Kafka and the Arms Smugglers

Allegations of undercover arms dealing have been the stuff of media legend in recent years. Saddam Hussein’s non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction were reported as fact in all the most respectable Western newspapers and by the West’s broadcasters. Despite admitting that Iraqi WMD in 2003 were an invention of febrile conspiracy theorists in the US government and their willing propagandists, the Western media seems addicted to reporting un-sourced allegations about weapons dealings as a stepping stone to regime-change.

In the run-up to the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, US intelligence sources distributed claims that President Leonid Kuchma had broken UN sanctions on Iraq by supplying an advanced radar system to Saddam Hussein’s regime to “endanger American lives”. Clearly Kiev as well as Baghdad needed regime change, and so it happened.

Like Saddam, Kuchma had once been Washington’s favourite. Bruce Jackson, point man for the intersection between NATO enlargement and US arms manufacturers admitted as much in the Washington Post in October: “We …celebrated Ukraine's independence and its common-sense president, Leonid Kuchma -- until we decided that Kuchma was an autocrat who sold radars illegally to Saddam Hussein. It turns out that this did not happen, but you get the point.”

The point apparently being: the West had turned against Kuchma and so, since all’s fair in democracy promotion, it threw any dirt it could manufacture. Claiming that a target government puts Westerners at risk by smuggling weapons to the West’s enemies is a pretty damning charge. In the New World Order the equivalent of the French Revolution’s Law of Suspects applies: to allow yourself to fall under suspicion is something no good citizen would do, so therefore guilt is proved by allegation.

This tactic of smearing states and regimes which the West dislikes hits small countries as well as big ones. Sandwiched between Ukraine and Moldova is the unrecognised state of Transnistria. It has been getting the “den of arms smugglers” treatment for some time.

The latest example of this genre ran repeatedly on the international German state television channel, Deutsche Welle TV, on Sunday, 29th October. Every other hour the channel broadcast a report about alleged weapon smuggling from the unrecognised state.

One cannot be too harsh on the reporter, Christoph Wanner, for repeating what so many other Western journalists have said without producing any more evidence than they did in the past. In the New World Order, proof depends upon the repetition of the charge not the production of evidence.

Wanner’s main witness for the prosecution was a Russian-speaking Moldovan reporter, Sergiu Praporsic, who has worked for Flux of Chisinau and Radio Free Europe.

Before Wanner set off for the rebel region, Praporsic insisted, “Transnistria is a black hole. The smuggling of drugs, people and weapons flourishes there.”

Wanner said that “there is a ban on filming” at the border between Moldova and Transnistria, as though it is a sign of tyranny rather than routine at any passport or customs post in the world. This sort of self-dramatisation of the reporter as adventurer into a frightening dark place continues with every cliché about Transnistria: “It is a piece of time travel back into the Soviet Union…. Everywhere police…”

Wanner’s viewers are shown a video of a few old-fashioned weapons made by a “hidden camera” though without any date or visible location so it is impossible to say where or when it was shot. Wanner’s language was cautious: “These weapons are supposed to be made in Trasnistria.”

Differentiating supposition from fact is what schools of journalism used to teach but soon enough, Praporsic’s authority turns supposition into fact. While the television screen shows aged artillery pieces taking part in the annual independence day parade in Transnistria’s capital, Tiraspol, Wanner assured the viewers, “Praporsic has no doubt. These weapons are produced in Transnistria and smuggled abroad.”

Wanner interviewed Elena Chernenko, the Transnistrian economics minister, who denied that Transnistria exports weapons. It has two factories which make components for the Russian military in Russia. These components were not artillery pieces or firearms.

Immediately after Chernenko’s comments Wanner returned to the attack citing Praporsic’s “claims” that weapons are smuggled to every conceivable conflict zone - to Georgia, the Middle East, or also to Africa. The goal of some of them may be Europe.” Praporsic says “No-one can say exactly where these weapons end up. Perhaps they come into service somewhere on the territory of the EU.”

The uncertainty even of Praporsic’s allegations did not weigh in Wanner’s commentary: “There must be something in Praporsic’s charges. Otherwise there wouldn’t be nineteen European officials here.” A group of EU officials are working alongside Ukrainian border guards and customs officials at the border between Transnistria and Ukraine on the main road south to the port of Odessa.

A German-speaking EU official, Kurt Schwendermann, tells Wanner that “the EU group has not yet found any weapons.” But Wanner comments, “That means nothing. A lot happens at this border crossing without the EU officials noticing.” If that is the case, what is the point of deploying 19 expensive Western bureaucrats there? Schwendermann – whose name has the connotation in German of a “wastrel”! – tells Wanner that the Ukrainian customs officials earn between 150 and 250 euros a month which promotes corruption “which we know but cannot actually prove”! (“wir auch wissen aber schlecht beweisen kann.”)

The EU group “cannot stop the smuggling” on the border between Ukraine and Transnistria, according to Wanner. Perhaps if it could find some evidence first then the alarmist report could be taken more seriously.

Of course media watchers will recognise the symptoms of Wanner’s Kafka-esque style of reporting. Back in May, 2005, the BBC repeatedly ran a programme “Places which don’t exist” both on its domestic channels and on BBC World. It was a report by Simon Reeve and his commentary pre-echoed Wanner’s script: “Crossing the border into Trans-Dniester was a bit like entering a Soviet Union theme park.” But first Reeve got a briefing from Moldova’s internationally-recognised president:

“Vladimir Voronin, the friendly president of Moldova, told me Trans-Dniester was a ‘black hole’ for arms trafficking. ‘There's uncontrolled migration, contraband, arms trafficking, the trafficking of human beings and drugs,’ he said. ‘There are 13 enterprises in Trans-Dniester that are producing arms non-stop.’ …”And, despite some mock heroic cloak-and-dagger investigative journalism, Reeve couldn’t find any weapons being smuggled.

What Reeve forgot to tell his audience was also omitted in Wanner’s Deutsche Welle film: Moldova is actually ruled by the Communist Party. Its President, Vladimir Voronin was the head of an unrepentant Communist Party on his election. That Party supported his re-election – as did the West. Neither the EU nor USA have problems with Communists provided they are our Communists. If not, suddenly they become denizens of a sinister Stalinist theme park.

Admitting uncertainty ought not to be taken as a sign of incompetence or even impotence by investigative journalists. It might be the first step to wisdom. All over the world uncertainty reigns about arms dealing.

Keeping track of small arms is not easy. Even the US military which ought to have a vested interest in keeping weapons out of hostile hands admits that scores of thousands of firearms have gone astray in Iraq of all places. On 30th October, CNN International reported that the US military could not account for more than 130,000 small arms delivered to Iraq and that the US military had failed to record the serial numbers of these weapons before they were distributed in Iraq. Last December, Newsweek revealed that airplanes owned by notorious Russian arms dealer, Victor Bout, whom President Bush had banned from doing business with US citizens, had landed 142 times at US Air Force bases to refuel!

If the US army cannot keep proper records and prevent arms getting into the wrong hands in Iraq, why all the fuss about Transnistria, which has no easy access to the war zone?

Moldova itself cannot be ruled clean of arms smuggling, at least not by the standards of the BBC, Deutsche Welle, or Bruce Jackson. Yet only specialised journals or bloggers show much interest in the allegations that Moldova has provided a base or transit point for one of the world’s most notorious arms dealers. On 30th April, 2005, it was reported that “An Ilyushin-76TD belonging to suspected Boutco Jet Line International has crashed into Lake Victoria immediately after take-off from Mwanza. All 8 crew were killed. The aircraft was ER-IBR, serial number 43454623, belonging to Jet Line of Chisinau, but apparently operating as Airline Transport, another suspect outfit from Moldova…. Reports have it that the aircraft carried "fish" on its way to Croatia, but then Viktor Bout has frequently claimed that his aircraft carry only "fish and flowers", so frequently that it has reached the status of an aviation joke that an aircraft loaded with "fish" probably contains contraband. (Perhaps the smell of fish transported in tropical heat keeps Customs away.)” It may be that since 2004 Moldova has not renewed the air operating certificates for any Bout planes registered in Chisinau but they still seem to fly – including from the US Eagle Air Force base at Tuzla in Bosnia apparently to supply 200,000 AK47s to the Iraqi security forces!

“Damnation first, evidence afterwards” seems to be the modus operandi of too many Western media outlets. They have misled their publics into war once too often. Even promoting tension and potential conflict around a micro-state of 600,000 people could have terrible consequences for them and their neighbours.

Instead of evidence, Deutsche Welle produced allegations and then insinuated that the very lack of proofs to back up its case was an indication that Tiraspol had something to hide! Kafka could not have put it better. Only the guilty have nothing to hide in this perverse approach to getting at the truth.

Meanwhile the truly tragic fate of neighbouring Moldova goes almost unnoticed in the Western media hunt for Transnistrian demons. For once, Bruce Jackson is on the mark even if his claims about arms smuggling by regimes which Washington dislikes have a poor track record, since he admits to Moldova’s dirty little secret: “Moldova's largest cash export to Europe today is sexually trafficked women.” But the EU isn’t in the business of stopping that illicit trade because it provides so many “comfort women” for NATO troops in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan and for the EU states’ small army of expert advisers in the field. If the West cracked down on these end-users then much of the Moldovan people smuggling would lose its market. But while Western experts preach market solutions to everyone else’s problems, cutting demand for trafficked women isn’t on their agenda. Nor do Western media seem much interested in exposing the real beneficiaries of human trafficking to the West. Fantasy arms dealers make a sexier story, so it seems that another channel will soon carry a “cloak-and-dagger” report from the Transnistrian smuggling front, while ignoring the traffic crossing Moldova’s own borders.

Mark Almond is a writer and Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford where he teaches a course on 18th Century France, focusing on the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville. Almond holds a Master's degree (M.A.), and is the chair of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group. He has served as an election observer in a number of countries including Georgia and Ukraine.