A couple of notes on arming Libyan rebels

Josh Rogin is reporting this morning that P.J. Crowley has dismissed proposals to arm Libyan rebels as "not a legal option." Here's more:

"It's very simple. In the U.N. Security Council resolution passed on Libya, there is an arms embargo that affects Libya, which means it's a violation for any country to provide arms to anyone in Libya," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said on Monday.

Crowley denied reports that the United States had asked Saudi Arabia to provide weapons to the Libyan opposition, and also denied that the United States would arm opposition groups absent explicit international authorization.

Pressed by reporters to clarify whether the Obama administration had any plans to give arms to any of the rebel groups in Libya, Crowley said no.

"It would be illegal for the United States to do that," he said. "It's not a legal option."

Crowley's blanket statement seemed to go further than comments on Monday by White House spokesman Jay Carney, who said, "On the issue of ... arming, providing weapons, it is one of the range of options that is being considered."

Crowley maintained that U.N. Security Council Resolution 1970, which imposed international sanctions on Libya that included an arms embargo, applied to both the Qaddafi regime and the rebel groups.

"It's not on the government of Libya: It's on Libya," he said.

First: I don't know anything about U.N. Security Council Resolutions. I don't know on whom they're binding, I don't know the definitions they're operating under, and I don't know to whom the terms refer. That said, the language of the resolution (pdf) seems pretty clear:

Decides that all Member States shall immediately take the necessary measures to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer to the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, from or through their territories or by their nationals, or using their flag vessels or aircraft, of arms and related materiel of all types, including weapons and ammunition, military vehicles and equipment, paramilitary equipment, and spare parts for the aforementioned, and technical assistance, training, financial or other assistance, related to military activities or the provision, maintenance or use of any arms and related materiel, including the provision of armed mercenary personnel whether or not originating in their territories, and decides further that this measure shall not apply to:

(a) Supplies of non-lethal military equipment intended solely for humanitarian or protective use, and related technical assistance or training, as approved in advance by the Committee established pursuant to paragraph 24 below;

(b) Protective clothing, including flak jackets and military helmets, temporarily exported to the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya by United Nations personnel, representatives of the media and humanitarian and development works and associated personnel, for their personal use only; or

(c) Other sales or supply of arms and related materiel, or provision of assistance or personnel, as approved in advance by the Committee;

Furthermore: what I do know is U.S. arms transfer regulations. And in those, unless otherwise specified, embargoes and other limitations on the transfer of defense articles pertain to all persons, corporations, business associations, partnerships, societies, trusts, or other entities, organizations, or groups, including governmental entities. (This according to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, which are published by the Department of State and govern the transfer of defense articles and services to non-U.S. parties.) Particular end-users can be subject to certain specific transfer restrictions, but the ITAR elaborates policy determinations and embargoes on export to particular countries. Export, in this case, means transfer or disclosure to a foreign person. So if you show some documents containing technical data to a foreign national at your office in DC, that constitutes an export. All of which is a long way of saying that U.S. arms transfer restrictions on Libya pertain to all of Libya and all Libyan persons, not just the Libyan government.

And here's what Crowley didn't mention: UNSCR 1970 didn't impact the U.S. position on arms exports to Libya one whit. Here's ITAR 126.1(k) (click here for Part 126 in pdf form):

Libya. It is the policy of the United Sates [sic] to deny licenses, other approvals, exports or imports of defense articles and defense services destined for or originating in Libya except, on a case-by-case basis, for:

(1) Non-lethal defense articles and defense services,

(2) Non-lethal safety-of-use defense articls (e.g., cartridge actuated devices, propellant actuated devices and technical manals for military aircraft for purposes of enhancing the safety of the aircrew) as spare parts for lethal end-items.

For non-lethal defense end-items, no distinction will be made between Libya's existing and new inventory.

The short version? U.S. arms exports to Libya were already blocked by U.S. policy and regulation. These can be changed in exigent circumstances, of course, but they've now been bolstered (or one could even say obviated) by the provisions of the UNSCR.

(A P.S. while we're on the subject: Josh is one of what seems to me to be a vanishingly small number of national security journalists who takes the time not only to at least briefly research the law and policy issues that underpin his reporting, but to cursorily address them in his stories. Presumably the journalistic convention of not doing this derives from the assumption that the average reader is either disinterested in trivia or too stupid to understand the details of the background; as a result, I particularly appreciate those who go a little deeper.)

UN Security Council Imposes Sanctions on Eritrea

The UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Eritrea today by a vote of 13 to 2 (with Libya voting against and China abstaining). The sanctions (you can read the resolution here) include a travel ban and assets freeze on Eritrean officials and, of course, an arms embargo on Eritrea.

Now this has been under discussion for a while because of Eritrea's long-standing role in supporting armed groups in Somalia, in particular Al-Shabab (if you want to read about that, check out the reports of the Security Council's Monitoring Group on Somalia, here). The other main justification for sanctions is Eritrea's refusal to withdraw from territory it took from Djibouti earlier this year in a border dispute.

A couple points of interest: as far as I know, this is the first time that the Security Council has imposed secondary sanctions on a country that's been accused of violating sanctions against a first country. In other words, these sanctions were imposed because Eritrea violated sanctions on Somalia.

Second, when the Security Council imposes sanctions it normally creates a sanctions committee. Well, instead of doing that, the Council has asked the Committee on Somalia to monitor the implementation of the Eritrea sanctions. In addition, the Council has now asked the Monitoring Group on Somalia to also track sanctions on Eritrea. All of this makes sense but, like I said, as far as I know, it's the first time it has happened.

Finally, for just a bit more context, you might want to read this Reuters story with excerpts from the interview the President, a former Marxist guerilla who led his country to independence from Ethiopia back in 1993, gave to the news service back in October.

Where were the North Korean weapons headed?

You'll remember that Thai authorities seized a plane and its cargo on December 12. The reason: its cargo, 35 tons of weapons, came from North Korea, which is under an arms embargo. The flight manifest had all sorts of documents that said the cargo was oil-drilling equipment. The plane, an IL-76, was registered in Georgia and its crew was from Kazakhstan and Belarus.

Since then, there have been a lot of questions: Where was the plane headed? Did Victor Bout have anything to do with it (the crew has been jailed in the same prison as Bout who was convicted in a Thai court a few months ago and is fighting extradition to the US)? How does this type of trafficking actually work? What made the Thai authorities decide to search that plane (rather than others)?

Well, yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the weapons were destined for Iran. Today, the Washington Post reported that Thai officials had denied that report and instead announced the plane was headed for Sri Lanka.

As the Post reports:
But according to a flight plan seen by arms trafficking researchers, the aircraft was chartered by Hong Kong-based Union Top Management Ltd. to fly oil industry spare parts from Pyongyang to Tehran, Iran, with several other stops, including Bangkok, Colombo in Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan and Ukraine.

Why does this matter? Because while we know a lot about weapons trafficking, we still need to learn more about how countries like North Korea and Iran trade weapons, the routes they use, the companies that agree to help (and for how much), and which other commodities are involved in the trade. Another thing that matters: this shows that sanctions can, in fact, work. So that's something we need to learn from as well: what made the Thai authorities suspicious, how did they deal with it, how is their legal system dealing with this issue, what are possible challenges to prosecution, should we be going after flight crews or the people who commission them?

New UN Panel of Experts on Sudan Report

The UN Security Council's Panel of Experts on the Sudan has released its annual report. As expected it's a page turner. At 94 pages, with photographs (always the fun part), it documents violations of the arms embargo both by the Sudanese authorities and by other belligerents.

As the New York Times reports, an interesting tidbit is that it seems the Government of Sudan has obtained UAVs from Iran...Sudan, which of course tries to trip up investigations as much as possible (by delaying visas and the like). Apparently, Sudan is going to ask for the Panel's mandate to be terminated (it wasn't, it was renewed through October 2010).

According to the New York Times, Sudan's ambassador to the United Nations, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem, described the Expert Panel members as follows:

“They are just representatives of Western intelligence agencies,” he said in an interview. “We are fed up with this committee. Our position is a total rejection of this report.”

Finally, the report documents human rights violations, attacks on villages, and of course attempts to track weapons shipments.

Charles Taylor's trial continues

Have you been reading about Charles Taylor's trial? If not, as I think I've said before, you're missing out on some really good stories. And by that I mean stories that should provide a much needed laugh.

Over the last couple days, Taylor's testimony has focused on his denial of accusations that he illegally armed both Sierra Leonean rebels and of course his own troops during the war. Of particular interest, is ongoing discussion of allegations made against Taylor in the report of the UN Panel of Experts on Sierra Leone. The document under discussion is S/2000/1195 and it can be found here.

Today, the story was that officials at Robertsfield International Airport in Monrovia were so corrupt that it would have been easy to bribe them and bring weapons in. While that's certainly true, you expect me to believe that, despite the large amounts of weapons coming in (and they weren't coming in on foot over regional borders, no they were being flown in thank you very much) that all of this happened without either his knowledge or consent? Give me a break.

That's a pretty tall tale and just because it's fun and I like linking to things that prove that he's wrong, I'll refer you again to Global Witness, to the UN sanctions committees' expert group reports (on Sierra Leone and on Liberia), to the International Crisis Group and of course to Small Arms Survey. Put together, the evidence against Taylor is pretty overwhelming. Still, it's great that he's getting an opportunity to defend himself, even if he has tell massively outlandish stories to do so. The bottom line is this, if the prosecution does its job right, that's what will come out of this process: that Taylor's tales are largely just that.

Really? You don't know who bought weapons in Liberia?? (minor updates)

Foreign Policy has a fascinating interview with Liberian Senator Prince Johnson, a former rebel leader and (early) Charles Taylor acolyte. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Liberia recently recommended that he be tried--it also recommended that Liberia's President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf be barred from running for office again for her initial support to Taylor's regime (but let's leave the latter aside for today).

What I find most surprising about Johnson's interview is this though:

Who supplied the guns to them? Who supplied the finance to buy the weapons? Who provided the training? It's a whole lot of questions that need answers...The first group of people that bear the greatest responsibility is not the fighting man but the people who supplied and bought the weapons. I don't know who planned and bought all the weapons, but the men didn't just come here shooting guns from the sky.

Umm--yeah right. I mean fair enough, the guns didn't just fall out of the sky (though given the flight safety record of some of the companies involved even that is possible). Still, I'm pretty sure A LOT of people know exactly where the guns came from. Why? Because since 2000, the UN has been monitoring the arms embargo--first on Sierra Leone and then on Liberia. And, well, if you watch a very nice Frontline documentary, Gunrunners, it will give you the basics of how the guns were purchased and financed. Global Witness has also done some really nice work on this. The International Crisis Group has also worked on this.

But to cut a long story short, it involves diamonds, timber, stocks of weapons in Eastern Europe, fake end-user certificates, unregistered aircraft, falsified flight plans, and transnational criminal networks. In some the UN reports, it even involves invoices, photos of Taylor associates with known weapons providers, photographs of the weapons on aircraft etc.

To add just one last thing: either Prince Johnson's staff hasn't briefed him, or perhaps he's just clueless (I won't make other assumptions since I know more about weapons trafficking than I do about the details of Liberian history) but really, where the weapons came from is open knowledge and to say that this needs investigation is simply not true and it's a distraction from more important issues. Thanks for the point about Khaddafi SNLII...

And the second thing, the important distraction is this: apparently Johnson is threatening to kill TRC members (which he denies) and is arguing that he has immunity from prosecution because of an amnesty law he says the legislature has passed.