reply to post by EyeTruthTv
Another example of Why NATO bombed Libya
Most of us knew that the Iraq War was fought over Oil, but most believe the Mainstream Medias propaganda that the Libyan intervention was on behalf of
the Libyan people. Truth is the Libyan people were happy under Gadaffi, and the so called rebels were little more than foreign recruited Mercenary's
hired by MI6/CIA fighting for the West access to Libyan Oil, articles like this are absolute proof of such dirty tricks played out on the World stage
Article from The Guardian Newspaper 14/11/11
Heritage Oil chief recruits former Tory candidate for access to Libya’s reserve.
Ex-special forces soldiers aim to gain energy deals
Tony Buckingham buying into Saharan oil operators
David Leigh and Derek Brower
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 13 November 2011 19.48 GMT
Tony Buckingham, the British former soldier of fortune who heads Heritage Oil, the exploration firm, appears to have sought assistance from a would-be
Conservative MP to get a foothold in Libya, following the role of UK forces there in installing the new regime.
According to leaked correspondence, Buckingham – with another ex-special forces soldier, former SAS commander Major General John Holmes – is
working with a would-be Tory MP, property developer Christian Sweeting.
Buckingham is also buying into local Libyan oil operators, paying $19m last month for a share of a little-known Benghazi-based oil trader called
Sahara Oil Services Holdings.
Sweeting wrote to William Hague this year on Heritage’s behalf. His letter gives an insight into the world of political influence, in which Sweeting
sought, apparently unsuccessfully, to get a meeting for Buckingham with the foreign secretary.
Buckingham himself had made sizeable personal donations to the 2010 Tory election campaign – £50,000 to Central Office and £5,000 to the key
marginal of Carmarthen West. The local party chairman there was the lobbyist Stephen Crouch.
Crouch’s own lobbying activities have generated recent controversy. He was revealed to have donated to an aide to the former defence secretary Liam
Fox, and subsequently gained a meeting with arms sales minister Gerald Howarth.
Sweeting, who narrowly failed to win a 2010 general election seat in Torquay, wrote his letter to the foreign secretary on 10 May, marking it
confidential and reminding him that the two men had met recently at the Carlton Club, a Conservative party watering-hole.
He said Heritage Oil was “untainted” by any association with the Gaddafi regime and “the UK should capitalise on this”. He wrote: “The
executive directors of Heritage would welcome an opportunity to meet you or your officials to discuss their proposals, to demonstrate that they are
being provided in the national interest.”
Sweeting, whose Bentley is said to be a familiar sight in Conservative circles, asked a favour: that UK visas be granted to the group of Libyan
insurgents with whom he had been negotiating. “I would be most grateful if in these special and to some extent unique circumstances your office
could ask the UK Border Agency to expedite the issue of a single visit visa to the Libyans nominated below … This visit would be hosted by
Heritage.”
Sweeting signed his letter “With warmest regards… Christian Sweeting KCSG MRICS”. These initials denote his membership of the royal institution
of chartered surveyors, and his papal knighthood in the order of St Gregory.
There is no evidence the four Libyans concerned received any special official treatment as a result. Foreign office sources say they were processed in
the normal way.
Sweeting has set up a company, International Mineral Resources, with Patrick Newman. Newman, who has links with the British-Uzbek Society, also makes
commercial introductions, according to Craig Murray, former ambassador to Uzbekistan .
Sweeting went to Benghazi to promote Heritage, with Gen Holmes. Like Buckingham, Holmes moved from the army to the world of private military
companies. He joined Erinys, which had security contracts in Iraq, and recently set up his own firm, Titon. Holmes succeeded in “bumping into
members of the UK military mission who he knew”, on the trip, according to Sweeting’s letter.
Sweeting told the Guardian: “I wrote to the foreign secretary at an early point in the Libyan rebellion not to lobby him but to inform him and
ensure that our efforts were known to HMG.
“The request for visas was for members of the national transitional council and/or their key advisers – at a time prior to recognition when the
only visa office available to those persons was located in Tripoli and consequently unavailable to ‘rebels’ in Benghazi.”
The Jersey-registered Heritage Oil company declined to comment on the Sweeting letter.
At the age of 59, Buckingham himself was ex SpecialBoatService