Italian companies unload toxic waste in Somalia

The " toxic ships " continue to be a sad reality . This was announced by Luciano Tarditi , one of the magistrates who are investigating these trades . "There are so Italian entrepreneurs who have solved the problem of disposing of their waste ," said March 10 , speaking at a conference in Rome organized by the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the cycle of waste and illegal activities related to it. "It's toxic waste and even , if necessary, radioactive waste ," stated Tarditi , deputy prosecutor in Asti. One of the goals was and may still be in Somalia . In August 1992 , Mustafa Tolba , Secretary of UNEP , the UN agency for the environment , warns of more resounding : " Italian Companies discharging toxic waste in Somalia. I can not name names because we are dealing with the Mafia , I would put at risk the lives of many people . " A statement issued in the cold. After weeks of silence , Mustafa Tolba added: " A contract between two European industries and Somalia to the annual transport of about half a million tonnes of toxic waste in this country is bankrupt . UNEP is satisfied because it prevented an environmental tragedy . " What happened? The allegation of Tolba breaks a dense network of financial transactions and contacts that was building for some time. In May 1991 , the Health Minister of Somalia , Nur Elmi Osman , and the central bank governor , Ali Abdi love him , both of the faction of Ali Mahdi , at that time in Rome , you do print the bills to be discounted in exchange for medicines send to Somalia. Some Italian companies are contacted with a request to facilitate the payment of the effects signed by Nur Elmi Osman and endorsed by the signature of the Governor of the Central Bank of Somalia. The total amount of funding requested nearly 13 billion lire. The bills are headed and declared payable to the company Finchart . The operation eventually failed due to bureaucratic obstacles , but leaves open the disturbing questions . How is it possible to send medicines in a country torn apart by civil war, with the port of Mogadishu unusable? How Somalis would pay if the government funds are frozen in Italian banks because of the war ? How can the SACE ( the body of the Ministry of Foreign Trade Italian ensures that the operations of Italian companies abroad ) act as guarantor of the transaction ? You can pay in another way, maybe "in kind" , providing for the disposal of toxic waste and land use controlled by Ali Mahdi, who at that time in need of economic resources and military equipment to finally overthrow the fortunes of war . In fact, a few months later , Jagiswar Singh, Indian by birth and Swiss by adoption, is in charge of finding a bank or a financial institution prepared to carry out the operation of discounting of bills of Finchart . Singh is the Swiss Achair & Partners, which says it is prepared to provide for the funding , but asks in exchange for a concession to dispose of waste in Somali territory . You sign a contract. On 5 December 1991 the Achair & Partners is authorized to construct a multipurpose center for treatment, incineration and disposal of hospital waste and industrial -type and special -toxic. Pending the construction of the Center , says the contract , the waste will be stored in the location chosen for an annual volume of 500 thousand tons. The game is done. I put the Somali territory and can get the weapons to fight in exchange must accept the waste . The Swiss company indicates in another Italian , Marcello Giannoni , the brains of the operation . Giannoni 's Attorney 's Progress Ltd. , established in Livorno January 9, 1992 , which at the time was as president Awais Nur Osman , Somali Minister of Foreign Trade , the same as in November 1991 gave a mandate to own Giannoni to find markets international medium and long term aimed at the realization of industrial projects to settle on Somali territory . In August and September 1992 , Mustafa Tolba speaks . The business fades . Complaints against malaffari who epicenter Somalia instead multiply. On 25 November 1992 Piero Ugolini , an official of the Italian Cooperation in Somalia in the second half of the eighties , presents a detailed account - complaint. In October 1993, Franco Oliva (pictured) , who is also an expert of the Italian Cooperation , returns to Mogadishu after having been in the same period of Ugolini . There remains just twenty days , just long enough to detect some irregularities and be seriously injured in a mysterious ambush. Several Italian prosecutors investigating the scandalous activities of cooperation . It also consists of a bicameral commission of inquiry that works between 1994 and 1996, focusing attention , with regard to Somalia , especially on the fishing fleet Shifco ( six ships , a gift of the order of more than 70 billion by the fact Italian Cooperation to Somalia , and the suspicion is that the boats have served to carry weapons). And today ? Indications that Somalia is still at the center of a possible traffic of waste coming from Holland , home of Greenpeace International . A few months ago, the association was contacted by officers of the Government of Yemen, who report the stranding on their shores , especially in the eastern area that overlooks the Gulf of Aden , at the Somali coast , dozens of barrels full of substances not better identified . Already in the past , always in that area, had been reported incidents of discharge into the sea of sealed bins . On 11 November 1995, and then , another incident is reported to the competent authority of the UN and the World Health Organization as a non-governmental organization in Bosaso . The Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry on the waste cycle recently wrote : " It has been established that there is drilling activity and sinking at sea containers , off the north-eastern coast of Somalia ." Even in the South, Merca , in the summer of 1993 arena aboard a ship with seven crew members died in mysterious circumstances , perhaps victims of fumes emanating from the cargo. In January 1996 , moreover, Giancarlo Moroccan, an Italian businessman for a long time in Somalia , ahead of the parliamentary commission on cooperation had claimed to have news on the dumping of radioactive waste in the North of the country. Morocco , however , has been shown by other witnesses as the intermediary for agreements for the transport of toxic waste in Somalia from Europe. Suspects, news, intrigues . In an attempt to shed light are working on several Italian prosecutors , including those of Reggio Calabria, Torre Annunziata , Asti. The investigation of Reggio Calabria , in particular, part of the sinking , September 21, 1987 , Rigel 's boat off the coast of Cape Teulada . A tip and some wiretaps put the judges on the trail of a possible traffic of toxic and radioactive waste . The investigation widens : in December 1990 the ship Red, former Jolly Rosso already involved in the trafficking of waste, runs aground at Cape Suvero . In '96, the investigation goes to the District Anti-Mafia Directorate of Reggio Calabria. At the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry on waste the prosecutor Alberto Cisterna said that some people linked to the ionic gangs in the province of Reggio Calabria , partly resident in German territory , they are stakeholders to the activity of German companies which are already in the books and in the documentation acquired in the course of the investigation of the sinking ships. A foreign employee also connects the sinking of ships carrying waste to arms trafficking landed in Calabria and Aspromonte intended to gangs . Between the Ionian and the Adriatic sea would in time 32 sunken ships. Operations are in progress to search for Rigel , coordinated by ANPA , National Environment Protection Agency . Being studied by investigators of the various prosecutors successive episodes and characters partly known and partly not . For example, who is really Guido Garelli , an Apulian 54 years with multiple identities and trades , reported the territorial administration of the Sahara controlled by the Polisario Front , and in Somalia to bring arms sales , and even in Nairobi, Kenya , to sign (24 June 1992) an economic agreement with two other Italians , including Moroccan . " We fight with bare hands against tanks ," concludes Tarditi . "We need to introduce new types of offenses and increase penalties . Prosecute traffickers of waste is now very difficult : we can not authorize wiretaps or arrest anyone, even if caught in the act . The traffic of waste is currently an offense lapse in four and a half years . " Barbara Carazzolo , Alberto Chiara and Luciano Scalettari   "But Shifco is innocent"   "My brother , the engineer Mugne Said Omar is innocent. It is to her that the Shifco remained the only Somali society that has not been sold off . Its ships are Somali , flying the flag of Somalia and thanks to them live more than two thousand Somali families . The Shifco does not make any illegal trafficking or arms or slag . Who says the false claims to the contrary . Italians , journalists , Rai, TV lounges of the Somalis want to destroy the Roman Shifco . The West has abandoned Somalia. Only Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Yemen are close to us . " Talk Admiral Said Abdalla Omar , former Deputy Chief of the Defence Forces and former commander of the Navy in Somalia during the Siad Barre regime and the brother of the engineer Mugne . Since 1991 he is in Italy . During the interview, at our request, call the brother in Yemen for some clarifications , but the engineer Mugne not agree to talk to us. Who wants to get their hands on Shifco ? "We have said" no " to all the Somali factions who wanted to sell these vessels , as it has been done with all the other properties of Somalia : industries , banks , Somalia Airlines, the merchant . We avoided the fleet took part in the civil war after the fall of Siad Barre. The two missile corvettes of the Navy in Somalia are now in Aden . The engineer Mugne is the only one that comes into Somalia with two warships and six fishing vessels flying the flag of Somalia , hailed with honor. The others did not take anything. " Yet Shifco is the focus of some investigations of the judiciary; the last interview of Ilaria Alpi in Bogor Bosaso just quoted the Shifco and Mugne ... "This is a conspiracy journalism. If my brother was involved in the death of Ilaria Alpi or trades weapons I would not be here and I would defend it . " There is some participation in the Italian Shifco ? "Absolutely not ." In the Register of Companies of Rome is an Italian Shifco , established in July 1990 and put into liquidation on October 30, 1994 ... "There is no such thing. It is false . " .