Chinese arms in Darfur: the twisted trail of weapons

By Opheera McDoom
June 23, 2006
The Washington Post
Original Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/23/AR2006062300416.html
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - In a rebel camp along the barren, windswept border between Sudan and Chad, dozens of trucks packed with dreadlocked fighters manning heavy machine guns are lined up.
Piled up behind them are ammunition boxes, covered in Chinese symbols -- it's impossible to know exactly where the bullets in the boxes came from but they offer a glimpse of the complex and circuitous routes of the global arms trade.
United Nations investigators have found most of the small arms fueling the conflict in Sudan's western Darfur are Chinese despite an arms ban on a region where tens of thousands have been killed and 2.5 million squat in squalid camps.
China has been, and continues to be, a major supplier of light weapons to the government of Sudan and many of the neighboring states, said Ernst Jan Hogendoorn, one of four U.N. experts on a panel which recommended 17 players in the Darfur conflict be sanctioned for obstructing peace.
The panel's report found Sudan's neighbors Chad, Libya and Eritrea had supplied weapons to Darfur but most of the small arms and ammunition in the region were Chinese.
Chinese arms and ammunition are relatively cheap compared to other suppliers, said Hogendoorn. Some also argue that China asks fewer questions.
He said they found no evidence China was defying the embargo and supplying arms directly to Darfur. But weapons they had sold to Khartoum were likely to end up there.
China says it takes a responsible attitude toward military exports, rejecting accusations in an Amnesty International report this month that it was selling arms to an array of human rights abusers, including Sudan and Myanmar.
'CAUTIOUS AND RESPONSIBLE'
Amnesty said China provided hundreds of military trucks to Sudan in 2004 -- the height of the three-year-old Darfur conflict. The rights group said Sudan's army and its allied Arab militia, known as the Janjaweed, had used such trucks for travel and they had even transported people for execution.
The Janjaweed have killed, tortured and raped non-Arab civilians across Darfur and even into neighboring Chad. Darfur rebels also stand accused of human rights abuses in a conflict the United States has described as genocide.
China has used the phrase 'cautious and responsible' to describe its arms export licensing, however its record of trading arms in conflict-ridden countries like Sudan ... show their actions are anything but, Amnesty arms expert Colby Goodman said in the report.
In response to the report, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said China exported far fewer weapons than other countries, valued at $1.44 billion between 2000 and 2004, just 5 percent of U.S. arms exports over the same period.
The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) says China is the seventh biggest exporter of guns. The United States leads the rankings.
GUNS AND BLACK GOLD
China's involvement in Africa is multi-faceted.
Thirsty for oil and raw materials, China has poured billions into African countries blessed with mineral wealth -- like Sudan's oil -- building on a legacy of goodwill from its support of independence movements in the 1960s and 1970s.
The Asian giant has denied charges it turns a blind eye to human rights abuses in its search for oil and other resources. It has also come under pressure from Western nations for its stance in the United Nations Security Council, where it has consistently opposed taking strong action against Khartoum for atrocities committed in Darfur.
Washington says Sudan is a state sponsor of terrorism and has sanctioned Khartoum for years, cutting off major Western companies from doing lucrative business in Africa's largest country, while Chinese companies have moved in.
Sudan's separate southern civil war ended in January 2005, opening the door to millions of dollars of investment. The south also contains both of Sudan's main oil fields, which will soon be pumping around 500,000 barrels per day of crude.
China is the major player in Sudan's oil industry, building new pipelines and facilities and an oil refinery.
Beijing is also helping to rebuild dams and roads, has signed a contract to deepen the main port, Port Sudan, and has agreed to provide 25 locomotives for Sudan's decrepit railways.
Sudan is China's baby, said one Sudanese businessman, who declined to be named. China sends everything here -- even things they don't want -- and Sudan mops it all up, he added.