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By Anya Tsukanova
KIEV: The pirate hijacking of a
Ukrainian cargo ship loaded with tanks off Somalia has refocused
attention on arms-trafficking by the former Soviet republic, one of
the world’s 10 biggest arms exporters.
Experts say Ukraine has
greatly improved arms-export controls after a string of scandals but
remains a potential source of weapons for pariah states and rebel
groups worldwide, in an embarrassment to Kiev’s pro-West
government.
“Ukraine has made
significant steps in recent years towards improving its control over
arms exports,” Paul Holtom, an expert with the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), said in a statement
this week.
“But if it wants to be
regarded as a responsible arms exporter, it needs to be confident
that these arms will not be diverted to rebel groups for use in
conflict.”
Controversy erupted over
Ukraine’s arms export business Monday when the US Navy charged
that the T-72 tanks aboard the MV Faina, the ship seized by Somali
pirates, were headed for Sudan rather than Kenya as initially
believed.
Both Ukraine and Kenya denied the
allegation, but the pirates themselves — who are demanding 20
million dollars in ransom amid a standoff with US Navy warships —
said the tanks were destined for rebels in southern Sudan.
Turning up the heat, Ukrainian
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko acknowledged Wednesday that
“illegal arms sales... unfortunately take place in Ukraine
today,” quoted by Interfax news agency.
Ukraine produced about 30 percent
of Soviet arms before gaining independence in 1991, when it
inherited a huge Soviet-era arsenal and numerous weapons-production
facilities including factories that manufacture tanks.
Ukraine was the world’s 10th
biggest arms exporter in the period from 2003 to 2007, according to
SIPRI.
About half its arms sales
go to the Commonwealth of Independent States (the former Soviet
Union minus the Baltic states), 30 percent to southeast Asia and
Africa and six percent to the Middle East, said Ukrainian analyst
Mykhailo Samus.
In 2007, Ukraine earned 1.2
billion dollars (850 million euros) from weapons deals with 20
countries, up from one billion dollars in 2006, said Samus, a
defense analyst at the Kiev-based Center for Army Conversion and
Disarmament Studies.
Exports include tanks, combat
aircraft, artillery systems and missiles as well as arms-related
services, Samus said.
But those impressive figures are
tarnished by several scandals over alleged arms sales to
unscrupulous regimes.
The best-known scandal came in
2002 when the United States accused Ukraine of selling advanced
military radar systems to Iraq in violation of sanctions against
Saddam Hussein’s government.
The radar sales to Iraq were
never proven but Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko later said
his predecessor, Leonid Kuchma, had sold missiles to Iran and China
in 2001 under a false contract that listed Russia as the
destination.
Ukrainian arms sales to Liberia
in the 1990s, mainly via Burkina Faso, have been alleged in the war
crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor in the
Hague-based Special Court for Sierra Leona.
--AFP
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