Canadian company sold armoured vehicles to South Sudanese: report
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July 31, 2016 (KAMPALA) - A Canadian company sold over 170 armoured
vehicles to South Sudan army during the country’s brutal civil war, a
United Nations report shows.
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)
According to The Globe and Mail, the armoured vehicles sold to South
Sudan were manufactured by Canadian-owned Streit Group at a factory in
United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The UN panel said the armoured vehicles from Streit Group belonged to
the South Sudanese army, but were imported and maintained by Crown
Automobiles, a company owned by Obac William Olawo, a South Sudan
businessman allegedly with close connections to President Salva Kiir.
Founded in Ontario in the 1990s and owned by Canadian businessman
Guerman Goutorov, Streit Group is “the world’s leading manufacturer of
armoured vehicles.”
Some of the vehicles, it said, were observed in heavy combat zones,
citing a report from arms-control advocacy entity.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced in
South Sudan’s worst-ever outbreak of violence since it seceded from
neighbouring Sudan in July 2011.
Since 2014, however, human-rights observers, including UN experts,
have documented how South Sudan’s army has allegedly engaged in
massacres, rapes, looting, arbitrary arrests and killing of civilians
since war erupted in the nation.
The UN Secretary General, early this month, urged the 15-member
Security Council to impose an immediate arms embargo, enact additional
targeted sanctions on leaders and commanders blocking implementation
of the peace deal after renewed fighting between the country’s rival
factions left over 270 soldiers dead in the capital, Juba.
China and Russia have often stood in the way of the Security Council’s
approval of an arms embargo on South Sudan.
Arms exports to South Sudan is considered a violation of the
international Arms Trade Treaty, approved by the UN General Assembly
in 2013 and has since then been ratified by 133 nations.
In April, a UN panel reportedly accused Streit Group of violating an
international arms embargo on Libya in 2012 by selling armoured
vehicles to the country without obtaining advance approval from a UN
sanctions committee.
A spokesman for Canada’s Global Affairs department reportedly said
this week that the federal government “takes seriously” the issue of
arms exports, but he described Streit’s sale of armoured vehicles to
the world’s youngest nation as a transaction between that country and
the UAE, since the vehicles were manufactured in a UAE factory.
However, when arms equipment is manufactured outside Canada, even if
the company is Canadian-owned, the federal government reportedly
considers those sales to be outside the jurisdiction of Canada’s
export controls.
Meanwhile, a separate report, by the US-based advocacy group, Control
Arms, reportedly described how the SPLA used 50 Cougar and Typhoon
armoured personnel carriers that it obtained from Streit Group’s UAE
factory between 2012 and 2014 for $9-million.
(ST)
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31 July 09:28, by DHARCHEP
Salva Kiir, need to watch out and see the problems of UN in South
Sudan. What is their concerns whether we bought armoured vehicle from
any company? That is a business. It looks like South Sudan is being
ruled by UN. I doubt about this.
Dharchep
repondre message
31 July 09:36, by Eastern
Dharchep,
Kiir, your tribal chief us wasting the resources of the
country. Some of these vehicles have been destroyed in the recent
clashes in Juba. See this
link:http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2016/07/12/salva-kiir-and-riek-machar-order-ceasefire-amid-clashes_c1384470
repondre message
31 July 10:01, by DHARCHEP
Eastern, you are fool and idiot ass man who don’t understand the
reality. Where did Nuer get power when they run away leaving their
girls and women for UNIMISS? My friend Nuer will be a slave community
for ever. How many times your fake doctor Riek Machar ran away from
Juba? Riek Machar is powerless. Last he complain about Uganda army,
what happened last two weeks when he ran without underwear?
repondre message
31 July 13:05, by Akook
Respect companies in the world need to be carefully selling
arms to genocidal government of South Sudan. These arms are later
misuse to carry out horrific human rights abuses including massacring
innocent women and children, raping even forced cannibalism on streets
of Juba!
repondre message
31 July 18:23, by Eastern
Dharchep,
The Dinka slave from Abiemnhom, I may be a fool and an idiot,
but Kiir the lunatic is wasting the lives of dinka youth in a
senseless war of attrition. Leave Dr Machar where he’s. The issue at
hand is Kiir’s grand failure at display!
repondre message
31 July 20:47, by DHARCHEP
Eastern, why Nuer people make noise for know reason? You guys are
going to finish one by one. Where is Riek Machar? Still in hiding
place without underwear? Now you know how tough Dinka is it. And also
you will not complaint about Uganda again.You have seen the war made
against your fucken leader.
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