Iranians linked to banned drone videos in Darfur: U.N.UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Two Iranian businessmen working at a Dubai-based firm were linked to video surveillance devices sold to Sudan and used in unmanned drones in Darfur in violation of a U.N. arms embargo An arms embargo is an embargo that applies to weaponry. It may also include "dual use" items. An arms embargo may serve one or more purposes:
The 94-page report by the so-called U.N. "Panel of Experts," published on Friday, details arms violations by all parties in the Darfur conflict The Darfur conflict is a crisis in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Unlike the Second Sudanese Civil War, which was fought between the primarily Muslim north and Christian and Animist south, the current lines of conflict are seen to be ethnic and tribal, rather than religious. , which began in 2003 when mostly non-Arab rebels revolted in 2003 after accusing Khartoum of neglecting Darfur. A counter-insurgency campaign drove more than 2 million from their homes. The United Nations says as many as 300,000 people died, but Khartoum rejects that figure. There is no suggestion in the panel's report that the government of Iran was involved in the sale of drones or surveillance technology to the Sudanese military. The panel first reported on Khartoum's use of drones in Darfur last year, calling it a "clear-cut violation of the embargo embargo (ĕmbär`gō), prohibition by a country of the departure of ships or certain types of goods from its ports. Instances of confining all domestic ships to port are rare, and the Embargo Act of 1807 is the sole example of this in ." The latest report includes still photographs from video footage taken by drones over Darfur in May and June, showing that the Sudanese government continues to the ignore the ban. Sudan's U.N. Ambassador Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem reacted angrily to the panel's report, saying Khartoum "will demand that the Security Council terminate the panel's mandate." "They are just representatives of Western intelligence agencies," he told Reuters. "We are fed up with this committee. Our position is a total rejection of this report." The panel said the "unmanned aerial vehicles
A fictitious name is an assumed name that differs from an individual's actual name. A fictitious action is a lawsuit brought not for the adjudication of an actual controversy between the parties but merely for the purpose of company based in the United Arab Emirates United Arab Emirates, federation of sheikhdoms (2005 est. pop. 2,563,000), c.30,000 sq mi (77,700 sq km), SE Arabia, on the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. . It does not say where the drones came from or who made them, though it does say the video surveillance technology originated in Britain and is "not used for civilian purposes." For this reason, the panel said, the Iranian behind the sale of the video devices to Sudan had to know their ultimate purpose. DARFUR POPULATION STILL VICTIMIZED The panel investigated the video recorders' origin and determined that the real firm behind the sale is Millennium Product Company LLC (Logical Link Control) See "LANs" under data link protocol. LLC - Logical Link Control , with a sales manager sales manager n → gerente m/f de ventas sales manager n → directeur commercial sales manager sale n → the report named as Mojtaba Sadegbi and managing director Saeid Mousaei, both Iranian nationals. The report said the U.N. monitors visited the company in June. A few hours later Sadegbi and Mousaei left the country. "The administrative assistant explained to the Panel that Mr. Sadegbi and Mr. Mousaei had left for vacation in their home country, the Islamic Republic An Islamic republic, in its modern context, has come to mean several different things, some contradictory to others. Theoretically, to many religious leaders, it is a state under a particular theocratic form of government advocated by some Muslim religious leaders in the Middle of Iran," the report said. "They have apparently not returned to their offices since then." According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the report, neither the company's main shareholder, a citizen of the UAE (Uninterruptible Application Error) The name given to a crash in Windows 3.0. In subsequent versions of Windows, a crash was called a "General Protection Fault," "Application Error" or "Illegal Operation." See crash in Windows and abend. , nor the UAE government have replied to the panel's request for further information. Iran's U.N. mission had no immediate comment. The panel documents many other violations of the 2005 embargo against the transfer of military hardware to Darfur, a remote region of western Sudan that is roughly the size of France. Khartoum can import arms, but not for use in Darfur. Much of the weaponry, ammunition and hardware in Darfur originated in China and the panel said it was "seeking the cooperation of China in order to determine where in the chain of ownership violations of the embargo are taking place." The report said that troops, weapons, ammunition and vehicles have been illegally transferred to Darfur where the arms are used by rebels as well as government troops. "The Darfurian population continues to be victimized by the effects of attacks and counter-attacks involving most of the armed movements that frequently lead to the disproportionate use of force by the Sudanese Armed Forces," the panel said. It said those attacks "result in killings, injuries and displacements." (Editing by Vicki Allen and Todd Eastham) 
|
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion