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umbrellas in this country. If you wanted ten tons of explosives tomorrow, all you'd have to do is put up the cash." Among the dealers is a former President of the country. One reason for the giant market is that Lebanon has about 40 different armed militias.
They occasionally purchase their weapons directly from the 30,000 Syrian soldiers stationed in the country, who can always get more from the Soviets. British Writer Anthony Sampson describes one recycling process in his book The Arms Bazaar:
"Ghana had a stock of Kalashnikovs bought from Nigeria, which had previously been bought by the Biafran army from Israel, which had captured them from the Egyptians and Syrians in the 1967 war. Ghana was now glad to sell them off profitably to the Lebanese Christians, and thus they returned to the Middle East."
The 14,000-man force of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Lebanon is amply supplied with AK-47s, as well as American M-16s and even some famed Israeli UZI submachine guns that were acquired from Arab dealers on the West Bank.
Also in the P.L.O. arsenal are 60 Soviet T-34 tanks. Sympathetic Arab countries such as Algeria, Syria and Libya generally do the buying for the Palestinians with financing provided by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Estimates are that the P.L.O. received $100 million worth of arms last year alone.
Saudi Arabia has replaced Iran as the largest importer in the region. Like the late Shah, who allegedly slept with copies of Aviation Week & Space Technology next to his bed, the Saudis feel that for their cash on the barrel they are entitled to the very best. While public attention has been focused on the congressional debate over the proposed sale of five AW ACS surveillance planes to the Saudis, it has gone all but unnoticed that the $8.5 billion package also includes 1,177 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and equipment to enhance the range of the 60 F-15 fighters they have on order. Riyadh last year also purchased from the U.S. two fighter jets, 15 training planes, 18 howitzers, 118 battle tanks, 140,000 tons of ammunition and 1,000 antitank missiles. Total 1980 sales agreements with the U.S.: $4.5 billion. France also clinched a grand deal: a $3.1 billion naval package that included four missile-firing frigates.
Unlike the oil powers of the Middle East, most African nations can ill afford to spruce up their arsenals.
But the persistence of regional conflicts has made the continent a fertile market for arms sales. The superpower struggle on the strategic Horn of Africa has led the U.S. to propose arms supplies, in return for the right to use naval and air facilities, to Kenya and Somalia despite the fact that the two countries are bitter enemies and that until the end of 1977 So malia was a Soviet client. Kenya has a defense agreement with Somalia's neighbor and enemy Ethiopia, a onetime ally of the U.S., whose army is now being equipped by the Soviets and trained by Cubans and East Germans. The complex tensions of the area could easily escalate into a superpower showdown should Somalia, one of the continent's poorest countries, with a per capita income of $130, be tempted by its arms connection with the U.S. to increase its support for the rebels in Ethiopia's Ogaden region.
Nigeria is a country that could use more modern weapons and can also afford to