THE EVIDENCE AGAINST IVAN & THOM CALANDRA #2 (pg 2 of 2)
Hired Mercenaries used to kill locals and rape diamond mines?
abc.net.au
cont'd
In their discussions at the Cairns hotel, Buckingham and Spicer would no doubt have told the Papua New Guinea officials of the success of Executive Outcomes in Angola and Sierra Leone, in securing and protecting mines. In a controversial due diligence report prepared for Carson Gold (now Diamondworks), there is an interesting reference to the closeness between mining and mercenaries. The report - prepared at the same time as Spicer and Buckingham were in Cairns - states "Both Sierra Leone and Angola have been under the duress of civil war, but peace has been achieved largely through military assistance provided by Executive Outcomes, Branch Energy's parent company, to the government of these countries."
This statement is controversial because it says what's always been denied: that Executive Outcomes, the mercenary company, owns Branch Energy, the miner.
Background Briefing has learnt that this version of the due diligence report is now missing from the public files of the Vancouver Stock Exchange.
And don't forget, Diamondworks now owns Branch Energy.
In my many attempts to speak to Robert Friedland, I did talk to Bob Williamson, one of his media officers in Vancouver. Bob Williamson was concerned about my obsession with Diamondworks. Didn't I know, he said, that Robert Friedland has only a small share holding in Diamondworks, and that it's Eric Friedland, Robert's brother, who is the President of the company, not Robert.
I told Williamson that on the Internet there is an Ivanhoe site, which gives lots of information about Robert Friedland's Ivanhoe Capital Corporation. Diamondworks was listed there as one of the companies that have benefited through association with Robert Friedland. Bob Williamson hadn't heard of the website. Two days after our conversation, that website disappeared from cyberspace.
Adrian Duplessis.
Adrian Duplessis: I don't think anyone that is close to Robert Friedland, whether they be those who as I do, investigate for clients or essentially in the public interest, to inform investors or those who are Friedland supporters, the brokers, the traders, who get into deals like Diamondworks, are doing it because Robert Friedland controls their destiny. There is no illusion that it's not a Friedland company. While they may like to point technically to things that would say 'You can't say that he does this, or he does that' much in the same way that you find ironically the same game is played by the mercenary outfit, Executive Outcomes, they're always keen to say 'You can't show there's a corporate relationship between ourselves and say, this company A or company B'. But it's all a bit of a silly game, or a word game, because essentially you have the same people involved on both sides, and who is the directing minder, the controlling party? When concerns are raised about Diamondworks, when someone goes to the press to complain, or as in the case with Friedland, Robert Friedland being concerned about what he felt was unfair coverage in our national newspaper, the Globe and Mail it's Robert Friedland who demands an audience, it's not Eric Friedland. |
