gee_42-43.qxp_The Middle East in the Far East 4/1/21 10:50 AM Page 43
However, thanks to its control of more than 140 companies in Myanmar, the military, often referred to as Tatmadaw, has been capable of making arms deals and paying for them without reference to the elected government. An August 2019 U.N. report had identified China, India, Israel, North Korea, Philippines, Russia, Singapore and Ukraine as countries engaged in this trade with Myanmar, since the 2017 conflict in which Rohingyas faced violence and expulsion. China is by far the largest supplier of arms to the Myanmar military, though recently the latter has been keen to diversify its sources, notably in a recent deal with Russia. Israel’s role in supplying weaponry is comparatively small, but the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries did agree to supply four Super-Dvora Mk III fast attack vessels to Myanmar’s navy. Only two were delivered, before Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of a petition opposing the sale in 2017. Although, according to the U.N. report a private Israeli firm, TAR Ideal Concepts, did provide training and equipment to the Tatmadaw Special Forces. The leader of the coup, commander-inchief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, visited Israel in September 2015, when he toured Israeli military facilities including the Palmahim air base, as well as leading military industries, such as Israel Aerospace Industries and Elbit. He met Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Gadi Eisenkot, chief of staff of the Israeli army, and President Reuven Rivlin. It is hard to know whether the beleaguered military regime acted out of ignorance, desperation, or a mixture of the two when it agreed to hire Israeli-Canadian businessman Ari Ben-Menashe to undertake a public relations campaign following the coup. Ben-Menashe worked for Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate from 1977 to 1987 and later became an arms dealer and a source for numerous accounts of Israeli skullduggery. There has been much controversy about the man himself and the reliability of his claims, including those concerning his role in the 1980 “October Surprise” that delayed release of 66 Americans hostages held hostage in Iran. BenMAY 2021
Menashe also claims Robert Maxwell, the ardently Zionist newspaper owner, was assassinated by Mossad. What is definite is that he has worked for Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, where he took part in a scheme to record opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, as appearing to support the assassination of Mugabe, in 2002, and more recently, his work with the Sudanese military leadership. On March 7, Ben-Menashe told Michael Safi, of The Guardian, that he had been hired by Tatmadaw to “assist in explaining the real situation in the country.” He said that he was being paid a large amount and would receive a bonus if sanctions against military leaders were lifted. In order to comply with the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act, Ben-Menashe’s consultancy, Dickens & Madson Canada, had to file documents with the U.S. Justice Department. They show that the amount paid to Ben-Menashe was $2 million U.S. dollars. Acting for his paymasters, Ben-Menashe has claimed that Tatmadaw wants to move away from China and develop friendlier relationships with the West and that the military, which drove the Rohingyas into exile in 2017, wants to resettle them. He claimed that Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), was actually responsible for what happened to the Rohingyas, not the army. He repeated Tatmadaw’s claim that the November elections in Myanmar, which were won by a landslide by the NLD, were rigged and asserting that most people in Myanmar did not support the protests against the coup. Ben-Menashe’s claims are likely to be received with more than a pinch of salt, flying in the face of all available evidence as they do. How long he will persist with them remains to be seen. The Washington-based Foreign Lobby Report says that U.S. and Canadian sanctions mean that he may be barred from receiving the $2 million that he reported being paid, and in any case, there are strict restrictions on what a registered foreign agent can legally do in lobbying U.S. politicians. It is often wrong to judge people by the company they keep, but sometimes….In
the end, who looks worse in this partnership, the military regime or the lobbyist?
EQUATORIAL GUINEA PALLY WITH ISRAEL
Equatorial Guinea, a small former Spanish colony in sub-Saharan Africa, announced in February that it would move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. The country has lived under the dictatorship of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo since he seized power in a coup in 1979. In July 2003, according to a BBC report, the country’s state radio claimed that he was “in permanent contact with the Almighty” and was himself Equatorial Guinea’s god. He has one of the world’s worst records for human rights violations, including torture and unlawful killing of critics. While the dictator’s family have enriched themselves, most of the country’s citizens live in poverty, despite considerable government revenue from oil since the 1990s. On March 7, huge explosions at the Nkuantoma military barracks ravaged many civilian buildings in Bata, Equatorial Guinea’s largest city, killing more than 100 people and injuring many more. Israel sent aid. The dictator’s son, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, was reported to have visited the scene of the explosion, the causes of which are still under investigation, accompanied by his Israeli bodyguards. ■
IndextoAdvertisers Alalusi Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Al-Mokha Coffee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA). . . . . . . Inside Front Cover 2021 Annual Conference . . . . . . . . 17 Kinder USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Land of Canaan Foundation . . . . . 35 Middle East Children’s Alliance . . . 11 Mondoweiss. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Palestinian Medical Relief Society . . . 9 Playgrounds for Palestine. . . . . . . . 23 Unitarian Universalists . . . . . . . . . . 15 United Palestinian Appeal (UPA). . . . . . . . . . Inside Back Cover
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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