Region: UK looks into Ukrainian arms

By Kateryna Grushenko

From The Kyiv Post

The United Kingdom is examining a case of Ukrainian arms allegedly ending up in an African nation presently under an international arms embargo.

Although no direct accusations have been made against Ukraine as of press time, the country's government is being implicated for improperly licensing a British company.

According to an August UK Parliament report, "the Ukrainian State Service for Export Control had licensed the export of light arms from the Soviet stockpile of weapons. The end users on the list included countries for which there are foreign and Commonwealth restrictions on the export of strategic goods."

The arms in question are AK-47 Kalashnikov automatic rifles. The value of the contract, the name of the broker and the country of destination remain undisclosed.

The parliamentary report expressed great concerns that the "UK Embassy in Kyiv, the Export Control Organization and HM Revenue & Customs were all unaware of the ongoing deals with British arms brokers that received licenses from Ukrainian State Export Control."

The UK Embassy in Kyiv declined comment and the Ukrainian licensing bodies dismisses the accusations.

"According to Ukraine's legislation, we can only grant licenses to Ukrainian companies as we have been doing. We are talking about a mistake in translation here," said Valeriy Antonenko, spokesman for the Ukrainian State Service for Export Control. He said the verb "to license" in English can mean having permission or a contract, not a government-approved paper.

When brokering a deal outside their home country, British companies require a license from the UK government called an Open General Trade Control License, according to an expert from Safe World, a nongovernmental organization that oversees the small arms trade.

Each contract is supposed to have an end-user certificate, indicating the buyers and the final destination.

"There have been cases when the end-user certificates have been forged and officials were bribed to sign them," said Paul Holtom, head of the arms transfers program at Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Even if a proper end-user certificate is used, there are no guarantees the arms won't move beyond their official destination, Holtom said.

Light weapons are particularly difficult to control, said Valentyn Badrak, director of the Center for Military Research, Peace and Conversion, a Ukrainian nongovernmental organization.

Ukraine is the world's 10th biggest exporter of weapons, selling approximately $1 billion worth of arms and military equipment per year. The country accounts for 10 percent of weapons sales to Africa. Especially popular are Kalashnikovs.

Ukraine has been implicated in other questionable arms deals.

In 2008, the MV Faina, a merchant ship, was seized by Somali pirates. Its cargo of 33 T-72 tanks, 73 packages of spare tank parts and 36 packages of RPG-7V shoulder-launched rocket-propelled grenade launchers were destined for Kenya. The cargo was labeled with the acronym GOSS, which stands for the "government of South Sudan," which is currently under a United Nations arms embargo.

Kateryna Grushenko can be reached at news@praguepost.com