Posted on 02/02/2006 9:35:42 PM PST by jb6
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- A former U.S. diplomat is speaking out against the secret trial of a former Moldovan defense minister who has been sentenced to 10 years hard labor for selling MiG-29 fighter jets to the United States in 1997.
E. Wayne Merry, a former State Department official who helped negotiate the 1997 sale, says he publicly is describing the U.S. government’s version of events to help show there was no pricing conspiracy involved in the sale of the 21 jets.
“The trial is not just about a Moldovan politician,” Merry said in a January 31 discussion sponsored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) in Washington. “This is about the relationship between the United States and Moldova and the accusation that the United States took advantage of a small, weak country.”
Rather than taking advantage of Moldova, Merry said, the sale gave the struggling Central European republic an infusion of cash and access to excess U.S. military supplies in Europe, military exchanges and other benefits. The sale also kept the aircraft off the international black market – the primary U.S. goal in the deal, he said.
In his remarks, Merry said he and John Todd Stewart, who was U.S. ambassador to Moldova at the time of the MiG sale, both have written legal depositions describing the circumstances of the sale. However, the Moldovan court system did not allow their statements to be admitted as evidence in the trial, which was closed to the public. Merry said the State Department and Defense Department have authorized Stewart and himto discuss the U.S. government’s role in the 1997 sale.
The MiG-29 Fulcrum is among the most advanced fighter aircraft in the world. Moldova possessed 32 of the jets after the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, former Moldovan President Petru Lucinschi said in an interview with a Moldovan news agency in 2005. He said one aircraft went to Romania, four were sold to South Yemen, and 21 were sold to the United States. The Moldovan government has been unable to sell the remaining six, which no longer are flown.
This January, former Moldovan Defense Minister Valeriu Pasat was sentenced to 10 years hard labor for his alleged role in the U.S. sale. According to news reports, the United States paid about $40 million for 21 aircraft and several hundred surface-to-air missiles. Pasat was convicted of charges related to overstepping his authority and an alleged conspiracy between him and the U.S. government to defraud Moldova of an additional $55 million that the aircraft might have fetched on the international market. But such a sale also would have resulted in international trade sanctions if the aircraft fell into the wrong hands, Merry said.
When former Defense Secretary William Cohen announced the sale in November 1997, he said that “a number of rogue states, including Iran” had expressed interest in the fighters. “These MiG aircraft were on their shopping list,” Cohen told a news conference.
The trial of Pasat appears to have been politically motivated, Merry said. According to news reports, Pasat’s lawyer said he would appeal the verdict to the European Court of Human Rights.
Merry, a career Foreign Service officer, was assigned to the Defense Department in the mid-1990s as director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, where he played a role in helping former Soviet republics draw down their weapons stockpiles. He said the Moldovan aircraft sale was largely his initiative and was intended to keep these advanced nuclear-capable jets away from potential customers who might use them against the United States or its allies.
Merry told the RFE/RL briefing that “when we sought to acquire the airplanes, it was not to add them to our combat inventory” but to keep them out of unfriendly hands.
He said his office initially sought an allied nation willing to buy the aircraft. But with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, there was little interest in MiG aircraft, which require an extensive ground crew of well-trained mechanics and costly equipment. “There was no legitimate market for these planes. The only market for these planes was the black market,” he said.
When the United States could not find a legitimate buyer, Merry proposed a plan for the U.S. government to buy the aircraft as part of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Initiative, known as the Nunn-Lugar Program, which has used U.S. funds to help eliminate the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction from former Soviet stockpiles. (See related article.)
Merry said Pasat rejected his initial offer and would not budge during follow-up negotiations. Merry recommended that the United States rely on sanctions or the threat of sanctions to keep the aircraft off the black market.
Merry switched to a new assignment, and a few months later, the United States reached a deal to buy 21 of the 27 aircraft that Moldova wanted to sell.
MOLDOVAN POLITICAL SITUATION CHANGES IN 2001
The Communist Party of Moldova was elected to power in 2001, and Pasat became part of the country’s political opposition. He was taken into custody in March 2005 at an airport in Moldova when he returned from Moscow on business for his employer -- Russia’s Unified Energy Systems (UES). Pasat’s political opposition and his business connections with UES could have provided political motivation for his being taken into custody, Merry said.
Merry described the allegations against Pasat as “bogus.” The sale of the MiGs was approved by Lucinschi, the former Moldovan president, possibly over Pasat’s objections, according to Merry. Pasat’s exact role in the MiG sale remains unclear, he said.
Merry told RFE/RL that he has seen no evidence that any conspiracy to defraud Moldova took place. Pasat was, if anything, “excessively zealous to try to protect his country’s interests,” Merry said, describing the former defense minister’s repeated refusal to negotiate a lower selling price.
During his negotiations with Pasat and others, Merry said he emphasized that a deal with the United States would be legal and result in swift payment. Lucinschi, the former president, has said in interviews that the funds from the MiG sale were in his nation’s treasury within weeks.
A fact sheet on U.S. assistance to Moldova in 2005 is available on the State Department Web site. A transcript of then Defense Secretary Cohen’s news conference from November 4, 1997, in which he announced the purchase of the MiG-29 aircraft, is available on the Defense Department Web site. // U.S. Department of State
Just remember folks, these are the communists who bent their knee to the EU and were allowed to steal the elections. These are also the scum that Tailgunner Joe claims are our friends. These are further the scum that Lukasz and Gergy just love and defend. Welcome to the EU scum fest and their foreign and domestic shills will be along shortly.
Do not bait a flame war. Knock it off.
US wants Russia out of Transnistria
Is President Bush also a commie shill for demanding that the criminal Russian occupiers retreat from Transdneister?
It's not just a personal attack, it's a lie too.
If the Russians stay or go is as much up to the local population as to international bodies. Fact is, Moldova's communists avoided their Color Revolution by bending their knee to the EU and got to steal the elections from the favorites, the Republican Party of Moldova. Try and defend their position all you like, they are still communists and now they are anti-American to boot. After this, Bush's position might just change. Yours won't.
Bush's position has nothing to do with the composition or the actions of the government of Moldova, and neither do mine, so neither of us are going to change.
To: jb6
It makes you RussiaFirsters unhappy that Romania is a US ally. Sniff, sniff. I feel for you.
7 posted on 12/11/2005 6:23:07 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]
Not much of an ally, one that accuses the US of abusing it, now is it?
Russia to EU: 'Hands off Moldova'
To: RusIvan
Moldova is a member of the Coalition of the Willing. Their troops stand beside Americans in Iraq, while the Russians helped Saddam fight us and demand our withdrawal. We know who our friends are.
Moldova is run by communists too but that's beside the point. Transnistria is even more communist.
At least Moldova is democratic. Transnistria is a dictatorship. The government controls the media, there is no legal opposition and there are no political parties.
'A giant statue of Lenin towers outside the president's office. Across the road flutters a green-and-red Trans-Dniester flag, bearing the hammer and sickle of the USSR. Trans-Dniester money and passports also bear Soviet symbols. ...A youth group called Breakthrough, which supports the president, has set up what it calls the "Che Guevara High School".' - LINK
Russia agreed to withdraw its troops under the provisions of the CFE treaty. And you wonder why no one trusts the word of Russia?
26 posted on 10/13/2005 8:44:06 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]
Not much for our friends are they? Democracy? Only if you count communists stealing elections as democratic and now they're becoming flatly anti-American to boot.
So you have no problems supporting nations who are hostile to America? Who secretly try and lock away ministers who helped America?
Unlike you, I firmly believe Bush sees the light when its shining and will not continue to give support, both diplomatic and military to hostile nations. You on the other hand, have an ulterior grudge and have shown yourself to be morally flexible as long as the Russians are suffering.
2. The people of Moldova deserve our thanks for their contribution to the coalition of the willing in Iraq. (Russia doesn't.)
3. You can't get America to side with Transnistria just because Moldova is communist, precisely because Transnistria is even more communist than Moldova. There are not even any opposition parties in Transnistria. It's a Stalinist single-party dictatorship.
Okay tovarisch, I'll be sure to laugh and rub it in your face when US policy doesn't change. This isn't about making Russians "suffer" unless suffering means relinquishing the last remnants of their dead Soviet empire.
Voronin is only Moldova's registered presidential candidate so far (Communist elections)
American policy isn't, your agenda is.
Outside of the fact that the EU would set up an outpost PRONTO, you need to go reread the causes and results of the 4 way civil war that erupted in Moldova in 1991 and who finally ended the shooting.
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