| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 191.1 | Seamens's Union documentation | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Tue Mar 10 1987 09:14 | 65 |
| Associated Press Mon 9-MAR-1987 18:16 Denmark-Iran Arms
Union Claims 60-70 Danish Ships Took Swedish Arms to Middle East
By GUNILLA FARINGER
Associated Press Writer
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - The Seamen's Union said Monday that Danish
ships have taken 60-70 loads of Swedish-made weapons to Iran and other
nations in the Middle East. Its leaders reported, however, that the
board of directors decided against publishing documents and lists the
union claims to possess to avoid retaliation against Danish ships.
Union Vice President Henrik Berlau told a news conference the shipments
went to the Middle East via "a few other ports on the way, like
Singapore. I think we have that reasonably documented." In November,
when revelations were being made in the United States about the
Iran-Contra arms deal, the union said Danish ships carried several
consignments of U.S.-made weapons from the Israeli port of Eilat to
Bandar Abbas, Iran.
Berlau's estimate of the number of cargoes in the total arms traffic
nearly doubled that given earlier by Preben Moeller Hansen, the union
president, who said 35-40 shipments were involved. "I think the number
is higher, about 60 to 70," Berlau said, adding that the materiel
included ammunition and weapons and could be traced back at least as
far as the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war in September 1980.
He did not say give a date for the most recent shipment, but repeated
an earlier statement that Prime Minister Olof Palme of Sweden
personally intervened to stop one delivery of missiles to Iran in 1985.
Palme was shot to death on a Stockholm street Feb. 28, 1986, and his
killer has not been found.
Reports of the arms traffic have caused a furor in Sweden because the
shipments appear to violate its neutrality laws. Authorities are said
to be preparing indictments of senior executives at Bofors, the main
arms producer, and Parliament decided last week to investigate the
government's role.
Berlau said there was a list of the cargoes' final destinations, but
would not say who compiled it or give information about it. He said the
union also had reports from seamen working on the vessels. Hansen
accused Swedish authorities of showing "unwillingness or incompetence
in finding out what's going on."
The Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society claims the Stockholm
government knew about the shipments but did not act. Prime Minister
Ingvar Carlsson has denied involvement by his or previous governments.
Berlau said: "We think the Swedish government cannot possibly have been
ignorant of what was going on."
A newspaper in Norway quoted the Norwegian defense minister, Johan
Joergen Holst, on Monday as saying he sent a top official to Sweden "to
check out whether Norway could be indirectly involved in the Swedish
arms scandal."
At least some Robots-70 anti-aircraft missiles produced by Bofors,
which are reported being used by Iran, contain components built in
Norway that are barred from re-export to third countries. Defense
Ministry spokesman Erik Senstad said the Norwegian components were used
only in missiles built for the Norwegian army.
Expressen, a Swedish paper, said the State Department was investigating
whether U.S.-made components were used in Bofors missiles sent to Iran.
|
| 191.2 | Arms inspector killed by subway train | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Thu Mar 12 1987 09:47 | 48 |
| Associated Press Wed 11-MAR-1987 23:40 Sweden-Arms
Police Say Arms Inspector Killed Himself
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Police have ruled out murder in the death of a
government arms inspector due to be questioned about an arms smuggling
scandal involving Iran, a prosecutor said Wednesday. Torsten Wulff said
witnesses told police that Rear Admiral Carl-Fredrik Algernon "jumped
in front of the subway train" on his way home from work Jan. 15, a week
before he was scheduled to be questioned by customs officials
investigating possible illegal arms deliveries to Iran.
Police discounted initial reports that Algernon, who was responsible
for granting export licenses to arms manufacturers, may have been
pushed under the subway at Stockholm's central station. "We have one
witness who said he simply was standing too close to the edge and was
hit by the train, but that is opposed by the many other witnesses,"
Wulff said.
Authorities are investigating the alleged smuggling of anti-aircraft
missiles to Iran in the early 1980s by Bofors AB, Sweden's largest arms
company. Swedish law bans deliveries to countries at war.
Wulff said there was no reason to investigate Algernon's possible
motives for suicide. He declined comment on whether Algernon's death
could be linked in any way to the Bofors affair.
The daily Aftonbladet newspaper quoted Algernon's aides as saying he
appeared "very agitated" as he left work Jan. 15 after meeting Anders
Carlberg, president of Bofors' mother company, Nobel Industries.
Carlberg told the paper he did not talk to the inspector about the
investigation.
Meanwhile, newspapers reported another state prosecutor was
investigating whether Finance Minister Kjell-Olof Feldt secretly
approved arms shipments to Iran in exchange for oil in the 1970s when
he was trade minister. The national radio and several newspapers quoted
an unidentified businessman as saying Feldt sanctioned the overland
transport of missiles, mines and cannons to Iran as early as 1973.
Feldt, the highly respected architect of Sweden's economic policy,
rejected the allegations. "If this concerns deals incompatible with
Swedish laws, then I have not given my approval. This is so obvious. I
have nothing more to say," Feldt told the Dagens Nyheter daily.
The national news agency TT reported Wednesday that Swedish arms
exports jumped 43 percent last year to about $350 million after small
increases in previous years.
|
| 191.3 | Arms diverted to Persian Gulf states | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Tue Mar 31 1987 10:20 | 86 |
| Here's the Agence France Press report:
Swedish arms were diverted to Gulf states: Borfors
STOCKHOLM, March 31 (AFP) - The Swedish arms manufacturer Borfors
officially recognized Monday that short-range RBS-70 surface-to-air
missiles it sold to Singapore between 1978 and 1980 "were reexported to
Dubai and Bahrain."
The company denied, in a communique issued Monday, that any Swedish
"70" missiles were shipped to Iran, "at least to the Swedish company's
knowledge."
Mr. Anders Carlberg, directory-general of the Nobel Society of which
Borfors is an affiliate, told Swedish radio Monday that Swedish arms
were delivered to Oman in 1985 in a violation of Swedish arms sales
regulations.
Swedish Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson said Monday Bofors "had
everything to gain by clarifying eventual irregularities" in Swedish
arms exports.
The Swedish press has reported intensively on illegal arms sales to
Iran, and six invetigative commissions have been set up to examine the
problem. Results are expected in April.
And here's the Associated Press version:
Mon 30-MAR-1987 19:08 Sweden-Arms Deals
Nobel Industries Admits Illegal Arms Sales
By KARIN STRAND
Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - The head of Nobel Industries, whose founder
established the Nobel Prizes, admitted Monday that subsidiaries sold
weapons and ammunition in violation of neutral Sweden's tough export
laws.
Anders Carlberg said some executives of the company started by Alfred
Nobel knew that arms sold to Singapore, Austria and Yugoslavia as long
ago as 1979 would be sent to nations in Eastern Europe and the Persian
Gulf that were on the government blacklist.
In the clearest admission of guilt so far in the 4-year-old arms
scandal, Carlberg said company executives "committed serious mistakes,
both morally and legally." He did not identify executives by name, but
referred to the subsidiary companies Bofors AB and Nobel Kemi.
At a news conference, Carlberg named nearly a dozen examples of illegal
sales and said: "I cannot guarantee there are no more cases."
Investigators tracked arms and munitions to the Persian Gulf emirates
of Dubai, Bahrain and Oman, and to communist East Germany, he said.
Carlberg said he had no evidence for allegations that Sweden sold
surface-to-air Robot 70 missiles to Iran, although the Iranian army has
been reported using them. Iran and Iraq have been at war since
September 1980.
Police and customs officials are investigating the illegal transactions
and indictments of at least eight executives are said to be in
preparation.
Sweden produces 70 percent of its own weapons and forbids sales to
countries that are at war or in volatile areas where a war might start.
The scandal has embarrassed the government, which Swedish peace groups
accuse of either not supervising exports properly or colluding in
criminal acts. Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson denies wrongdoing by his
year-old government or previous administrations.
A parliamentary committee established this year is investigating
whether anyone in the Cabinet knew of illegal exports. According to
Carlberg, there is nothing to suggest that current or former ministers
were aware of the illegal trade.
Asked why top businessmen would engage in smuggling, Carlberg said he
felt they were victims of "misdirected ambitions." "Maybe they wanted
to do big business. Maybe they were concerned about the future of the
company. Maybe they wanted to show they were competent," he said.
Carlberg acknowledged that people from Bahrain came to Sweden for
training on the laser-guided Robot 70 missiles and Swedes went to
Bahrain. Asked why the training did not arouse questions about possible
illegal activities, Carlberg said: "That's a good question."
|
| 191.4 | Trying to find a 'balance' | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Fri Apr 24 1987 10:20 | 86 |
| Associated Press Fri 24-APR-1987 00:29 Sweden-Arms
Swedish Dilemma: How to Balance Arms Sales with Neutral Posture
By ARTHUR MAX
Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Allegations of bribery and arms smuggling are
casting unwelcome light on the weapons industry in Sweden, a nation
struggling to reconcile its need to sell weapons with its role as an
international peacemaker.
Sweden, a country of 8.4 million that gave the world dynamite and the
Nobel Peace Prize, has not fought in a war since 1814, when it defeated
Denmark in the Napoleonic Wars.
Arms production is a cornerstone of its neutrality. Sweden makes about
70 percent of its own military hardware, a situation that helps keep it
free of alliances that could entangle it in war. But production for the
Swedish military has increasingly depended on foreign exports to
underwrite costs. In 1985 this country sold nearly one-third of its
weapons abroad.
As technology and production became more expensive, competition got
tougher among arms manufacturers for the shrinking Third World market
of weapons buyers. Swedish weapons salesmen, like those in other
countries, are now accused of going too far.
"We have been accused of playing a double role. While Olof Palme was
working for peace, we were strengthening our army," said Carl Johan
Aberg, the Foreign Ministry's undersecretary of state for trade. "But
as long as there is no disarmament we must have a highly developed
ordnance industry," he said in a recent interview.
Palme, the Social Democrat who led the country from 1969 until his
assassination on Feb. 28, 1986, with the exception of four years, was
known as a peace campaigner and often tapped as a U.N. mediator in
conflicts. His murder, in a Stockholm street, has not been solved.
In the latest corruption case, Sweden's publicly financed radio
reported that the Bofors arms manufacturers paid $5 million in bribes
to companies or individuals in India to secure a $1.7 billion sale of
field cannon concluded last year. The company and the Indian government
denied the allegation, but the Swedish government demanded an
investigation, and the report triggered a furor in the parliaments of
both nations. Bofors was already under police investigation for
illegally shipping gunpowder and weaponry to the Persian Gulf, possibly
including anti-aircraft missiles to Iran.
Bofors, the country's biggest arms producer, is a descendant of the
arms empire built by Alfred Nobel, the Swedish philanthropist who
invented dynamite and later established the Peace Prize.
The gradually unfolding tales of secret deals and kickbacks have been a
continuing embarrassment for the Social Democractic government. Prime
Minister Ingvar Carlsson, under constant pressure from the media,
became so angry that he vowed to stop casual question-and-answer
sessions with reporters.
Last month SIPRI, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute,
placed Sweden on a list of 27 countries producing arms that reached
both sides in the Iran-Iraq war. It did not say which weapons were used
by Iraq, and they may have been manufactured in a third country under
license from a Swedish company - a practice that also has aroused
opposition here.
Swedish law forbids arms sales to any country at war, either foreign or
civil, or likely to become involved in a conflict. "Its obvious that
the law is not the same as reality," said Lars Jederlund, a researcher
for the 104-year-old Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society. "If the
government followed its own rules, that alone would stop 60 to 70
percent of its arms exports," said Jederlund, who uncovered some of
Bofors' illegal sales from public sources and published material.
A government report published this month put total Swedish arms
production in 1985 at today's equivalent of $1 billion. Of that, Sweden
exported $340 million worth of armaments, ranging from laser-guided
missiles to dynamite sticks.
The report said arms accounted for about 1 percent of Swedish exports,
prompting journalist and author Fredrik Lunberg to exclaim in the
conservative Svenska Dagbladet: "Talk about selling yourself cheap."
The report by a committee appointed in the wake of the Bofors scandal
recommended tighter supervision of Swedish exports and clearer
understandings with those governments which produce weapons jointly
with Sweden.
|
| 191.5 | More on the Indian affair | MLTVAX::SAVAGE | Neil @ Spit Brook | Fri Sep 01 1989 17:09 | 62 |
| Group soc.culture.nordic
From: [email protected] (Anders Andersson)
Subject: Re: Scandinavian Weapons Export
Organization: Uppsala University, Sweden
In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (S
Kumar) writes:
>Does anybody know if the Swedish govt. instituted an investigation about
>allegations that Bofors, a Swedish arms manufacturer and exporter, paid
>hefty bribes to officials of the Indian govt. (including cabinet ministers)
>to facilitate Indian purchase of Bofors' weapons? This promises to be a
>major issue in the upcoming Indian general elections due December/January.
>The Indian govt. did investigate, but there have been allegations that the
>investigation's findings were swept under the rug by the Indian govt.
As far as I know, the Swedish government has not taken the initiative
to any such investigation. Actually, it seems to me that nobody here
really doubts that Bofors has been using bribes abroad; it's sort of
taken for granted I believe. The thing is, there's nothing in Swedish
law forbidding a company to pay bribes when making deals abroad, so
there is little reason for anybody here to do any investigation, other
than perhaps assisting Indian authorities or some other concerned body
- but if it boils down to say investigative competence, then I don't
see why a Swedish investigation would be more trustworthy than an
Indian one.
An objective, third-party observer you might say? I wouldn't trust the
government to tell me when the sun will rise tomorrow; it may be an
easy enough task, but it's none of their business and there are
professionals more suited to do it.
Any relevant archives are open to Indian representatives just as they
are to the Swedish government (I vaguely remember Sten Andersson,
minister for foreign affairs, having a short quarrel with Bofors board
members, asking them to provide any information they might have - but
he has no legal means which you can't exercise) and at least one
parliamentary (multi-party I assume) delegation from India has been
here. If Rajiv Gandhi managed to cover the findings of that delegation,
wouldn't it be reasonable to dig up the backup copy?
According to Swedish law, it's a crime for an official representative
to accept bribes (and maybe also for anybody to bribe him), since that
would mean he isn't properly serving the needs of the citizens. While
it might be logical letting the affected party (the Indian people or
state, whichever you prefer to see) set the rules in an international
case like this, there has been some talk of establishing legal limits
in our end as well, simply in order to restrain a handful of companies
from demolishing the foreign market reputation which we all must share.
Of course, I do feel sorry for the Indian people, involuntarily wasting
money on hungry middlemen and still ending up with merchandise which
isn't necessarily the best possible, all with the help of a Swedish
company, but I prefer seeing Indian law deliver the proper punishment
to that particular "trading partner" Bofors (as well as the middlemen)
instead of Swedish law deciding what kind of payments are allowed in
other countries.
--
Anders Andersson, Dept. of Computer Systems, Uppsala University
Paper Mail: Box 520, S-751 20 UPPSALA, Sweden
Phone: +46 18 183170 EMail: [email protected]
|
| 191.6 | Court case begun | WHYVAX::SAVAGE | Neil @ Spit Brook | Tue Sep 05 1989 14:24 | 58 |
| Group soc.culture.nordic
Bofors' deals in court
(Stockholm - Riitta Jarvinen)
After five years investigations the case of Bofors was finally started
last Monday in court of Stockolm. Bofors is a Swedish company that
produces weapons and war material. Three Borfors' former managers are
being accused. They are expected to get a sentence to prison from 6
months to 6 years.
Bofors' former managing director Martin Ardbo, former marketing
director Hans Ekblom and gun-production director (now retired) Lenart
Palsson are accused of weapon smuggling. The prosecutor said that the
men have smuggled more than 300 anti-aircraft missiles to Dubai and
Bahrai during the years 1979-81. Weapons are worth more than 100
million SEK. Swedish law says that exporting weapons or war material to
any country requires government approval.
Prosecutor says that these former managers of Bofors have also exported
spare-parts worth of 2.8 million SEK to these countries. They have also
exported other weapons to Oman worth more than 8 million SEK. It was
stated in official export permissions that these guns and weapons were
supposed to go to Singapore.
Three former foreign trade minister have been called as witness among
others. The counsel of the defense tries to prove that both the
government and officials that control weapon export knew the real
destination of the shipments and they had also unoffically approved it
even until 1984, when the case was exposed.
Instead of that the former ministers say that Bofors has intentionally
misguided both the war-material-export-inspection-department and the
government by giving wrong information about the real destination of
the weapons.
Deaths make the case harder
The death of Bofors' former president C-U. Winberg in car accident last
summer has made the investigations much harder. Only one of three
managers of the war-material-export-inspection-department during the
years 1977-87 is still alive.
Bofors' unlegal weapon deals were discovered 1984, when Swedish peace
movement "Svenska Freds- och Skiljedomsforening" made a report to
police about the shipments to Dubai and Bahrai. The case expanded the
following year when one of Bofors' engineers Ingvar Bratt gave more
evidence. Swedish custom has also investigated Bofors' weapon export to
Iran and Syria.
The case started last monday is going to last until the 24th of
October. Bofors has already been once in Karlskoga's court were all the
managers were found not guilty.
[Submitted by:]
--
Petri Vuorimaa Tampere University of Technology / Signal Processing Lab
[email protected] PO. BOX. 527, 33101 Tampere, Finland
|
| 191.7 | hi-level grease vs dynamit-rust | HYDRA::MCALLEN | | Fri Sep 08 1989 22:00 | 16 |
|
There is some discussion of the Bofors bribery scandal
in the VAXWRK::INDIA conference. Press KP7 to enter the
INDIA conference into your notes library.
In the INDIA conference, see topics 3.29, 3.62+, 66.2+ and 96.* .
Isn't there a certain similarity between the current Bofors
bribery scandal and the Northrup/Tom_Jones (and Lockheed)
weapons bribery scandals in the USA, back in the early 1970's ?
Oh well, no one's perfect. Topnotch fighter aircraft
are seldom sold without the proper high altitude grease.
And of course, we're all much more honest nowadays. :^)
I hope the deceased export inspector's family is well
cared for by the Dynamit-Nobel Trust.
|
| 191.8 | leaking of Ardbo/Bofors diary? | HYDRA::MCALLEN | | Wed Nov 08 1989 18:30 | 18 |
| Does anyone have information about the Ardbo diary's being
published?
In the INDIA notesfile 66.19 and 66.20, it is stated
that the diary of retired (?) Bofors chief (Mr. Ardbo)
has been obtained and is being published by numerous
Indian periodicals.
It is said that the alleged Ardbo diary contains incriminating
entries regarding high government officials in India,
in connection with the Bofors<--->India armaments scandal,
and that their publication at this time is linked to
the upcoming election in India.
Is there any mention of the "leaking" (?) of the Ardbo
diary to be found in Scandinavian press?
-John
|
| 191.9 | The Economist has an article. | DATOR::NELSON | David W., MK02-1/J12 DTN: 264-4523 | Thu Nov 09 1989 18:15 | 6 |
|
Yes. I recently read an article in the Economist concerning the
elections in India and they made reference to the diary in the
article. I don't the Economist issue with me so I can't tell you
what date it is. From what I remember about the article it seems
to support what you have said.
|