By James Astill
ObserverFebruary 11, 2001
The head of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Rwanda has been arrested at Nairobi international airport allegedly trying to smuggle elephant tusks and animal skins out of Kenya.
The arrest fuels a growing belief that UN officials, diplomats and humanitarian aid workers are now among the biggest buyers of African ivory.
The UN official was named by the local press as Lt-Col Masud Mohamed. He was in transit, waiting to board a flight to Dubai - one of the busiest staging posts for endangered African animal parts - when stopped by police.
Kenya Airports Commandant Christopher Isoe said that when confronted with the police's suspicions, Mohamed, a Pakistani national, attempted to claim diplomatic immunity. But, unimpressed, airport police opened his suitcases and are alleged to have found four tusks, a dozen pieces of worked ivory and a leopard skin.
'The man is not a visitor to Kenya and there is nothing like diplomatic immunity for him,' Isoe said. Mohamed was taken straight to Nairobi Magistrates Court, but refused to enter a plea. He will reappear in court tomorrow.
Mohamed's case could have been lifted straight from last year's report by the UK-based organisation, Save the Elephants (STE).
'We spent six months following the ivory trade all over Africa, and it became clear that UN workers and diplomats - mainly from North Korea - have become one of the biggest markets for ivory,' said Dr Esmond Martin, one of the report's co-authors.
Other prominent buyers include French military personnel and Spanish, Italian and French tourists, according to the report. Entitled The Ivory Markets of Africa, it is described as the first comprehensive look into the African ivory market for 11 years.
Following the trade for six months through 13 African countries, the authors found some 110,000 ivory items displayed in more than 650 out lets. They concluded that more than 10 tonnes of raw ivory is being sent to key Asian markets each year from countries including Cameroon, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo, much of it through diplomatic channels.
The study also found that since a 1990 ivory trade freeze, prices have fallen and there has been a marked drop in demand in virtually all African cities. Many ivory vendors see little future in the trade, it claims. Accord ing to Martin, retail sales have fallen by at least 50 per cent across the continent, and as much as 95 per cent in some areas.
Save the Elephants founder Dr Ian Douglas Hamilton says this drop in prices shows the ivory trade ban has been largely successful. For 10 years elephants in Kenya and other East and Central African countries have enjoyed a much lower rate of poaching.
Despite a one-off sale of Zimbabwean ivory to Japan last year, the UN has maintained its ban on ivory trading. However, it is coming under increasing pressure to lift the ban from southern African countries including South Africa and Zimbabwe; both claim the trade can be managed sustainably.
Kenya, which has been flooded with guns from conflicts along its borders over the past 10 years, wants the ban maintained.
Douglas-Hamilton said: 'If the incentive to poach is restored by expansion of the ivory trade there would likely be another elephant holocaust worse than that of the Seventies and Eighties.'
