19441: Vishnursurf: Mbeki sending arms to Lavalas (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: VISHNUSURF@aol.com

This from www.iol.co.za:  'Arms transfer to Haiti must be stopped'

February 28 2004 at 02:27PM


Johannesburg - Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon came out strongly against
the reported shipment of military equipment to Haiti by the South African
government on Saturday.

The Beeld newspaper reported on Saturday that an South African Air Force
Boeing is expected to fly to Haiti on Tuesday with a cargo of 150 R1 rifles and 5
000 bullets.

A total of 200 bulletproof jackets would form part of the shipment which
would be sent to the embattled government of Haitian President Jean Bertrand
Aristide.

The newspaper said it could not obtain any official confirmation of the
report.

In a speech prepared for delivery at a Democratic Alliance rally in
KwaZulu-Natal, Leon said the African National Congress, and President Thabo Mbeki,
chose the oppressors over the people.

"The arms transfer to Haiti must be stopped," Leon said.

He said it was time South Africans used the April 14 national election to
"puncture the imperial disdain of President Thabo Mbeki and the African National
Congress towards democracy and human rights around the world."

He said: "We cannot even find enough bulletproof vests to protect our own
police at home.

"And yet we are spending millions of rand, on top of the R25-million we have
already spent, to send bullet-proof vests to protect the rogue regime of
Jean-Bertrand Aristide."

Leon said the reported shipment of the arms could be a violation of the
National Conventional Arms Control Act, which stipulates that arms shipments should
avoid contributing to internal repression, systematic violation of human
rights and fundamental freedoms.

"Given the brutal track record of the Aristide regime in suppressing dissent,
it would seem likely that the South African arms shipment will be used to ill
purpose.

"The ANC is now supporting an autocrat in Haiti who has taken his country to
civil war, and it is standing alongside Robert Mugabe's tyrannical rule in
Zimbabwe.

"In every case, the ANC chooses the oppressors over the people," he said. -
Sapa