South African Military Protects Private Company's Illicit Diamonds For Arms Trade in CAR

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/03/28/south-african-military-protects-private-companys-illicit-diamonds-for-arms-trade-in-car-and-is-said-to-break-constitutional-law-and-mercenarys-act-of-rsa/

Thursday, March 28th, 2013 | Posted byWorld News Tomorrow

South African Military Protects Private Company’s Illicit Diamonds For Arms
Trade in CARWORLD NEWS TOMORROW- USA- With the ongoing fight against terrorism and
diamonds for arms trade it seems that that Kimberly Process leader, South
Africa might have broken its own constitutional law and perhaps the
mercenary’s act of South Africa.

Illicit Diamonds for arms deals in possibly other mineral resources in the
CAR seems to have sucked the ANC into the Central African Republic and
possibly braking the constitutional laws and mercenary’s act by having
South African military involvement in the Central African Republic has from
the start been entwined with AN-linked diamond deals, raising questions
about the motivation for the disastrous deployment of South African troops
to the troubled country.

The figure at the center of the web is the politically connected
businessperson, Mr. Didier Pereira. Information surfaced indicates that
Pereira is currently partnered to the ANC security supremo and fundraiser,
Paul Langa, and former spy chief Billy Masetlha. Their group has initiated
several business projects in CAR, including some involving diamonds.
Previously, he partnered with ANC hard man Joshua “General” Nxumalo and the
ANC funding front, Chancellor House, in an initiative that involved security
and attempts to gain a diamond export monopoly in the CAR.

Pereira, originally from Congo-Brazzaville, is a special adviser to the
recently toppled CAR president, François Bozizé. He has maintained business
ties with powerful ANC security and intelligence figures during both the
Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma presidencies. Although the ANC figures who
Pereira does business with has changed between presidencies, the nature of
his dealings have remained consistent. Quid pro quo? As the security
situation in the CAR deteriorated in October last year, Pereira brokered
direct access to Zuma for Bozizé’s son and CAR defence minister, Francis
Bozizé, in a bid to “unlock a sensitive weapons delivery issue”, the
specialist publication Intelligence Online reported recently. Bozizé Jnr
does not appear to have got what he came for because of South Africa’s
statutory weapons trade controls, but Pereira’s reported role as a
facilitator of this key meeting is noteworthy.

A CAR diplomat in Pretoria, who did want to be named because of the fluid
political situation back home, said that Pereira had lived in South Africa
for “more than 20 years” and that he was a recognizable figure among embassy
staff. He also previously partnered with a notorious Zimbabwean arms dealer,
John Bredenkamp, according to sources with a detailed knowledge of the
central African region and company searches in South Africa. Other South
African-linked interests in the CAR include the Canadian-based gold
exploration and mining company, Axmin. Its president and chief executive,
George Roach, was also associated with UraMin, a politically well-connected
uranium prospecting company, which is said to have enjoyed Thabo Mbeki’s
backing when it won a concession in the CAR.

The concession was later sold to the French nuclear multinational, Areva.
The oil exploration company, DIG Oil, which also enjoyed Mbeki-era political
support, has an oil concession in the south west of the country. To the
rescue Bozizé’s rule of the CAR has been precarious after he toppled his
predecessor, Ange-Félix Patassé, in a coup in 2003, which was condemned at
the time by both Mbeki and his then-deputy, Zuma. Bozizé won an election in
2005 that excluded Patassé from the ballot, but his grip on power was soon
threatened by Patassé-linked rebels. As Bozizé’s military situation
worsened, he sought help from South Africa. A joint South African Defence
Force (SANDF) and defence department “fact-finding mission” went to the CAR
in January 2006.

A flurry of diplomacy between Pretoria and Bangui in April that year
culminated in the then-defence minister, Terror Lekota, signing a
co-operation agreement in defence, minerals and energy at the end of that
month, which he followed up with an “onsite assessment” trip to the CAR in
May. Pereira was quick off the mark. On May 18, a week after Lekota’s
return, he signed a memorandum of understanding with the CAR mining
ministry. It envisaged the creation of a public-private partnership, Inala
Centrafrique, according to documents of Inala and its business partners,
which were obtained by the Mail & Guardian. ANC stake Inala Centrafrique was
formally registered in August 2006. Over time, its shareholding was settled
at a 35% stake for the CAR government and 65% going to a South African
company, Serengeti Group Holdings.

The latter was majority-owned by Nxumalo, whose notoriety during the ANC
underground days was underscored by his part in the Virodene
vitamins-for-Aids scandal. Significant stakes also belonged to Pereira and
the Chancellor House Trust, share registers show. An Inala Centrafrique
business proposal to the CAR government, dated July 6 2007, retrospectively
confirmed that “the joint venture is a culmination of the accord signed by
both … Mbeki … and Bozizé … during the meeting of the governments in South
Africa in … 2006 for the two countries to work together.” It identified
Nxumalo as chief executive and Pereira as chief operations officer. While
this deal was being hammered out behind the scenes, South Africa signed a
formal, five-year defence co-operation agreement with the CAR on February 11
2007, involving both the deployment of South African troops and the
provision of military equipment. Zuma renewed the agreement in December last
year, on the grounds of which, in the face of the growing crisis, he ordered
a reinforcement of troops to the CAR in January this year.

Diamonds for arms

The Inala Centrafrique joint venture between the CAR government and Pereira,
Nxumalo and the Chancellor House Trust was primarily a mechanism to buy
diamonds from the CAR’s small-scale miners. But the plan had two other
elements, which, if implemented, would give Inala and its ANC-linked
shareholders total dominance of the CAR’s diamond market. The first was an
initiative to create and equip, on behalf of the state, a police des mines,
or mining police, to combat illegal diamond dealing. The second element, it
appears from the documents and an interview with a would-be Inala business
partner, was for Inala to be granted an export monopoly by the CAR
government. In other words, although its majority shareholding was privately
held, Inala would have been endowed with part of the form and function of a
state agency: a national diamond exporter with an associated police
enforcement arm. Dividends of more than $800-million over 10 years were
envisaged. In a further example of the conflation of South African state and
ANC party interests, a Serengeti subsidiary partnered with a South African
armoured vehicle business, Mechanology, in September 2007 to revamp
decommissioned armoured vehicles that the SANDF had offered to donate to
Bozizé. The armoured vehicle deal broke down, apparently because there was a
dispute over who would pay for the refurbishment. Inala’s attempts to
control the CAR diamond mining industry fizzled out by March 2008. New ANC
partners By then, the Zuma-linked faction of the ANC’s security and
intelligence apparatus appears to have inherited the relationship with
Pereira from Serengeti.

At about the same time that Serengeti dropped the ball on the armored
vehicles and the Inala diamond deal collapsed, a company called Bagamoyo
Investment Holdings was formed with Pereira as a founding director. Chief
among Pereira’s co-directors in Bagamoyo is Langa who, like Nxumalo before
him, comes with a heavy-hitting ANC security and intelligence pedigree, but
also with strong whiffs of controversy. He was suspended and later dismissed
as chief executive of the Robben Island Museum after a forensic audit found
a R25-million hole in the company accounts back in 2008. Langa was head of
security co-ordination at ANC headquarters in the late 1990s. His Zonkizizwe
group of companies appear to perform both security and fundraising functions
for the ANC. Other directors in Bagamoyo included: • Fabien Singaye, a
former Rwandan diplomat who served as Bozize’s personal adviser and is
alleged to have played a central role in the purchase of CAR uranium assets
by UraMin, a company with a number of South African links; and • John
Robertson, an IT specialist who works with Langa in the Zonkizizwe
controlled Tsohle Technology Holdings. Masetlha confirmed that Baga¬moyo was
set up to exploit opportunities in CAR. Masetlha said: “Our role was to try
and engage South African business persons to invest in the area. Pereira
happened to be one of the people who knew CAR well. I agreed to get involved
and spoke to Paul .” Masetlha, who is recovering from a long illness, said
he was hazy about the details but added that Lazarus Mbethe was brought in
as well, because of his business acumen. Masetlha, Pereira, Langa and Mbethe
appear as directors in two other shelf companies, Evening Star Trading 665
and Universal Pulse Trading 117, both set up in November 2006. Mbethe is
heavily involved in mining. He was part of the Pitsa ya Sechaba consortium
that partnered with Chancellor House and the Russian company, Renova, to
form United Manganese of Kalahari, which controversially got manganese
rights in Northern Cape. Masetlha said he and his partners were trying to
get involved in stabilising the country through development.

Projects he recalled included the refurbishment of a hotel, which is
understood to have been the Oubangui Hotel, with which Pereira has also been
associated. He confirmed Langa had been “there on the ground” frequently –
“he’s been in and out” – and had concerned himself particularly with
security issues. Most significantly, Masetlha confirmed the group had an
interest in diamonds from the region and had owned a barge to be used for
alluvial diamond mining somewhere upstream on the Ubangi River where the
group had a diamond concession. He said the group had also discussed
upgrading some of the main roads and the airport, but little progress had
been made because of the instability in the country. “The problem was
security … the SA government got involved in trying to help Bozizé at least
beef up his personal protection,” said Masetlha. No comment Masetlha and
another South African businessperson who has contact with Pereira
independently supplied the same cell number for him. When the M&G contacted
the number and asked for Pereira, the man who answered the phone said he was
Pereira. But when the M&G identified itself and indicated it wished to talk
about the CAR, the person who answered said it was a wrong number.

He refused to give his name and hung up. Mbethe said he was in a meeting and
then hung up the second time the M&G phoned him. Robertson said he was not
involved in Bagamoyo and referred questions to Langa. Attempts to contact
Langa by phone were unsuccessful. Written questions faxed to him at his
request were unanswered at the time of going to press. A spokesperson for
the presidency was unavailable to comment…

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