Czech anti-stealth radar may be operating in Yugoslavia

PRAGUE, April 1 - The Czech defence ministry said  on Thursday that it was trying to trace dozens of surplus  Czech-made ``Tamara'' anti-aircraft radar systems after a report  in Germany claimed some may have fallen into Yugoslav hands.  

The Tamara, a web of electronic cylinders usually carried in  heavy trucks, can allegedly detect the U.S. radar-evading  ``stealth'' fighters which have been used in the NATO air  campaign against Yugoslavia.   

One U.S. F-117 stealth fighter crashed during a raid last  weekend but the pilot was rescued, and it is still not clear  whether the aircraft was shot down or crashed in an accident.  

The Czech Republic, part of the former Soviet bloc but a  NATO member since last month, has been under close Western  scrutiny over arms deals, especially the Tamara system, in the  years leading up to joining the alliance.  

Germany's ZDF television on Wednesday quoted a British  security analyst who cited U.S. intelligence sources as saying  that a Tamara system which the former Czechoslovakia sold to  Russia prior to 1990 had been passed on to Yugoslavia.  

Czech defence ministry spokesman Milan Repka told Reuters on  Thursday that tens of Tamaras and the predecessor ``Ramona'' had  been discarded as part of a conventional forces reduction  agreement after the end of the Cold War earlier this decade.  

``The ministry is checking on whether any of the discarded  (Tamaras and Ramonas) made their way to Yugoslavia,'' he said.  

Repka said the ministry was tracing documents on the surplus  systems but could not verify if other countries may have  re-exported them.  

Tamara's maker, the privatised but struggling HTT Tesla a.s.  located in the eastern Czech town of Pardubice, has been accused  on several occasions of trying to sell the Tamara to countries  considered antagonistic to NATO.  

But Czech government officials insist that their  post-Communist arms export controls have prevented potential  enemy armies from obtaining illicit arms and the Tamara.  

A spokesman for the Czech intelligence service BIS told  Czech Radio on Thursday that it was unaware of a Tamara being  sent to any crisis area or hotspot in the world.

(Source: Reuters, April, 1999)

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