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LORD OF WAR / 2005
Director: Andrew Niccol
Script: Andrew Niccol
Cast: Nicolas Cage – Yuri Orlov / Bridget Moynahan – Ava Fontaine / Jared Leto – Vitaly Orlov / Ian Holm – Simeon Weisz / Ethan Hawke – Jack Valentine / Eamonn Walker – Andre Baptiste Sr. / Shake Tukhmanyan – Irina Orlov / Jean-Pierre Nshanian – Anatoly Orlov

In the opening scene the main protagonist Yuri Orlov faces the audience and says: There are more then five hundred-fifty million guns in the world which means every twelfth person on the world is owning a weapon. The question he raises is: How to arm the remaining eleven. The introduction documents the path of a bullet from production in a factory then trading it by ship to an overseas-harbour, the loading of it in a weapon, the firing and the flight of the bullet into the head of an African boy …
The movie ends like it started, with Yuri Orlov standing there, summarizing: You know who will take over the globe? Arm dealers, because everybody else is too busy to shoot each other. This is the secret of survival. Never go to war, especially not with yourself.
Then the camera’s view swings to the ground which is covered with empty cartridges, and the picture gets dark.

Well, I have seen it, of course. Director and script-author Andrew Niccol researched the scene for years. He fitted his main-character with bits and pieces from real arm dealers, from that German Karlheinz Schreiber who sought refuge in Canada for example, but especially from Wiktor Anatoljewitsch But aka Viktor Bout.

Bingo! He knows Viktor! I have to warn Mr. Moon …

I had that Russian on police-radar when he had moved his basis for a couple of years to Sandhurst, Johannesburg, in neighbouring South Africa. He became a target for investigation when Mugabe’s army got engaged in the Congo-war …
Bout’s fleet of cargo-planes in South Africa was at one time the biggest there; quite often his aircrafts were the only ones which could fly, on behalf of Pretoria, heavy equipment to remote and difficult terrain. When authorities began to look more closely in his activities, he registered the companies in neighbouring Swaziland and in some other African countries …
According to some of his several passports Wiktor Anatoljewitsch But aka „Viktor Bout“ was born in 1967 in Dushanbe / Tadjikistan. But he also claimed Turkmenistan as his country of birth. After school he became a soldier and was sent to the Military Institute of Moscow. He matured in economy and he is versant in six languages. Until 1999 he was serving in the Russian air force, two years in Mozambique before the civil war there ended.
He started his first business when he was twenty-five: he bought three Antonov-planes for 120.000 dollar and established a transport-company in Moscow. In those days, the new rich of Moscow flew in crowds to Dubai to buy duty-free from pencils to electrical appliances, from IKEA-furniture to cars. Bout recognized the demand and the lack in air-transport and he flew for them everything home.
The breakthrough came when he loaded heaps of gladioluses on his planes in South Africa to fly them to Dubai; he bought one flower for two dollars and sold it for one hundred. Per flight he brought twenty tonnes to the country. That was better than printing money. A similar success was his business with frozen chicken which he airlifted to Nigeria. Gladioluses and frozen chicken — these were Bout’s first African business experiences.
In 1955 he moved his company to Ostende, Belgium. He supplied the Belgium UN-troops in Somalia. When this UN-mission ended he went into business with the Americans. On their behalf he transported weapons for the government of Burhanuddin Rabbani to Afghanistan, until Rabbani was driven away by the Taliban. Bout would always deny that he simply changed business partners to supply the Taliban and Al Quaida with weapons. When Belgium authorities closed in to investigate his connections to traders of drugs and diamonds, he moved basis to Odessa in the Ukraine. The advantage there was to make fast and efficient contacts to suppliers of everything what was needed by despots and militia-leaders in Africa and in the Middle East, definitely not anymore gladioluses or frozen chicken. Between 1992 and 1998 military equipment of some thirty-two billion dollars disappeared from the army-depots of the Ukraine.
Finally, Bout found a Syrian partner and together with him a permanent basis at Scharjiah, a provisional airfield in the United Arab Emirates. This place is located strategically at the cross point of Bout’s territorial interests: Europe, Middle East, Africa. The airport there is known for its lax controls. In 1996, Bout was owner of the Emirate’s biggest air-transport-business with one thousand employers.
His major clients were in the 1990s Charles Taylor in Liberia and Jonas Savimbi of the UNITA in Angola. Weapons delivered to Charles Taylor ended up with child soldiers in Sierra Leone … Further on the list of African clients: Paul Kagame (Rwanda), Eduardo dos Santos (Angola), Mobuto Sese Seko (Zaire), Pierre Bemba (Democratic Republic of Congo). During the second Congo-War which did cost the lives of four million people between 1998 and 2003, Bout practically provided for all involved parties: next to Mugabe whose soldiers he flew from Zimbabwe to the Congo he took also care of Uganda and Rwanda.
When President Clinton’s administration failed to put a halt on his business, the Bush-administration entered into some sort of deal: „Take our people to fight in Afghanistan and we don‘t bother“. Viktor Bout’s pilots knew from previous assignments each landing strip. Planes of the Boeing- or Airbus-make would have nose-dived but Bout’s Iljushin-planes had no problem with such rough terrain.
Bout’s service was not only needed in Afghanistan but also in Iraq. His fleet of fifty transporters absolved some one thousand flights until end of 2004, against cash from the U.S.-treasury of course. Around the same time, in July 2004, the Bush-government announced to confiscate all accounts of Bout in the U.S.A.. Experts of the scene took this as a bad joke.
Bout’s business-success lies in his ability to supply everything imaginable, from the helicopter to the machine gun right to your front door, no wish remains unfulfilled; it works like the shipment after mailing orders. And, where other dealers needed months, the former officer realized everything within two weeks — thanks to his brilliant ex-KGB-contacts. He is, so to speak, the ‚all inclusive man‘. And he takes not only cash but also diamonds which are then traded through his network
Conflicts in Angola, Sierra Leone and Liberia are in the meantime history but, fortunately for Bout, other conflicts bloom, for example the looting in Congo’s East. There, the Tutsi-General Laurent Nkunda is busy to secure the flow of minerals on behalf of Rwanda.
This country has got on his territory not a single ounce of Coltan, worldwide looked after for the production of cell phones, but it has climbed to the position of the world’s biggest Coltan-exporter. The UN or Congolese government-troops have no say there and the civil population suffers.Viktor Bout ‚helps‘ with transport of minerals and of weapons … and — as a UN-report exposed it in 2002 — German companies participate in the business.

So: the „Merchant of Death“ does not produce weapons, he does not use them, he only transports them! … His brother Sergej said in an interview with Radio Moscow:

²¹ „He is a simple businessman, he is only transporting cargo, and — in this sense — he can‘t be distinguished from a simple taxi-driver.“

And now, please tell us: What has all this to do with your hobby as a wrist watch-collector?

Well, when Belgium authorities started to investigate he needed an idea how to continue with his covered transactions, he needed something else then drugs and diamonds, result of his brain-wave: vintage watches!
I had built for my hobby a well established repair-service for vintage watches: three retired Swiss experts, who could work for me from home. My offer is for collectors everywhere in the world a rescue-service. No one else can bring their beauties back to original life as we do.
Spare parts are not available anymore; they can be duplicated only by specialists under a magnifier, and it is therefore easy to mail them, in simple letters. No office, no book-keeping, everything needed is in my head and in the well-trained brains and fingers of my Swiss trio — and, of course, on the Web which I can access at my Portuguese Café, together with may excellent daily espresso.
One day, someone joined me at my table, a messenger sent by Viktor Bout.
When I met him in person for the first time, my police-radar remained switched off — some time had passed since I had had him on the screen. When I was invited to join someone for deep-sea-fishing aboard a yacht off Namibia’s coast, it was not clear to me that I was about to meet the Merchant of Death. You see, he does not look like Nicolas Cage. The man who engaged me as his watch-doctor is one eighty tall, rather compact, whiskers and hair well-trimmed, can converse in half a dozen lingos …
He would be of the habit to collect vintage watches as sort of mobile investment, he said whilst sipping on a carrot-juice — Bout is vegetarian …
The invitation to the yacht had been arranged by a Swiss banker, watch-collector himself and a client as well … one knows each other …

We see, your police-radar seems to be switched on again …²¹ … by whom so ever, perhaps as source „CS 1“, as „Confidential Source One“ — as this long standing acquaintance of Bout who is going to betray him …?

²¹ It’s Bout Time ...

Perhaps, this radar won’t only register, but will steer in the first place, for example your messengers to drop at a rolling post-box some of those vintage-watches as they may have been expropriated by Mugabe’s secret service in order to settle a debt …?
We thank you for participating in the game! Please, find out whether there is an espresso on offer somewhere on this train …
The guests of our proposed summit may have to add some details to this topic, the international trade of weapons.
Sir Hiram, excuse the interruption. Please, shake hands with Michail Tifomojewitsch Kalashnikov!
You were never able to meet him; he was born three years after your earthly existence had come to an end … but, our history-tunnels do wonders!
Michail Tifomojewitsch, welcome the third one in your league:
Mr. Benjamin Tyler Henry, not only contemporary of Sir Hiram, but one who made his entry as a gun-smith into world-literature as well …
We only say: Silver-Gun, Bear-Killer, Henry-Rifle, or as it is better known to fans in original German lingo: Silberbüchse, Bärentöter, Henrystutzen!