Leon still waiting for response on Haiti arms

[seemslikeadream]

March 24 2004 at 02:09PM



Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said on Wednesday that he had written another letter to President Thabo Mbeki regarding a consignment of arms sent to Haiti in the dying hours of president Jean-Bertrand Aristide's regime.

Leon said he had to date received no answer to his previous query regarding the dispatch in February of a South African Air Force Boeing 707 to the Caribbean island state loaded with 150 R1-assault rifles, ammunition and assorted equipment.

"This is the most extraordinary thing in a constitutional democracy. If it wasn't for a journalist and a newspaper in Jamaica, we would never have known about this deployment," Leon told a press conference in Johannesburg.

The DA leader said he had taken legal advice on the matter from an advocate in Cape Town who advised him that the flight to Haiti amounted to the employment of the Defence Force as contemplated in the constitution as well as in the new Defence Act, and that government, by not reporting this deployment to parliament within the stipulated 14 days, was in breach of the law.


http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=6&art_id=qw1080130142942B265&set_id=1

[seemslikeadream]

1. Haiti case may go to Ngcuka

24/03/2004 16:22 - (SA)

Cape Town - The official opposition Democratic Alliance may put the issue of the deployment to Haiti of a South African Air Force Boeing 707 in the hands of the National Director of Public Prosecutions, Bulelani Ngcuka - if no response to queries is forthcoming from President Thabo Mbeki.

In a statement on Wednesday, DA leader Tony Leon said: "Up until this date the Presidency has thrown down a veil of secrecy over the deployment of a South African Air Force Boeing 707 to transport arms, and other material, to Haiti."

The aircraft - kitted with crowd control equipment - was deployed shortly before the president Jean Bertrand Aristide left the country.

Leon said: "It appears to us, after considering legal advice, and counsel's opinion, that the President had no power to authorise the employment of the Defence Force to export arms to Haiti. Section 201(2) of the Constitution (Act 108 of 1996) read together with Section 18 of the Defence Act (Act 42 of 2002) empowers the president to authorise the employment of the Defence Force in very limited and defined circumstances.

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/Politics/0,,2-7-12_1502765,00.html