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Israeli arms dealers differ over responsibility for
shipment to
Colombian paramilitaries |
Tue May 7, 7:21 PM ET
By JUAN ZAMORANO, Associated Press Writer
PANAMA CITY, Panama - The Nicaraguan government, Israeli arms dealers
and the U.S. government have denied knowing that a shipment of
Kalishnikov rifles was headed to a Colombian paramilitary group that
the U.S. government has branded as terrorist.
The U.S. State Department said it knew vaguely about the deal, but
thought it involved only old weapons bound for collectors in the
United States — not 3,000 Kalishnikov rifles headed for the
paramilitary group United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, which has
been implicated in some of the most brutal massacres of that
country's civil war.
One of the four Israeli arms dealers implicated in the purchase of
the rifles from a police stockpile in Nicaragua said he had been
interested in sending weapons to the Congo, not Colombia.
Wes Carrington, spokesman for the State Department's Western
Hemisphere section, said former Nicaraguan Interior Minister Rene
Herrera had mentioned the trade to U.S. Ambassador Oliver P. Garza in
early 2000.
Garza did not oppose it because his understanding was that the
weapons were collectibles for the U.S. market. "That was the extent
of our awareness of any kind of arms deal," Carrington said.
The presidents of Panama and Nicaragua were scheduled to meet late
Tuesday or Wednesday in Costa Rica to share information and
coordinate an investigation into the shipment. Until now, officials
in the two countries have accused one another of lying and
incompetence.
In Guatemala, authorities said Tuesday they had suspended the weapons-
trading license of a company run by two Israelis that bought the
weapons from the Nicaraguan police.
That company, known as GIRSA, said it had turned the weapons over to
another Israeli-owned company in Panama, DIGAL, which was supposedly
representing Panama's police forces, the Colombian newspaper El
Tiempo reported.
Panama says GIRSA presented false documents certifying the guns were
bound for Panama. GIRSA said it got them from DIGAL, El Tiempo
reported. In any event, the ship carrying the weapons went straight
to Colombia, where it was unloaded shortly before midnight on Nov.
10, according to Colombian investigators.
GIRSA's partners have refused to comment beyond saying that
investigations would show they had nothing to do with the shipment to
Colombia.
In a telephone interview from Africa with Panamanian reporters, DIGAL
partner Shimon Yelinek acknowledged he had inspected the Kalishnikov
rifles in Nicaragua, but backed away because of the "scandalously
good" price being offered.
The Nicaraguans were offering to sell the rifles at dlrs 30 to dlrs
40 each, less than a tenth of their market value. Yelinek said he
assumed the deal involved government corruption.
He said he had been interested in buying guns for the Congo.
Yelenik's Panamanian lawyer, Carlos Carrillo, said Yelenik ran an
import-export business in the Congo, where an ongoing civil war has
cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
Government officials in Nicaragua have denied any knowledge that the
weapons were headed for Colombia, and they have said they never
contacted Panama to see if it was the real buyer of the weapons.
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