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Misanet.com / IPS , 15 June - Burkina Faso, threatened with sanctions for its alleged support of African rebel movements, is carefully tracking its imports and use of arms. The government has set up a new agency, the High Control Authority on Arms Imports and Use. The body is charged with informing the UN Security Council of new arms purchases, the weapons' final destinations, and the types and points of origin of weaponry already used by the country's security services. In addition, the government will report any new budget allocations for arms to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The United Nations will be allowed to supervise the High Control Authority. "We've given up a bit of our sovereignty to set up this authority, which we hope will end suspicion against us, both in Africa and abroad," says Colonel Bernard Sanou, the new body's permanent secretary. "Burkina is opening its warehouses in a good faith effort to strengthen the international community's confidence in us," Sanou adds. The decision to set up the authority was made last December after several Security Council reports implicated Burkina Faso in violations of international embargoes against the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the Sierra Leone's United Revolutionary Front (RUF). Several Security Council missions monitoring the embargoes set up shop in Ouagadougou during 2000. They reported that Burkina served as a transit point for arms shipments for both UNITA and the RUF. A Security Council report indicated that in December 2000 arms purchased by the Burkinabe Ministry of Defense, whose shipping invoice stated the weaponry was meant for Ouagadougou, were in reality delivered to the RUF. The report, supported by accusations by the American and British governments, also implicated Burkina's highest officials diamond trafficking in Sierra Leone and Angola, in violation of a Security Council prohibition against selling precious gems from rebel-controlled zones. The profits from diamond sales allow the rebels to buy more sophisticated arms and keep up the fighting, the UN report said. Burkina Faso has long denied any involvement in arms and diamond trafficking to the two rebel groups. But last December, European ambassadors and the head of the European Union (EU) delegation in Ouagadougou issued a statement expressing "the European Union's concern that there have been violations of the United Nations-imposed arms embargoes against Sierra Leone and UNITA." Subsequently, the EU invited the Burkinabe government to provide documentation demonstrating that the arms shipments that were the focus of the accusations had not left Burkina Faso, and to officially condemn the actions of the RUF and UNITA. Threatened with sanctions and as a show of good faith, the Burkinabe government from then on barred Angola and Sierra Leone nationals from entering the country, except for official purposes. It also issued a statement "solemnly and firmly" condemning UNITA and the RUF. "We have demonstrated in a significant and open fashion our good faith," says Prime Minister Ernest Paramanga Yonli. "There was no proof and the accusations had no basis in fact." - We demonstrated our good will by going even further, by setting up the High Control Authority under the supervision of the Security Council, he adds. "We are trying to show we have nothing to hide, and to prove that we are working for peace in the warring countries." Some Burkinabes, however, have voiced scepticism about the authority's composition. "Just because they've set up a formal agency doesn't mean that the trafficking is going to stop", says lawyer Benewende Sanakara, chairman of the opposition Union for Renewal/Sanakrist Movement and a member of an alliance of political parties and grass-roots organizations declaring themselves to be "against impunity." The alliance lobbies for greater justice and against government scandals. "There should have been a discussion about how the authority would be structured and its members chosen," Sanakara says. The High Control Authority is composed of several ministers and deputies as well as members of Parliament. "Sooner or later, the government will have to provide a full accounting of its actions to the people," adds Halidou Ouedraogo, chairperson of the Burkinabe Movement for Human Rights and Peoples. - They got caught red-handed with the goods, so the authorities now need to explain to us what happened and where all their money came from, Ouedraogo says. He complains that his group was not consulted before the High Control Authority, a structure "of such importance," was set up. Burkinabe complicity in other countries' civil wars was uncovered in 1990, when the international community discovered its support of Liberian rebel Charles Taylor in his quest for power. After several denials, President Blaise Compaore ended up admitting that several hundred Burkinabe soldiers had been sent to Liberia in Taylor's support. Taylor is also accused of helping the RUF and of being involved in the diamond trade in rebel-controlled zones.
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