 | This article's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information.(October 2012) |
AirScan, Inc. is a private military company that specializes in airborne surveillance and security. [1]
| This article's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information.(October 2012) |
AirScan, Inc. is a private military company that specializes in airborne surveillance and security. [1]
AirScan Inc. was formed in 1984 by former US Air Commandos Walter Holloway and John Mansur [2] with high standards of recruitment. [3] They have been specializing in airborne surveillance, security operations, surveillance systems, wildlife surveys and training since 1989. They are one of the few companies able to operate unmanned aerial vehicles. [4] They most recently [5] won a $10 million contract from the Coalition Provisional Authority to provide aerial surveillance of the pipelines protected by Erinys International Ltd. They are rather secretive about many of their operations, choosing to remain vague, citing privacy, and speak mostly about their infrared deer surveys and polar bear trackings. [3]
On December 13, 1998, AirScan misidentified the village of Santo Domingo as a hostile guerrilla target, leading to a cluster bomb attack by Colombian Air Force units which killed eighteen civilians, including nine children. While the AirScan aircraft was in the vicinity, and deserved the action by the Colombian Air Force they were not involved in the operation. Three employees of AirScan were flying the Skymaster plane from which they provided the Colombian military with the coordinates to drop the bombs. The operation had been planned at Occidental's complex in Caño Limón by the CAF and AirScan. [6]
AirScan is one of the named defendants in the lawsuit Galvis Mujica v. Occidental Petroleum, et al. filed April 23, 2003 in the US District Court in Los Angeles. The suit was filed by the Washington DC based International Labor Rights Fund and is based on the Alien Tort Claims Act. [7] [8] The AirScan employees, Arthur McClintock, Jose Orta, and Charlie Denny have disappeared and their location remains unknown. [9] The Coast Guard is investigating whether Orta, who was allegedly flying the plane, was a military officer on active duty at the Coast Guard at the time. AirScan has denied any responsibility for the events. [10]
US Representative Jan Schakowsky's letter to Colin Powell in November 2002 requests he decertify the Colombian Air Force's 1st Combat Command, located at Palanquero airbase, and so that the elements involved in the Santo Domingo attack may stop receiving US funding. [11] US Ambassador Anne Patterson had recommended this action as well and in the summer of 2004, Secretary of State Powell did decertify the unit. [12] He is, however, still reluctant to support finding the three pilots, as Rep. Schakowsky had also requested.
AirScan has been implicated in running Pentagon weapons to counter-insurgency operations in Uganda, as well as to rebels in the Sudan fighting the Khartoum regime. [13] AirScan was hired by the MPLA government of Angola in late 1997 to provide surveillance of the mostly Chevron owned oil installations in the Cabinda region, a region Angola had just weeks earlier led an offensive from into the Congo. The MPLA had several firms hired in the region including Defence Systems Limited and MPRI, who had been set receive the contract but pulled out at the last moment. The timing and location of hiring AirScan leads some to believe these firms are providing covert training and assistance in oil wealthy areas of Africa. [14] Brigadier General Joe Stringham, a founding member of AirScan and in charge of operations in Cabinda was responsible for many covert counter-insurgency activities in El Salvador during their dirty war in the '80s. [15]
AirScan was also implicated in air surveillance operations over Macedonia as part of a contract in support of NATO interference in the civil war in former Yugoslavia. AirScan operated a Cessna 337H Skymaster registered N729AS (c/n33701938) fitted with special equipment including a FLIR ball under the port (left) wing and a weather radar under the starboard wing. [16] At least a part of the "take" of AirScan flights was transmitted through the commercial Telstar 11 satellite TV relay, along other imagery gathered by US Army and US Navy surveillance units. That surveillance was used to monitor terrorist activities, to keep suspects in sight and for counter-trafficking operations support. The broadcasts through channels of Telstar 11 were not enciphered, as it was discovered by a British citizen, John Locker, late 2001. [17]
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country located on the west-central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) country in both total area and population, and is the seventh-largest country in Africa. It is bordered by Namibia to the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Zambia to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Angola has an exclave province, the province of Cabinda, that borders the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The capital and most populous city is Luanda.
The economy of Angola remains heavily influenced by the effects of four decades of conflict in the last part of the 20th century, the war for independence from Portugal (1961–75) and the subsequent civil war (1975–2002). Despite extensive oil and gas resources, diamonds, hydroelectric potential, and rich agricultural land, Angola remains poor, and a third of the population relies on subsistence agriculture. Since 2002, when the 27-year civil war ended, government policy prioritized the repair and improvement of infrastructure and strengthening of political and social institutions. During the first decade of the 21st century, Angola's economy was one of the fastest-growing in the world, with reported annual average GDP growth of 11.1 percent from 2001 to 2010. High international oil prices and rising oil production contributed to strong economic growth, although with high inequality, at that time.
Angola was first settled by San hunter-gatherer societies before the northern domains came under the rule of Bantu states such as Kongo and Ndongo. In the 15th century, Portuguese colonists began trading, and a settlement was established at Luanda during the 16th century. Portugal annexed territories in the region which were ruled as a colony from 1655, and Angola was incorporated as an overseas province of Portugal in 1951. After the Angolan War of Independence, which ended in 1974 with an army mutiny and leftist coup in Lisbon, Angola achieved independence in 1975 through the Alvor Agreement. After independence, Angola entered a long period of civil war that lasted until 2002.
Cabinda is an exclave and province of Angola in Africa, a status that has been disputed by several political organizations in the territory. The capital city is also called Cabinda, known locally as Tchiowa, Tsiowa or Kiowa. The province is divided into four municipalities—Belize, Buco-Zau, Cabinda and Cacongo.
Plan Colombia was a United States foreign aid, military aid, and diplomatic initiative aimed at combating Colombian drug cartels and left-wing insurgent groups in Colombia. The plan was originally conceived in 1999 by the administrations of Colombian President Andrés Pastrana and U.S. President Bill Clinton, and signed into law in the United States in 2000.
The Caño Limón – Coveñas pipeline is a crude oil pipeline in Colombia from the Caño Limón oilfield in the municipalities of Arauca and Arauquita in Arauca Department on the border of Venezuela to Coveñas on Colombia's Caribbean coastline. It is jointly owned by the state oil firm Ecopetrol, and U.S. company Occidental Petroleum. The pipeline is 780 kilometres (480 mi) long.
Occidental Petroleum Corporation is an American company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration in the United States, and the Middle East as well as petrochemical manufacturing in the United States, Canada, and Chile. It is organized in Delaware and headquartered in Houston. The company ranked 183rd on the 2021 Fortune 500 based on its 2020 revenues and 670th on the 2021 Forbes Global 2000.
The Angolan War of Independence, in Angola called the Luta Armada de Libertação Nacional, began as an uprising against forced cultivation of cotton, and became a multi-faction struggle for control of Portugal's overseas province of Angola among three nationalist movements and a separatist movement. The war ended when a leftist military coup in Lisbon in April 1974 overthrew Portugal's Estado Novo dictatorship, and the new regime immediately stopped all military action in the African colonies, declaring its intention to grant them independence without delay.
The Angolan Civil War was a civil war in Angola, beginning in 1975 and continuing, with interludes, until 2002. The war began immediately after Angola became independent from Portugal in November 1975. It was a power struggle between two former anti-colonial guerrilla movements, the communist People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the anti-communist National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).
Talisman Energy Inc. was a Canadian independent petroleum company that existed between 1993 and 2015. The company was created from the assets of BP Canada after British Petroleum divested its 57 percent stake in June 1992. It was one of Canada's largest independent oil and gas companies, and operated globally, with operations in Canada and the United States of America in North America; Colombia, South America; Algeria in North Africa; United Kingdom and Norway in Europe; Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Australia in the Far East; and Kurdistan in the Middle East. Talisman Energy has also built the offshore Beatrice Wind Farm in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland.
Right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia are paramilitary groups acting in opposition to revolutionary Marxist–Leninist guerrilla forces and their allies among the civilian population. These right-wing paramilitary groups control a large majority of the illegal drug trade of cocaine and other substances. The Colombian National Centre for Historical Memory has estimated that between 1981 and 2012 paramilitary groups have caused 38.4% of the civilian deaths, while the Guerillas are responsible for 16.8%, 10.1% by the Colombian Security Forces and 27.7% by non-identified armed groups, although the chief prosecutor of the ICC would contradict these numbers.
Ecopetrol, formerly known as Empresa Colombiana de Petróleos S.A. is the largest and primary petroleum company in Colombia. As a result of its continuous growth, Ecopetrol forms part of the Fortune Global 500 and was ranked 346. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Ecopetrol was ranked as the 313th -largest public company in the world. It was ranked 303 in 2012 by CNN Money. The company belongs to the group of 25 largest petroleum companies in the world, and it is one of the four principal petroleum companies in Latin America.
Angola in the 1950s transitioned from colonial to provincial status. Angola had the status of a Portuguese colony from 1655 until the Assembly of the Republic passed a law on June 11, 1951, giving all Portuguese colonies provincial status, effective on October 20, 1951. Separatist political organizations advocating Angolan independence formed in the 1950s despite strong resistance from the Portuguese government, leading to the Angolan War of Independence (1961–1975).
The 2000s in Angola saw the end of a 27-year-long civil war (1975–2002) and economic growth as foreign nations began to invest in Angola's untapped petroleum reserves. The government continues to resettle internally displaced persons as its economy recovers and expands.
Relations between Angola and South Africa in the post-apartheid era are quite strong as the ruling parties in both states, the African National Congress in South Africa and the MPLA in Angola, fought together during the Angolan Civil War and South African Border War. They fought against UNITA rebels, based in Angola, and the apartheid-era government in South Africa which supported them. Nelson Mandela mediated between the MPLA and UNITA during the final years of the Angolan Civil War. Although South Africa was preponderant in terms of relative capabilities during the late twentieth century, the recent growth of Angola has led to a more balanced relation.
The Cuban intervention in Angola began on 5 November 1975, when Cuba sent combat troops in support of the communist-aligned People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) against the pro-western National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA). The intervention came after the outbreak of the Angolan Civil War, which occurred after the former Portuguese colony was granted independence after the Angolan War of Independence. The civil war quickly became a proxy war between the Eastern Bloc led by the Soviet Union and the Western Bloc led by the United States. South Africa and the United States backed UNITA and the FNLA, while communist nations backed the MPLA.
During Angola's civil war, Cuban forces fought alongside the Marxist–Leninist People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) government; against the Western-backed National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) guerrillas who were aided by the South-African army. The present day outcome of the war resulted in the MPLA changing from a Marxist–Leninist party to a multi-party democratic system based on neoliberal principles. From an economic standpoint, Cuba has lost its preferred status among Angolans and South Africa has become the biggest single investor and trading partner with Angola.
In the 1990s in Angola, the last decade of the Angolan Civil War (1975–2002), the Angolan government transitioned from a nominally communist state to a nominally democratic one, a move made possible by political changes abroad and military victories at home. Namibia's declaration of independence, internationally recognized on April 1, eliminated the southwestern front of combat as South African forces withdrew to the east. The MPLA abolished the one-party system in June and rejected Marxist-Leninism at the MPLA's third Congress in December, formally changing the party's name from the MPLA-PT to the MPLA. The National Assembly passed law 12/91 in May 1991, coinciding with the withdrawal of the last Cuban troops, defining Angola as a "democratic state based on the rule of law" with a multi-party system.
Florentino Panlilio Feliciano (1928–2015) was the 115th Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. Before serving as a judge of the Philippines' highest court from 1986 to 1995, he had a long and distinguished career as a corporate lawyer and legal scholar. Known for his expertise in commercial law and international law, he retired from the Supreme Court to serve as member, and later, chairperson, of the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization.
The Cabinda War is an ongoing separatist insurgency, waged by the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) against the government of Angola. FLEC aims at the restoration of the self-proclaimed Republic of Cabinda, located within the borders of the Cabinda province of Angola.