Dangerous liaisons

[seemslikeadream]

Thursday August 26, 2004

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He was released in January 2001 after his mother, Danielle Mitterrand, raised five million francs (roughly £500,000) in bail - a sum she angrily referred to as a "ransom" - and the French court dropped its investigation a few months later on a legal technicality.

But "Angolagate" is still under investigation. Mr Mitterrand was arrested again in June this year and questioned about a fish-processing business he set up in Mauritania. Judge Philippe Courroye, who Mr Mitterrand accuses of conducting a vendetta against him and trying to sully the name of his family, suspects the factory may have provided a cover for money laundering. Mr Mitterrand insists he was simply trying to revive Mauritania's economy.

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According to All the President's Men, a 2002 report by Global Witness, a group which examines links between natural resources and human rights abuses, the Mitterrand government was looking for a way to put an end to the civil war in Angola, where the rebel group Unita had gained the upper hand. President Mitterrand was also keen to avoid the US - which had recently stopped funding Unita - gaining an advantage in any future negotiations for oil deals in Angola.

The sympathies of the French defence minister, however, lay with Unita, making it virtually impossible for the president to intervene formally. Instead, Global Witness suggests, Jean-Christophe was deployed to "engineer a solution" by channelling arms exports via Brenco International, a company run by a French businessman called Pierre Falcone and headquartered in Paris.

more
http://www.guardian.co.uk/equatorialguinea/story/0,15013,1291608,00.html