http://web.amnesty.org/web%5Cweb.nsf/printpages/ttt3_gunrunning Amnesty International Britons involved in Africa gun-running Extrajudicial execution, torture and rape of civilians by all sides continue to characterize the ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian organization, has estimated that since August 1998 as many as 2.5 million civilians have been killed or died from hunger and disease as a consequence of the conflict. By the end of 2001 as many as two million people were internally displaced and facing starvation, unable to support themselves. Despite this catalogue of human misery, British pilots and air cargo companies have been allowed by the United Kingdom (UK) government to supply weapons to armed forces in the DRC responsible for mass human rights abuses. Under UK law, as long as the weapons are collected and routed outside UK territory to a destination not embargoed by the UN, such arms trafficking is perfectly legal. The traffickers have used links in other European Union (EU) countries or outside EU jurisdiction to circumvent the 1993 non-binding EU embargo on arms sales to the DRC. In a taped video interview, a British pilot described how in 1999 and 2000 he flew AK47 assault rifles from Rwanda and Uganda into the rebel-held town of Kisangani in the DRC. He claimed the planes were registered in Swaziland for Planetair and New Gomair. The UN identified New Gomair as probably carrying illegal natural resources from the DRC and Planetair was named by the US government as supplying arms to eastern DRC. In the interview, the British pilot said: ''Mostly the stuff we carried were brand new AKs plus the ammunition. They're all packed in plastic bags and in beautiful condition... It's quite a standard operation for us... We know there is a war on. We are not involved in it because we're just charter pilots... We were doing about 80 to 90 hours flying a month... It is very easy. Leave the hotel, do a little hour there and two hours on the ground and you are back in time for dinner.'' Amnesty International subsequently identified Planetair as having offices in West London run by the same person who managed Sky Air Cargo, a company that had operated a Liberian-registered cargo plane known to have carried arms to Sierra Leone and Angola. Strangely, the Liberian Civil Aviation Regulatory Authority was run by a UK business in Kent, England, during 1999 and 2000. When too many questions were asked, the Kent businessman switched to selling registrations for Equatorial Guinea. UN investigations have shown that aircraft on these UK-run registers were used for international arms trafficking to Angola, Sierra Leone and Central Africa, including the DRC. UK law also fails to prevent UK transport companies being used for arms trafficking abroad. In April 2000, a UK newspaper, the Guardian and a UK NGO, Saferworld, identified an ageing Liberian-registered Boeing 707 that had been contracted to fly arms from Bulgaria and Slovakia to Harare in Zimbabwe. The arms were apparently destined for Zimbabwean forces in the DRC. The plane's handlers used the offices and facilities of a UK cargo company with offices in Ostend, Belgium, without the knowledge of its owners. Flight documents show that on 3 November 1999 the plane left Ostend empty for Burgas in Bulgaria. By the time it arrived at Harare it was carrying 40 tonnes of ''technical equipment''. The plane had made a technical stop for refuelling at Aswan in southern Egypt after leaving Burgas and had then flown over Kenya under radio silence. According to a member of the crew, when the cargo reached Harare, it was transferred to an Ilyushin 76TD freighter and flown to Kinshasa in the DRC. The airport commandant at Ostend said he had interviewed the Belgian flight engineer on the trip in question who confirmed that the cargo included bazookas (an anti-tank shoulder-fired weapon). Military experts believe the cargo included a Bulgarian ''Igla'' portable surface-to-air missile system. The UK company manager in Ostend claimed that he had been misled by the Ostend operations manager of an Amsterdam-based airfreight company who chartered the plane for an unknown broker. "It is company policy never to fly arms", he said. Further documentation then came to light indicating that the plane was planning a similar delivery of ''technical equipment and industrial machinery'' in March 2000 from Bratislava in Slovakia to Zimbabwe Defence Industries. If passed into law, new legislation currently before the UK Parliament would require brokers transferring arms from one overseas destination to another to obtain a government licence. However, the draft legislation indicates that extraterritorial controls on brokering will only be imposed for deals involving transfers to embargoed destinations, or transfers of equipment used in torture or long-range missiles. Brokering conventional weapons to destinations not under embargo will require a licence only where part of the deal takes place in the UK. Similarly for shipping and air cargo companies, the proposed controls ''do not apply to a person whose sole involvement is to provide transportation'' whether they are based in the UK or abroad. Transportation controls will only apply for trade to embargoed destinations and trade in long-range missiles and torture equipment.