Obama-linked protest group targets CMA CGM-Iran link

AN American-led protest group, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), linked to the Obama administration, is demanding French shipping giant CMA CGM to "cease business activities in Iran" as part of its campaign to prevent the Iran from possessing nuclear weapons.


It is the second shipping company the group has targeted by the group whose founders and leaders are White House nominees in other roles. Last fall UANI demanded that Maersk cease all business activities with Iran, reports American Shipper.


ComPair Data lists 21 direct services calling at the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas that include 21 of the 25 largest container shipping companies in the world.


The UANI group is led by Mark Wallace, former US ambassador to the United Nations, and was founded by former US ambassadors, the late Richard Holbrooke, presidential envoy to Pakistan, and Dennis Ross, former presidential special envoy to Iran.


In a letter to CMA CGM chairman Jacques Saade and Frank Baragona, president of US subsidiary CMA CGM (America), UANI notes the Marseilles-based carrier's extensive business ties with the US government, receiving US$18 million in federal contracts in the past decade.


UANI calls on the federal government to debar the French carrier from eligibility for an award of federal contracts until such time that CMA CGM ends its business in Iran, and for the US Attorney to investigate its business dealings in Iran."


While "the international community is taking steps to isolate Iran for its pursuit of an illegal nuclear weapons programme," CMA CGM "conducts extensive business in Iran and is actively courting, indeed increasing its business activities in Iran," said the UANI statement.


"More disturbing, is the danger that CMA CGM shipping vessels are being used, as they have in the past, to ship items into and from Iran in violation of sanctions passed by the United Nations, United States and the European Union," UANI said.


"These contraband items contribute not only to Iran's illegal pursuit of nuclear weapons, but to the sponsorship of terrorism in the region and to a brutal campaign of repression against the Iranian people," the statement said.
(Source:http://www.schednet.com)