Erik Prince, who is the Trumpian accused by the UN of violating the embargo in Libya
The article by Giuseppe Gagliano on the accusation made by the UN against Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater Worldwide and supporter of Trump, for having violated the embargo in Libya in the arms sector to help Haftar
THE FACTS AND THE ACCUSATIONS
Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater Worldwide and a prominent supporter of Donald J. Trump, has been accused by the UN of having violated the embargo placed in place in Libya in the arms sector. According to this report, the transaction from an economic point of view would be around 80 million dollars and would be temporally placed in 2019.
This large and significant military support operation would have benefited Haftar. The mercenaries would arrive in smuggled airplanes and military ships from South Africa and Europe and proposed to Haftar to eliminate his political opponent.
However, the operation was unsuccessful both because Jordan refused to sell American-made Cobra helicopters to mercenaries, and because of a bitter dispute with Haftar that would have forced them to flee Libya by boat across the Mediterranean.
THE REPLICA
The accused, both personally and through his lawyer, obviously not only denied having made an economic transaction of this kind but above all denied both having met the military leader Haftar and having supported him on a military level.
FIRST EVALUATION
The New York Times had the opportunity to view some of the documentation relating to this case. Documentation that is not only very extensive but above all very detailed in relation to the financial transactions carried out by Erik Prince.
SECOND EVALUATION
It is certainly an unusual coincidence that this supposed economic transaction – and the related economic backing and support that should have come about – coincides with Trump's shift towards Libya. This change was reflected not only in the recognition given to Haftar in the fight against terrorism, but which materialized through the open support of the same advance on Tripoli.
THIRD EVALUATION
Beyond the validity of the accusations that have been made by the UN, there are, however, a series of data by now acquired.
First, Erik Prince would have planned a coup d'état in April 2019 that involved the use of 5,000 contractors to destabilize President Maduro, relying on a budget of 40 million dollars.
Secondly, a similar plan was planned in 2017 by Prince himself on behalf of the Arab Emirates with the aim of destabilizing Qatar by providing for the employment of 15,000 men.
The presence of these two precedents therefore makes the set of accusations raised by the UN very likely.
As for the use of contractors, which are none other than modern mercenaries, this constitutes one of the variants of modern warfare in which States prefer to deal indirectly in order not to get their hands dirty whether they are authoritarian like Russia through the Wagner group or that they are democrats like France which, through its security service the SDCE and Jacques Foccart, used the legendary mercenary Bob Denard in Congo in 1965.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/erik-prince-chi-e-il-trumpiano-accusato-dallonu-di-violazione-dellembargo-in-libia/ on Tue, 23 Feb 2021 07:10:40 +0000.