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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Chile
Index
Despite the spectacular expansion of the public sector
of the
Chilean defense industry since the mid-1970s, the
privately owned
Cardoen Industries (Industrias Cardoen), owned by Carlos
Cardoen
Cornejo, was the most successful Chilean defense
manufacturer in
the export field. In less than eight years, this firm
developed
from a modest operation manufacturing demolition charges
for the
mining industry into a diversified industrial empire. In
the early
1990s, it employed more than 800 persons in six separate
factory
complexes producing a variety of defense equipment,
together with
nondefense-related products, and had subsidiaries in
Ecuador,
Italy, Spain, and Greece. Under a 1989 agreement with the
Guatemalan government, Cardoen Industries agreed to
establish a
plant for the manufacture of explosives, grenades, and
mines in
Guatemala.
In 1979 Cardoen Industries took over the project of
rebuilding
the Chilean Army's World War II-vintage M-3A1 half-track
APCs,
which Famae had commenced five years earlier but had been
forced to
drop for lack of funds. This venture resulted in the
development of
an entirely new vehicle, the BMS-1 Alacran, a number of
which were
acquired by the Chilean Army.
Building on the experience gained in the Alacran
project, the
Cardoen company commenced the assembly, under license, of
the Swiss
Mowag Piranha 6x6 APC in the early 1980s. In 1993 there
were 180 of
these in service with the Chilean Army as the
Cardoen/Mowag
Piranha. Several variants of this vehicle, including a
mortar
carrier and a fire-support version, with the
turret-mounted 90mm
Cockerill gun, were also developed.
Simultaneously with the Piranha project, Cardoen
Industries
also developed the VTP-1 Orca 6x6 APC/armored load
carrier, the
world's largest vehicle of its kind, capable of carrying
sixteen
men with their equipment. The Chilean Army eventually
ordered 100
Orcas. Limited numbers of another tracked infantry
vehicle, the
VTP-2 4x4 Escarabajo light APC, were in service with the
FACh for
airfield defense. With Chinese collaboration, the company
also
produced a 6x6 all-terrain truck for both civilian and
military
purposes and a light two-seater hovercraft.
In keeping with its origins as a manufacturer of
explosives,
Cardoen produces three types of demolition charges and a
series of
detonators and Bangalore torpedoes, in addition to three
types of
hand grenades, two types of antipersonnel mines, and an
antitank
mine. The company also produces 70mm ballistic rockets,
300-
kilogram fragmentation bombs, and three types of
general-purpose
aircraft bombs. Experiments with fuel-air bombs were
reported to
have been carried out at the corporation's testing area in
the
Atacama Desert.
The most successful of all Cardoen products, however,
and one
used extensively by Iraq against coalition forces in the
Persian
Gulf War of January-February 1991, is the patented Cardoen
cluster
bomb, a 227-kilogram bomb whose 240 "bomblets" create a
lethal zone
of up to 50,000 square meters. The company reportedly sold
more
than US$200 million worth of cluster bombs to Iraq between
1984 and
1988 and was described in early 1991 as the world's
leading
producer of this type of bomb.
Cardoen Industries has also developed a low-cost combat
helicopter, based on the Bell 206. A demilitarized version
of this
gained a United States Federal Aviation Administration
license in
1990. Nevertheless, in 1992 the prototype remained
impounded in the
United States on the grounds of the company's known
involvement
with Iraq, and Cardoen's contract to service Bell
helicopters was
revoked.
In early 1992, Cardoen Industries and its various
subsidiaries
were finding the previously close association with Iraq,
particularly the illegal export of zirconium for use in
armorpiercing cluster bombs, highly embarrassing in the wake of
the 1991
Persian Gulf War. Consequently, the company was
assiduously
emphasizing its nonmilitary activities at the expense of
the
defense sector, on which the prosperity of Cardoen
Industries had
been built. Following a two-year investigation of Carlos
Cardoen,
United States officials brought civil charges against him
and moved
to confiscate Cardoen-owned properties in Florida valued
at more
than US$30 million. These problems prompted Cardoen
Industries to
change its name to Metalnor.
Data as of March 1994
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