AFRICANS ACCUSING ARMENIAN PILOTS OF AN ATTEMPT OF COUP D'ETAT

PanARMENIAN.Net - The pilots appeared in Equatorial Guinea in January 2004. They worked there by a contract concluded between the German ''KAL'' company and the ''Dvin Concern'' Armenian firm. This country has a lack of high quality specialists as the Europeans refuse to work in Guinea taking into account the specifics of its regime. The Armenian pilots were exploiting in Guinea the air plane AN-12 registered in Yerevan and were accomplishing commercial flights between the capital city of the country and the airports of neighboring countries. In the evening, March 7th the pilots were arrested. Other 9 people, among them - citizens of Kazakhstan with Russian origins, were arrested together with them. Evidently, the Armenian airplane was transporting people connected with the opposition. We shall note that not so long ago 67 people exposed as organizers of the failed attempt of coop d'etat in Guinea instructed by the Western special services were arrested in the neighboring Zimbabwe.

The ties of Armenian pilots with those people are not confirmed by real facts. There are too many contradictions in the accusations brought against the pilots. First of all they have never carried out any other activity but the professional one.

Equatorial Guinea is in the Central part of the Eastern coast of Africa. Its space is smaller than that of Armenia. Population is 450 thousand. Most of them are practicing Catholicism. The Guinean regime is one of the most totalitarian regimes in the world. For 23 years the state is being governed by the dictator Nguyema who took his post in 1981 after a coup d'etat. Last year he won the presidential elections getting the 99% of the votes. The local press calls him The God.

One can presume how the courts work in that country. Our compatriots may be sentenced to death without investigation. The Foreign Ministry of Armenia tries to provide them with the necessary legal aid. But the problem is that there is not diplomatic representation of Armenia in the Central Africa. So, they were obliged to involve the diplomatic channels of the friendly countries - France and Russia. An employee of the French Embassy in Equatorial Guinea has already visited the arrested Armenians. The Foreign Ministry of Armenia ahs applied to the International Committee of the Red Cross and to the ''Amnesty International'' organization.

We shall note that this is not the first time when our pilots found themselves in trouble. On 17 November 2003 an Armenian airplane broke in Sudan. In 2001 the Tu-134 rented from an Armenian air company, crashed. All the passengers, including Ministers and Parliament members of Iran, died together with the crew. The problem is that the professional pilots do not find work in the Motherland where the Armavia Company that has become the national air transporter, prefers to hire foreigners.