ustxtxb_obs_2004_02_13_50_00017-00000_000.pdf

Bg.f Ptff Solution Our mutual funds are for people like you who want to invest in their future … and make a difference. Domini Social Equity Funds offers growth opportunities through a portfolio of stocks selected for their social and environmental performance. Domini Social Bond Fund provides diversification while supporting homeowners and small business owners in struggling communities. Domini Money Market Accounts offers safety and liquidity through FDIC-insured deposits that help promote community development. Please obtain a current prospectus for more complete information including risks, fees, and expenses, by calling 1-800-530-5321 or online at www.domini.com . Domini SOCIAL INVESTMENTS The Way You Invest Matter? Visit www.domini.com or Cali us at 1-800-530-5321 The Domini Social Equity Fund and the Domini Social Bond fund are subject to market risks and are not insured. You may lose money. The Domini Social Bond Fund’s community development investments may be unrated and carry greater credit risks than the Fon other investments. The Domini Social Bond Fund currently holds a large percentage at Its portfolio in mortgage-backed securities. During periods of failing interest rates these securities may prepay the principal due, which may lower the Fund’s return by causing it to reinvest at lower interest rates. OSIL Investment Services 1.1.C, of Peru. You name it. According to the charges, two drug trafficking brothers, Jose Luis and Luis Frank Aybar, duly tarted up as Peruvian Army officers by Montesinos, met with long-time CIA asset Sarkis “Merchant of Death” Soghanalian in Amman, Jordan, to arrange for the purchase of 50,000 surplus Kalashnikov rifles from the Jordanian military, ostensibly for the Armed Forces of Peru. Another CIA asset, Charles Acelor, had put the Aybars and Soghanalian in touch. Soghanalian swears he checked the Aybar brothers’ credentials before arranging the purchase of such a large arsenal, and that Montesinos vouched for them as representatives of the government of Peru. Between March and August 1999, a Ukrainian-registered surplus military cargo jet made four shipments of a total of 10,000 automatic rifles. But the rifles never went to Peru. Instead, the Russian crew air-dropped the guns into southern Colombian territory controlled by the 17,000 member Revolutionary turns out that this was only fair. After all, the FARC was the party that paid for the guns with $8 million made selling cocaine to Brazilian traffickers. Montesinos and Soghanalian allegedly were only the middle men, taking their respective cuts. After the first drop in March, the plane flew on to Iquitos, an Amazonian city in Peru. There, however, the pilots were subjected to awkward questioning by out-of-the-loop anti-narcotics police, suspicious of empty planes with Russian crews flying around in the Amazon. According to the prosecutor in the case, Ronald Gamarra, the Iquitos police received calls from Lima, after which they backed off, and released the crew and the plane. The three subsequent flights then avoided Iquitos, flying directly into Lima after the airdrops, no problem. The hitch came when the government of Jordan cancelled the deal, reportedly after a tip from the CIA that the East German/Jordanian weapons were turning up in the hands of captured Colombian guerrillas. The guns were too easily traceable to Soghanalian \(and nections to put together exactly that kind of trade. Meantime back at the palace, Fujimori and Montesinos hastily cobbled together a press conference, where they announced that they had busted the FARC’s arms and drug trafficking ring with an operation named “Plan Siberia.” Don’t even ask. And then they turned their hapless associates, the Aybar brothers, over to the authorities, or, in other words, themselves. The Peruvian prosecutor who has pieced the case together is arguing this month that the CIA was not simply a bystander and casual acquaintance of the two principals: Montesinos and Soghanalian. On January 18, he told El Comercio, Lima’s most respected daily newspaper, that he will prove that the CIA was deeply involved, knew that the weapons were bought by and for the FARC, and allowed them to be delivered. The prosecutor argues that, at this point in 1999, the FARC held a sizable demilitarized zone in Colombia and was engaged in peace talks with the government. At the same time, Plan Colombia, a package of mostly military support with a price tag of over one billion dollars, was pending in the U.S. Congress. Those interests pushing Plan Colombia needed for that war to heat up bad. Which it did. Dating from early 2000, the FARC showed an increasing intransigence in the talks with the Colombian government that ultimately ended the peace negotiations and the war in Colombia has been escalating ever since. Perhaps the strongest part of the case against the CIA comes from the Government of Jordan. Atef Halasa, Chief of Protocol for the Ministry of Foreign Relations of Jordan, told a Peruvian congressman investigating the sale, “The American government knew about this. The CIA authorized it.” Period. Gamarra will also base his argument on statements and documents provided by Charles Acelor, the alleged CIA asset and contact man, after he was arrested in Germany and extradited to Peru. Acelor has supposedly delivered evidence from a Peruvian informant of the and of British intelligence showing that the CIA was aware of a major drugs-forarms deal involving high-level Peruvian officials at least one month before the first shipment was made in March 1999. Acelor, who tends to be arrested almost anywhere he goes except the USA, also insists that Death Merchant continued on page 27 2/13/04 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 17