number, such as “-1-10.” Human Rights Watch has photographs of the boxes as well as the mines.

143 United Nations General Assembly, General and Complete Disarmament: Measures to Curb the Illicit Transfer and Use of Conventional Arms—Report of the Secretary-General, A/51/181, June 27, 1996.

144 Africa Confidential, May 12, 1995.

145 On June 8, 1984, Radio Cooperativa in Santiago reported that Industrias Cardoen Ltda. had sold 5,000 cluster bombs to Iraq, and that the company’s director, Carlos Cardoen, had told the station that, in the station’s words, “since this time the transaction was made public through the news agency report, he did not deny the transaction and that on the contrary, he confirmed the sale of the 5,000 cluster bombs.” The station then quoted a “high-ranking Chilean Foreign Ministry source” as saying that this was a normal transaction for which no authorization was needed. Reported in Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), June 11, 1984. In November 1990, the publication Adulis in London stated in a report that Chile had shipped a consignment of cluster bombs to Ethiopia, and that the Chilean Ministry of Defence “acknowledged that General Pinochet’s government had authorized the sale of 1,658 cluster bombs to Ethiopia through an arms firm, the Industrias Cardoen.” Reported in FBIS-AFR-91-002, February 1, 1991. Moreover, Industrias Cardoen (Chile) is known to have sold a production license for cluster munitions to Iraq in the late 1980s. It is unclear whether Iraq developed the capability to produce these munitions independently.

146 Letter from John Biehl, Ambassador of Chile in the United States, to Human Rights Watch, April 7, 1998.

147 Human Rights Watch sent a letter to the Chilean government for further clarification on this matter on June 16, 1998, and received a reply from the embassy in Washington, D.C. on June 26 that our query had been conveyed to the “appropriate authorities” in Chile.

148 Jane’s Defence Weekly (February 13, 1993), p. 27.

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