Africa

Bostwana

Mmegi.bw 2 Feb 2004 Vol.22 No.17 Editorial The world needs massacre safeguards Editor 2/2/2005 5:08:37 PM (GMT +2) The 176-page report of a United Nations commission investigating violence in the Darfur region of Sudan confirms what human rights activists and other concerned parties have been saying all along. The five member panel says in the report issued on Monday that though it cannot classify what occurred as genocide, it “should not be taken in any way as detracting from the gravity of the crimes perpetrated in that region,” and that “international offences such as crimes against humanity and war crimes that have been committed in Darfur may be no less serious and heinous than genocide”. The commission was appointed by UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan in October to determine whether genocide had occurred in Darfur, in western Sudan, where about 70,000 people have been killed and another 1.2 million driven from their land. It was also asked to determine how perpetrators should be punished, and it answered by saying it “strongly” recommended that the UN Security Council refer the Darfur crimes to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. It said that the kinds of mass crimes being committed in Darfur met the jurisdictional terms of the 1998 treaty creating the ICC. At this moment, it is of less importance to quibble over semantics. Whether, in the view of the commission, this constituted genocide or not is immaterial. The fact is a heinous crime has been committed against humanity, and that people, many of them children, have sustained scars that will last a lifetime. Their lives will never be the same again. The Darfur crisis is yet another scar of shame in humanity’s history, when we failed to save defenceless and innocent souls from the savagery that visits us time and again. It is not enough to make a declaration that “never again will there be another Darfur” because such pronouncements are often hollow. Ten years back, the world was promised that there would not be another Rwanda. As it turned out, the Darfur massacre called the bluff. What the world needs is a rapid response mechanism to deal with crises of this nature within the shortest time. Only then would citizens of the world go to bed every night in the comfort that - indeed - “it will never happen again”. .

Burundi

IRIN 3 Feb 2005 Rebel group says yes to negotiations but rejects Zuma as mediator [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] © SA Government BUJUMBURA, 3 Feb 2005 (IRIN) - Burundi's remaining active rebel group, the Forces nationales de liberation (FNL), said on Thursday it was ready for talks with the transitional government, on condition that South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma does not act as mediator. FNL spokesman Pasteur Habimana said Zuma, who is also the facilitator of Burundi's peace process under an initiative of the Great Lakes regional heads of state, had in the past rejected FNL's proposal to hold talks with the Burundian government. "Proposing to mediate between the government and the movement now seems, therefore, untimely," Habimana said. Instead, he said, the FNL preferred that the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General to Burundi and head of the UN mission there, Carolyn McAskie, who made contact with the FNL in 2004, mediated in the proposed talks. "We did not choose her, she came to us on her own accord and we would like her to continue," Habimana said. At a news conference on Thursday in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura, McAskie did not rule out the possibility of the UN mediating between the FNL and the transitional government. She said the region had established a facilitator to oversee the peace process in Burundi but if the UN could bring its contribution to the process, "we are ready to play a role". The UN was in Burundi, she said, "to speed up the peace process". Regional heads of state had declared the FNL, led by Agathon Rwasa, a terrorist movement after it claimed responsibility for the killing of 160 Congolese refugees at a camp in Gatumba on 13 August 2004. On Wednesday, Jéremie Ngendakumana, the military spokesman of the Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie–Forces de defense de la democratie (CNDD–FDD) - formerly the largest rebel movement now turned political party - said on national television that negotiations with the FNL could not take place unless regional heads of state changed their position and stopped taking it as a terrorist movement. Nevertheless, McAskie said the door remained open for the FNL, if it showed a strong will in favour of negotiations. Habimana said only Burundian people could judge the movement's acts. Until late January, Rwasa's FNL had refused to negotiate with the Burundian government saying it would only do so with Tutsi leaders in government. However, the FNL maintains that a "social contract" between the country's three ethnic groups - the Hutu, Tutsi and the Twa - must first be established to end the various injustices committed in the country since independence from Belgium in 1962.

Cote d'Ivoire

AFP 28 Jan 2005 UN report cites Ivory Coast leaders for atrocities PARIS, Jan 28 (AFP) - Leaders of both sides in divided Ivory Coast, among them President Laurent Gbagbo's influential wife Simone and rebel chief Guillaume Soro, are among 95 people suspected of serious human rights violations by the United Nations, French radio said Friday. Radio France Internationale (RFI) said the names of the 95 appeared as a secret appendix to a highly critical UN report on Ivory Coast revealed last month, adding that the compilers had recommended that they be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Soro is accused of carrying out summary executions, while Simone Gbagbo is said to have sponsored death squads headed by, among other people, the president's defence and security adviser Kadet Bertin, RFI said. Also reportedly on the list is Charles Ble Goude, leader of pro-Gbagbo militia known as Young Patriots, allegedly responsible for kidnappings, incitement to violence and racial hatred and disturbing public order. RFI said the list was drawn up by five investigators of the world body's human rights commission who spent two months in the West African country, and had recommended that the UN Security Council take up the matter with the ICC. The main 100-page UN report leaked last month outlined horrific examples of death squads, mass executions, torture and rape in Ivory Coast during the past two years and blamed both sides for the atrocities. It covered the period from a failed coup against Gbagbo in September 2002 up to October this year, shortly before the country was again rocked by violence, sparked by Ivorian air force bombing raids on rebel-held cities in the north. A still unspecified number of Ivorian civilians are reported to have been killed in the raids, along with nine French peacekeepers and a US aid worker, whose deaths in the last attack brought swift retaliation from France, which wiped out the tiny Ivory Coast air force. That in turn sparked hate attacks targeting mainly the French expatriate community in the former French west African colony, the world's leading cocoa producer, forcing some 8,000 to flee the country. In October 2002, after forces loyal to Gbagbo failed to recapture the rebel stronghold of Bouake from the rebels, 131 unarmed civilians, including children, were "coldly executed" by rebels who also led a deadly manhunt for anyone associated with the authorities, according to the report. In December that year, Ivorian forces killed 120 immigrant workers in cocoa and coffee plantations at Monoko-Zohi, while Liberian mercenaries working for the regime massacred 200 people in Bangolo. The report also cited cases of torture including a woman forced to drink blood and urine and a man who was forced to have sex with his mother. She was then killed, and he was ordered to drink her blood. Women of all ages, including children, were "used to assuage the bestial appetites of the combatants, some of whom were under the influence of drugs," it said. Ble Goude Friday denied suggestions by the Ivorian Human Rights Movement that Young Patriots had coordinated the anti-French demonstrations of last November, including arming protestors with machetes and clubs. The rights group's report Thursday conflicted with Gbagbo's claim that French peacekeeping forces had fired on and killed unarmed Ivorians. Ble Goude told AFP he had engaged British lawyers to take legal action against France "in the name of the victims."

Reuters 31 Jan 2005 Ivory Coast war crimes list to stay secret, says UN By Tom Ashby and Dino Mahtani ABUJA (Reuters) - The United Nations has drawn up a list of suspected war criminals in the Ivory Coast, but the world body will not publish it to avoid compromising expected court action, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Sunday. French radio RFI has reported that the 95-person list contained in a secret annex to a U.N. report on rights abuses, includes senior officials close to President Laurent Gbagbo and leading rebels. "There is a list, but it will not be published for one simple reason: if we are going to pursue the guilty in the courts and not compromise the situation, we will not publish the list," said Kofi Annan, in a press briefing during a summit of African Union in the Nigerian capital. Annan added that the names could come out anyway if prosecutors succeed bringing suspects to trial. Luis Moreno Ocampo, the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, said in Johannesburg on Friday that he was sending a team to Ivory Coast to prepare for a possible investigation of crimes committed during its civil war. Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa grower, has been split in two since rebels hoping to oust President Laurent Gbagbo seized the north in the conflict that broke out in late 2002. Rights violations have ranged from rape to attacks on peaceful demonstrations to incitement to kill government foes. SHAKY PEACE Some 10,000 U.N. and French peacekeepers monitor a buffer zone separating the two sides under a peace agreement brokered by France in 2003. But the accord has yet to be fully implemented and South African President Thabo Mbeki is leading an African Union mediation effort to convince both sides to carry out their commitments. The African Union persuaded the United Nations to put off a vote on tightening the arms embargo on Ivory Coast for three days until Monday, so it could first consider Mbeki's report on the situation at the summit due to end on Monday. The proposed sanctions text would authorize French and U.N. peacekeepers in the West African nation to enforce the arms embargo by inspecting cargo shipments, as they see fit and without notice, at any port, airfield, military base or border crossing. It would also call on government and rebel forces to help the United Nations compile a list of all arms in the country, with an eye to eventual disarmament, and appoint a panel of experts to see if the embargo was being enforced. Annan said it was important that the northern rebels return to the government of national unity as a precursor to disarming and reintegrating rebel fighters. "What happens in Cote d'Ivoire does have an impact in the region and we do not want another regional conflict as we have in the Great Lakes," Annan said.

IRIN 3 Feb 2005 Unemployed and looking for a way to spend the day? Join the President's men 03 Feb 2005 16:21:07 GMT Source: IRIN ABIDJAN, 3 February (IRIN) - Jean Martial studied to become an accountant and Olivier trained as a mechanic. Neither ever found a job but neither readily admits to being unemployed. Instead both these Ivorian youths pronounce themselves to be 'Young Patriots'. They devote their time to the hard-line nationalist movement that supports President Laurent Gbagbo and describe their work as defending Cote d'Ivoire against France, the former colonial master, and against rebels occupying the north of the country. "I finished studying to be a mechanic in 2002. Then the rebels launched their attack in September and that's when I found my new calling," Olivier told IRIN at the Sorbonne, a leafy square in downtown Abidjan that is a magnet for soapbox politics. Olivier, like dozens of other youths milling about the square, is decked out in a T-shirt with "David versus Goliath" emblazoned on the front. For them the giant Goliath is France and they are weakly underdog David, trying to topple him with a simple slingshot. They have had some success. Mob riots in November, which many diplomats blamed on the Young Patriots, forced France to conduct the largest ever evacuation of its citizens from Africa in recent times. Almost 9,000 expatriates - most of them French - fled Abidjan as crowds of angry youths burned their schools and ransacked their homes. "France's imperialist rule is to blame for the unemployment," said Olivier, seemingly unaware that his favourite downtown hangout shares its name with the elite Parisian university. "I'm a bit ashamed to be 27 already and still without a salary," he admitted, explaining that he relied on his big brother, his extended family and his friends for financial support. "But I am a patriot, I go on the marches, I take part in the sit-ins. I have a job to do." Olivier faithfully trots out the Young Patriot mantra, extolling President Gbagbo and ranting against France. But occasionally his mask slips, raising questions about how much of what he says comes from his own convictions. For example, Olivier says that once the war is over he would like to do a computer course and work in Europe. Given that the only European language Olivier speaks is French, his most likely job market would be the country he presently regards as the enemy. But that doesn't seem to bother him. Eternal conundrum Youth employment in Cote d'Ivoire, as in most African countries, is very high and rising fast. According to government statistics, 23 percent of all males under the age of 25 were unemployed when the civil war began in 2002. Cote d'Ivoire's sophisticated economy, which was once the pride of West Africa, has taken a nosedive since then, leaving even more of the country's angry and frustrated youth, idle and without an honest income. Independent estimates are hard to come by, but experts at the forefront of efforts to prevent Cote d'Ivoire's fragile peace process from collapsing agree that high youth unemployment encourages violence and makes everything more complicated. "Clearly the large numbers of young people without much hope or opportunity has got to be a factor for instability," said Alan Doss, the United Nations' acting chief representative in Cote d'Ivoire. "Young people are more susceptible to violence when they are without opportunity or hope." "It's the eternal conundrum," Doss added. "You need peace to get stability, you need stability to get growth... to get jobs which in turn underpins peace." Last November offered a startling reminder of just how much repressed anger lies smouldering beneath the surface, waiting for the fuse to be lit. After 18 months of uneasy ceasefire, Gbagbo's air force bombed rebel positions in the north in preparation for a ground offensive. When French forces retaliated for the deaths of nine peacekeepers during the raids, by destroying most of the president's warplanes, the Young Patriots were called out onto the streets of Abidjan in force. Giving the order was Charles Ble-Goude, a university drop-out with a stubbly chin and a baseball cap permanently planted backwards on his head. He moves around town with armed bodyguards in military uniform and is said by diplomats to take his orders directly from the president's office. At his signal, tens of thousands of young Ivorians surrounded the main French military base near Abidjan airport and a hotel near the presidential palace. But thousands of others ran riot across the city, torching schools and trashing businesses belonging to Cote d'Ivoire's large French expatriate community. They also looted individual homes, sending nearly 9,000 expatriates scarpering home on hastily organised evacuation fights. All the Young Patriots interviewed by IRIN said they had nothing to do with the violence. They all pointed out that there was a mass break-out of 3,000 prisoners from Abidjan's main jail around the time. But the same youths nonetheless expressed satisfaction that the French position in Cote d'Ivoire had been weakened. Today street hawkers at the Sorbonne are doing a brisk trade in commemorative films about the November resistance. The movies include images of the headless corpse of a patriot draped in the Ivorian flag and show French helicopters firing canon shots to prevent a crowd of 50,000 Young Patriots charging across one of the key bridges spanning the city's lagoon to get to the airport. Expats take employment with them In this corner of Abidjan, there is scant mention of the thousands of jobs that disappeared with the expatriate businessmen as they left the country -- something diplomats worry will only exacerbate social and political tensions in this volatile nation of 16 million people. "With the departure of the French, there are fewer jobs now than there were a couple of months ago. It's a food chain and when you break the first link... that adds pressure," one Western diplomat in Abidjan told IRIN. Despite Gbagbo's enthusiasm to bring in new foreign investors from places such as China and the United States to dilute France's control of much of the economy, few are likely to rush in and fill the void given the political deadlock and the deteriorating infrastructure. "How can we hope to attract foreign investment, essential for creating the jobs that so many millions of West African youths desperately need, if some of our leaders continue to pursue the logic of war and vendetta year after year?" lamented Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN Special Representative for West Africa after November's fighting. But some youths, like once-aspiring accountant Jean-Martial, see other options. Like many Young Patriots, Jean-Martial denies receiving any payment for his current allegiance to the president. But he is hoping to cash in once peace returns. "I help run one of the Young Patriot forums, working for the party in power. So I hope that when things return to normal, I might be compensated for my efforts," he told IRIN in a cafe in the suburb of Koumassi. "Because they know we have been fighting for our country, we young people could be favoured." The Ivorian government says the economy, which is heavily dependent on cocoa and coffee exports, registered zero growth in 2004, but independent economists think it contracted sharply. With no concrete progress towards peace and the flare-ups getting increasingly violent, aid workers, diplomats and UN officials worry that the militia-style Young Patriots may start to spiral out of control. Nothing to do, nothing to go back to "There's a lot of unemployed people who have nothing to do. We're not talking about disciplined military movements, these are just young crowds," the Western diplomat said. Indeed one resident in Abidjan described how groups of young of men, who used to loiter outside his apartment block, suddenly jumped on the Young Patriot bandwagon during the crisis in November, not for ideological reasons, but more to have something to do. "When it's time for these youths to go home they have nothing to go back to," the Western diplomat said. "The danger is that the situation begins to deteriorate and so they begin to take on a life of their own." It is a worry that is even shared by certain militia leaders, according to one humanitarian worker in the town of Guiglo, an epicentre of ethnic clashes in Cote d'Ivoire's "Wild West." He told the story of one local militia leader who journeyed to Abidjan to try to register his small group with the disarmament commission. "He was frightened that if peace came, he wouldn't have the money to pay his young guns and they might then become a lethal force," the aid worker said. "He wanted the disarmament commission to take charge of ridding them of their weapons and sweeping up the problem." Although they have yet to swing into action, the UN disarmament plans provide for each demobilised fighter to receive a cash grant of US$900, big money in a country where half the inhabitants live on less than two dollars per day Looking around the West African region, there are troubling precedents for Cote d'Ivoire. In Liberia where drugged-up youths brought terror and bloodbaths to the streets during 14 years of civil war, the UN estimates that 85 percent of the population is unemployed. Even now, 18 months after the conflict ended, there are still legions of young men who have only known life as a combatant and who are struggling to adjust to peace. In Sierra Leone, whose decade-long civil war ended three years ago, the situation is little better. Thousands of demobilised fighters who once hacked off the limbs, lips and ears of innocent civilians still have no other useful occupation to turn to. Doss, who worked for the UN in Sierra Leone before moving to Cote d'Ivoire, is only too aware of where the downward spiral leads. "Dreadful things were done in Sierra Leone, far worse than thank god we've seen so far in this country," he said in his Abidjan office. "And I think that is one very important lesson -- when violence takes hold, you can never control it."

IRIN 2 Feb 2005 Civil war provokes ethnic conflict in southern cocoa villages 02 Feb 2005 18:31:10 GMT Source: IRIN SULEYMANKRO, 2 February (IRIN) - During the day, the unpaved roads connecting dozens of villages in this cocoa-growing region of southern Cote d'Ivoire are full of farmers and cocoa buyers. But at night, when the red dust has settled and the roads are deserted, the self defence committees come out to stand guard. It is noon in the village of Suleymankro when a cocoa buyer arrives in a small white truck to pick up several sacks of cocoa and coffee beans. The village is named after the local chief, Suleymane, who emigrated from Burkina Faso as a young man in the late 1970s. As his hair turned grey and his hands callous from cocoa harvesting, the village population grew to 250 inhabitants. More migrants arrived from Burkina Faso to carve out farms in the surrounding bush and having settled, they produced families. Most of the village's inhabitants today are young farmers who were born in Suleymankro, but they do not consider themselves Ivorian. Almost all of them carry Burkinabe identity cards. They never bothered to apply for Ivorian citizenship - there was no need to. The young cocoa buyer, whose name is Simplice, is Bete. He hails from the same ethnic group as President Laurent Gbagbo. But Suleymankro is a Burkinabe settlement carved out of the Bete heartland. This is a region renowned for its forests, fertile soil, and abundant cocoa crops. "These people are like my family," Simplice said, drinking well water from a mug one of the women offered him as a welcome gesture. "I have known them since I was a child." The 'land of hospitality' Suleymankro is a microcosm of the cocoa belt, a region where so many different ethnic groups and nationalities live together that political leaders once proudly nicknamed Côte d'Ivoire the 'land of hospitality'. For decades, the indigenous Bete people welcomed migrants from less fertile regions of northern Côte d'Ivoire and immigrants from Burkina Faso and Mali to cultivate the land alongside them. But the settlers' welcome wore out as cocoa prices fell and unused land grew sparse. During the 1990s, nationalist politicians began to promote the notion of "Ivoirite" - Ivorian national identity - from which the immigrants and their descendents were excluded. However, violent clashes between the two communities only began in September 2002 when rebels from northern Côte d'Ivoire tried to overthrow president Laurent Gbagbo in a coup d'état that presidential supporters say was sponsored by Burkina Faso. The coup failed, but Cote d'Ivoire plunged into civil war. The country ended up split into a rebel-controlled north and a government-controlled south, with French and UN peacekeeping troops patrolling a buffer zone in between. Since the conflict erupted two and a half years ago, angry Bete villagers have driven hundreds of settlers off their farms, accusing them of being a fifth column, sympathetic towards the rebels if not openly collaborating with them. However, many residents of Suleymankro believe that the expulsions have little to do with politics or ethnicity. They say that the indigenous population is primarily interested in easy money. "Whenever there is cocoa, there is trouble" One Burkinabe farmhand pointed out that the expulsions always took place at the eve of the cocoa harvest. "Whenever there is cocoa, there is trouble," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The villagers take back their land because they want to sell the cocoa themselves." Other people think that following rapid population growth there just aren't enough farms to go around any more. "It's a land problem," said a Lebanese businessman who works in the cocoa industry. "The Bete are good people, but they are too hospitable. A Bete will share a chicken with you even if he hasn't had chicken for five months." Whatever the case, if the civil war has not entirely destroyed the tightly-knit social fabric that helped spawn Cote d'Ivoire's wealth, it has certainly damaged it badly. In December, things got horribly out of hand in Bete country, which is centred on the town of Gagnoa, 290 km west of Abidjan. In the nearby village of Siegouekou, shortly after midnight, 11 men, women and children were killed by a gang of murderers. All the victims were Bete. The attack is widely believed to be an act of revenge by settlers of the Senoufo ethnic group who several weeks earlier had been chased from their plantations. Youths in the nearest large town of Ouragahio did not wait for proof to carry out a reprisal attack. That same night, several hours later, in a neighbourhood inhabited mainly by expelled farmers, seven so-called northerners were hacked to death. Guillaume Soro, the leader of the New Forces rebel movement, is a Senoufo so there was no mercy shown. The wrong identity "My truck driver and his apprentice were stopped by Bete youths," the Lebanese businessman told IRIN. "My truck driver belonged to the 'right' ethnic group so they let him go. But the apprentice happened to be a northerner, so they dragged the poor kid out of the car and killed him with a machete." The attack on Siegouekou was the second on a Bete village in the space of nine months. In March 2004, 12 people in the mainly Bete village of Broudoume were shot dead in their sleep by raiders armed with hunting guns. After both incidents, authorities reacted swiftly, dispatching soldiers and police to the area to prevent a further built-up of ethnic tension. But the recurrent tit-for-tat killings remain a sensitive subject that most residents, no matter what their background, are loath to discuss. It is as if they are afraid to conjure up evil just by talking about it. And besides, you never know who is listening in on the conversation. "Everything is okay now," they say. "There is no problem." The local police chief would not give IRIN permission to visit Siegouekou, where the latest massacre took place. "There is nothing to see," he said. "There is no need to poke around." But district official Marc Gbaka, a prominent Bete leader, said the situation there remained tense. He said there could be no real reconciliation between the locals and incomers until the rebels in the north disarm. "The village chiefs of Siegouekou and Broudoume will not hold ceremonies or ritual sacrifices until the end of the war," he told IRIN. "It means that there is no reconciliation." Machetes and arrows Gbaka said that at least 100 of 165 villages in the region had set up 'self-defence committees' to ward off possible attacks. "They consist of young men armed with machetes and arrows and so on who guard their village at night," he said. "We don't have enough military to protect every single village, but this way at least the villagers can sleep at night." However, Gbaka was evasive about the expulsion of Burkinabe farmers and other settlers from their homes, saying simply that this phenomenon was "not an issue." The Bete leader said he was convinced that the attacks on Broudoume and Siegouekou had been carried out by agents provocateurs who want to spark a series of ethnic killings in the region which in turn would fuel the civil war. He accused the rebels of being behind both incidents. "Really, the settlers and the foreigners are innocent, they are just simple farmers," Gbaka said. "That's why we won't allow the fighting." A young Burkinabe farmer in the settlers' village of Suleymankro told IRIN that he did not feel concerned by the attacks. "So far, it's been between the Senoufo and the Bete. They are all Ivorians. It's just a revenge issue," he said. But he smiled when asked if he was worried about expulsions. "We're not leaving," he said. "Where should I go? I was born in this country. And anyway, we northerners are a majority. They can never drive us all out."

IRIN `0 Feb 2005 UN worries about security in Abidjan, calls for militias to be disarmed [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] © IRIN GPP militia men - the United Nations wants them to be disarmed ABIDJAN, 10 Feb 2005 (IRIN) - The UN peacekeeping mission in Cote d'Ivoire has expressed concern about the security situation in Abidjan and other towns and has called on the government to disarm militia bands and other armed groups operating there immediately. "The United Nations Operation in Coted d'Ivoire (ONUCI) has expressed its concern over the security situation," ONUCI said in a statement on Wednesday night. "The positive effects of... mixed patrols in conjunction with the Ivorian Defence Forces... are being jeopardized by the activities of these armed groups and militias in certain areas." Citing "an increased level of criminal activities," "ONUCI launched "an urgent appeal to the Ivorian authorities to take action to disarm and dismantle these groups without delay." Last week two people died and several were injured when the the Patriotic Grouping for Peace (GPP), a uniformed militia group that supports President Laurent Gbagbo, staged a 15-minute gunfight with police in the Abidjan suburb of Adjame in broad daylight. And this week, residents' nerves were rattled by the attempted murder of Daniel Brechat, a French businessman, who chairs an association of small businesses in Cote d'Ivoire. Men dressed in military camouflage shot Brechat in the stomach in Abidjan last Tuesday and left him for dead, one of the businessman's associates told IRIN. Brechat was currently being treated at the main French military base in the city, they added. The French businessman, a long-time resident of Cote d'Ivoire, had publicly criticised the government for failing to intervene when mobs rampaged through central Abidjan in November looting and torching French homes, schools and businesses. The government has since promised compensation. But it is ordinary Ivorians who suffer hardest from the worsening security. Residents in Adjame have long accused the GPP, who occupied a local school last August and turned into a training camp, of extortion and bullying. Last month, the militia group clashed with local taxi drivers and traders. The two sides through stones at each other. But things got out of hand on 3 February when the GPP picked a quarrel with cadets from the nearby police academy. Hundreds of young men ended up trading automatic weapons fire in the street. Colonel Philippe Mangou, the chief of staff of the armed forces was called to the scene to help restore peace. But on Thursday , he dismissed security concerns about the GPP, which accuses most Adjame residents of supporting the rebel movement that occupies the north of Cote d'Ivoire. "The GPP are not armed," Mangou told reporters as he repeatedly dismissed questions about last week's shoot-out. "They are real Ivorians who are aware of the danger that is hovering over our country," Mangou said. "I have been to their camp and I can confirm that I have not seen any weapons there." A correspondent for IRIN was caught in the thick of last week's gunfight and saw men on both sides firing automatic rifles. Mangou countered by outlining demands of his own, saying he wanted notification before any international peacekeepers searched military cargoes. The UN Security Council, which is trying to prevent Cote d'Ivoire sliding back into civil war, tightened its arms embargo against the West African country last month. It gave more than 10,000 UN and French peacekeepers patrolling a fragile ceasefire in Cote d'Ivoire the authority to carry search military installations without advance warning. "We are going to sit down with the peacekeeping forces to discuss how the resolution is going to be applied," Mangou said. "But we have asked to be notified first." He also said the Ivorian government was forging ahead with plans to repair fighter bombers and helicopter gunships which were damaged by French peacekeepers during a latest flare-up in hostilities three months ago. France crippled most of Ivory Coast's air force on the ground after nine of its peacekeepers died during a government bombing raid on the rebel capital Bouake in early November. Last month, the UN authorized the army to transfer three damaged jets and a Mi-24 helicopter gunship to the main city Abidjan and park them at the airport under UN supervision. Two severely damaged planes have still to be moved by road from the political capital Yamoussoukro, but two others were ostentatiously flown to Abidjan late January. The move sparked fears among residents that hostilities would resume. The United Nations rowed back on initial public statements that it had given the green light for the warplanes to be repaired and France said that it would not allow the damaged aircraft to be restored to flying condition. Despite these warnings, Mangou said categorically on Thursday: "We are going to repair the aircraft. Nobody can stop us from repairing our planes." However, he added, "It is not our aim to launch another offensive." A spokesman for ONUCI declined to comment on his remarks. Mangou also attempted to quash speculation about the fate of his predecessor as head of the government's armed forces, General Mathias Doue. Mangou said he was in hospital receiving treatment for high blood pressure. Doue was sacked in November after French military intervention stopped the government offensive in its tracks. Diplomats believe the military push was organised by Mangou on the authority of the president without Doue's direct involvement. Doue, who had never got on well with Gbagbo, disappeared from public view immediately after he was dismissed. Local newspapers have speculated that the general has gone into hiding because he fears for his life and that several officers close to him have fled the country. But Mangou denied this, saying Doue was still receiving treatment in an un-named hospital. "He is not very well, he is resting," he said. The other officers who had disappeared from public view "are in the country and have been in touch with the Defence Ministry," Mangou added.

DR Congo

AP 29 Jan 2004 Militia kill 16, kidnap 34 girls in Congo KINSHASA, Congo (AP) - Militiamen armed with guns and machetes killed 16 people and kidnapped at least 34 girls in attacks this week on a remote area of eastern Congo, a UN spokesman said Saturday. Two platoons of UN peacekeepers arrived in the remote area by helicopter early Saturday to protect the population from further violence, UN spokesman Christophe Boulierarch said by telephone from Bunia, capital of Ituri province. Bunia is 65 kilometres south of Che, an area that has been attacked several times since Jan. 19. Earlier this week, aid workers with the group German Agro Action reported seeing burning houses and residents streaming out of Che as it was under attack. Boulierarch cited witnesses saying 34 girls had been kidnapped from Che and two others were missing. Residents told the UN that 15 people were murdered by armed Lendu militiamen. Boulierarch said he saw the body of another old man along the road outside town who had been shot once in the head. Ituri has long been the scene of savage fighting between Lendu and Hema militias. Since 1999, fighting in Ituri has killed more than 50,000 and forced 500,000 to flee their homes, UN officials and human rights groups say. The Ituri conflict was part of a larger, five-year, six-country war in Congo that killed nearly four million people, mostly through starvation and disease. The 1998-2002 war ended with the creation of a transitional government in 2003 that has struggled to extend its authority to the vast country's often lawless east. During the war, both neighbouring Uganda and Rwanda armed the Hema and Lendu militias, mainly to wrest control of the mineral-rich territory. The two sides eventually turned on one another.

Residents of burnt out village begin to return [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] KINSHASA, 1 Feb 2005 (IRIN) - Some 2,500 half-naked people have so far returned to their ruined homes, one week after militias burnt down the village of She in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the spokeswoman for the UN peacekeeping mission in the area, Rachel Eklou, said on Tuesday. "MONUC arrived in the village on Saturday and stayed there until Sunday, and its presence is what encouraged the first group of 120 villagers to come out of hiding," Eklou said. The deployment of UN troops has enabled humanitarian actors to enter She, 60 km northeast of Bunia, the main town in Ituri District, Orientale Province. One humanitarian body, German Agro Action, delivered food rations to the returnees on Tuesday, and MONUC has been using helicopters to provide clean drinking water. The interim coordinator of German Agro Action, Rudi Sterz, told IRIN on Friday that armed militias, who have been fighting each other in the area since December 2004, set fire to She residents, most of whom are of the Hema ethnic group. Hema witnesses told MONUC that the rival Lendu militia had attacked their village, and presented MONUC with a list of 15 people they said were killed during the attack. Some 30 others are missing, presumably taken hostage by the attackers. Eklou said the village had been attacked repeatedly for several months now. MONUC is investigating the circumstances surrounding the attack and who is responsible. The l'Union des patriotes congolais militia group, headed by Thomas Lubanga, and the Front des nationalistes integrationnistes, have accused each other.

AFP 2 Feb 2005 Rwandan rebels warn of resistance to planned AU disarmament force NAIROBI, Feb 2 (AFP) - A Rwandan Hutu rebel group accused of a prominent role in the country's 1994 genocide warned the African Union (AU) on Wednesday that it would forcefully resist plans to disarm its members in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) said it was prepared for dialogue but was "shocked" by the disarmament plan and told the African Union to prepare for "the consequences of this barbaric act." "Those who prefer disarmament to dialogue should be ready for the consequences of this barbaric act," FDLR spokesman Anastase Munyandekwe said in a statement. "The FDLR warns those who are planning this forceful disarmament (that its) members are not ready to be massacred like in 1997 in the jungles of the then-Zaire," he said. Munyandekwe maintained that the Rwandan army had then murdered more than 200,000 Rwandan refuges in what is now the DRC with the support of the international community. Wednesday's stern warning was issued after African Union leaders at a summit earlier this week in Abuja endorsed a plan to send peacekeepers to the eastern DRC in a bid to quell escalating regional tensions. The force is to be tasked with disarming mainly ethnic Hutu rebels who fled to the region from neighboring Rwanda after taking part in the genocide in which at least 800,000 people, mainly Tutsis, were slaughtered. Munyandekwe, however, rejected the assumption that the FDLR had been involved in massacres and said the group was "profoundly shocked" by moves "to forcefully disarm its members who are falsely accused of genocide." The presence of the rebels in the eastern DRC has caused major instability in the African Great Lakes region with Kigali accusing Kinshasa and the UN force in the country of failing to control the insurgents. Rwanda has threatened to send troops into the eastern DRC to crack down on the rebels while DRC officials have accused Kigali of using the FDLR's presence as a pretext to make incursions in the vast central African nation.

BBC 3 Feb 2005 DR Congo re-erects Belgian statue Millions died during King Leopold II's rule A statue of former Belgian colonial king Leopold II has been re-erected in the centre of the Democratic Republic of Congo capital, Kinshasa. The 6m high statue is still dirty after spending 40 years in an open-air dump, after being taken down in 1967. Culture Minister Christoph Muzungu said he wanted DR Congo's history revived. Leopold II set up the Congo Free State in 1885 as his personal possession and left arguably the worst legacy of all the European colonial regimes. Former BBC Kinshasa correspondent Mark Dummett says King Leopold II turned the country into a massive labour camp, made a fortune for himself from the harvest of its wild rubber, and contributed in a large way to the death of perhaps 10 million innocent people. Past In front of the statue outside the central station, one man told the BBC: "He left us in poverty. He exploited our raw materials and left us with nothing." Another said: "It's important for us to remember our past, like the Jewish people remember the Holocaust." Former President Mobutu Sese Seko had the statue removed in 1967, saying it was a constant and unwelcome reminder of colonial rule. Mr Muzungu said people should not just see the negative side of the king - they should also look at the positive aspects.

washingtonpost.com 20 Feb 2005 Rwanda's Tormentors Emerge From the Forest to Haunt Congo Hutu Guerrillas Find New Victims By Craig Timberg Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, February 10, 2005; Page A20 KIWANJA, Congo -- Julienne Kyakimwa, 34, was picking beans in her family garden when a man emerged suddenly from the jungle with a gun in his hand, a machete on his belt and a menacing look in his eye. The wild-looking man spoke in Kinyarwanda -- the language of terror to many people here -- as he roughly demanded she turn over the beans. According to Kyakimwa's husband, Alfajiri Kaposo, the attacker and an accomplice -- most likely ethnic Hutus, originally from neighboring Rwanda -- slashed her across the face and arms and left her for dead under a pile of branches before fleeing back into the dense equatorial forest. "The big problem here is people with guns," Kaposo, 38, said just after visiting his wife in a hospital, where she was recovering from her wounds. "I don't feel safe." A decade after the genocide in Rwanda, as many as 15,000 Hutu guerrillas are still hiding in the forests of eastern Congo, according to U.N. peacekeepers. Remnants of the militias and security forces that carried out the mass slaughter of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994 and fled across the border live off the fertile land, steal from villages and wait for the next opportunity to attack Rwanda. In places such as Kiwanja, a village in North Kivu province 10 miles west of the border, their presence, along with a volatile mix of Congolese soldiers and local militia groups, has kept the border region embroiled in war or on the verge of it for more than a decade. As local inhabitants describe it, the people with guns are repeatedly attacking civilians, raping women and looting supplies. The most feared and mysterious of the groups is the Interahamwe, the Hutu militia from Rwanda whose name means "those who fight together." "They have two names: Interahamwe and bandits," said Nyota Ndivito, 16, holding her 4-month-old daughter on her hip. She recounted how three uniformed men emerged from the forest in November and stabbed her brother to death. Asked how she knew the attackers were Interahamwe, she clicked her tongue impatiently. "They are the same," she said. But the Interahamwe are more than just marauding gangs. According to local and foreign analysts, they are the key to a puzzle of tribal and territorial conflicts that nobody has found a way to resolve. During the Rwandan genocide, the Interahamwe led the killing of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The slaughter ended when a Tutsi-led rebel force took control of the government and the Interahamwe fled into eastern Congo, entrenching themselves mostly in the large border provinces of North and South Kivu. They have been there ever since, bolstered by members of Rwanda's former Hutu-led military and evading repeated incursions by the current, Tutsi-led Rwandan armed forces, who seek to destroy them. Congo's two most recent wars began as attempts by Rwanda to eliminate the Interahamwe. According to groups that monitor them, the Hutus have survived by cultivating land, raiding villages and trading with the Congolese. Over the years, some Interahamwe have married Congolese women, recruited Congolese youths and, in remote areas, revived some of the functions of a withered state bureaucracy by collecting taxes and controlling river crossings. Although many members act more like brigands than soldiers, analysts said they remain a well-armed fighting force united by a political cause: driving out Rwanda's Tutsi-led government. Yet their presence also has kept much of the population in fear -- not only of the violent Interahamwe but of further cross-border attacks by Rwanda. As a result, the Congolese government maintains a heavy military presence near the border -- adding more men with guns to the volatile mix. There are also reports that Congo has helped arm the Interahamwe to provide a first line of defense against Rwanda. The cross-border attacks developed into full-scale war in 1996 and 1998, leaving bitter memories of slaughter, rape and flight. In November, Rwanda again threatened to send troops to finish off the Hutu militants. And in December, two factions of the Congolese military, cobbled together from pro- and anti-Rwanda militias, began fighting each other in North Kivu, driving more than 100,000 people from their homes. Only the intervention of U.N. peacekeepers ended that battle. "As long as there is Interahamwe, there is always a threat from Rwanda, and as long as there is a threat, there is fear," said Hans Romkema, a consultant in Amsterdam who spent three years in Congo dealing with Hutu militants on behalf of aid groups. Other analysts said Rwanda had used the Interahamwe as a pretext for maintaining a powerful military that also protects its extensive commercial interests in mineral-rich Congo. The continuing turmoil is threatening Congo's plans to hold national elections in June, a crucial element of the 2002 peace accord that ended Congo's last war. When the head of the electoral commission suggested several weeks ago that the vote might have to be delayed, riots erupted in Kinshasa, the capital. A decade of living with violence has taken a physical toll on this lush region. The paved road leading into Kiwanja has crumbled into a rutted dirt track, and a nearby tourist attraction, Virunga National Park, has lost most of its elephants, lions and other wildlife to hungry Hutu poachers. Nowadays, the U.N. force camped in an adjacent town advises against traveling through the park without armed escort. In addition to aging militiamen, the region's forests contain younger Hutu fighters who did not participate in the Rwandan atrocities or were recruited into the Interahamwe from Congo. Thousands of women and children are also among the nearly 30,000 people that the United Nations estimates are members of the jungle militia. In April, the United Nations began a voluntary disarmament program that has attracted 60 to 90 Interahamwe a month. Their guns are handed in and destroyed, and the men are turned over to a Rwandan reeducation camp before being sent to their home villages. "Most of the low ranks, they want to go back," said Maj. Christian Vera, a U.N. official from Uruguay who is involved in the demobilization. He was interviewed in Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu. "They are tired of living in the bush, eating whatever they can find. They want to find their families and live in their own country." But many Interahamwe, especially senior members, could be prosecuted for murder if they return to Rwanda. As a result, many residents of eastern Congo are convinced the Interahamwe will leave only if they are forced out. Justin Atongwe, a Congo government environmental official who lives in Kiwanja, expressed little hope that the Interahamwe or the other militiamen would leave any time soon. If he had the money, he said, he would move away. In 1998, Atongwe recounted, he was traveling on a road south of town when a group of 20 armed men with disheveled clothes and overgrown beards emerged from the forest. "They looked like animals, like somebody who lives in the bush," he recalled. The men stole his clothes, shoes, luggage and $30 in cash. That was nearly seven years ago, but little has changed, Atongwe said, laughing softly and looking at the ground. "In North Kivu," he said, "the war is still there."

Ethiopia

IRIN 3 Feb 2005 Punish those responsible for Gambella violence, US urges [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] © IRIN/Anthony Mitchell Ambassador Aurelia Brazeal ADDIS ABABA, 3 Feb 2005 (IRIN) - The US on Tuesday called on Ethiopia to punish those responsible for violence in its western Gambella region that claimed hundreds of lives last year. However, Ethiopian government spokesman Zemedkun Teckle told IRIN Ethiopia was committed to bringing those involved in the killings to justice. "The government is bringing people to court," he said. "It has taken great steps to bring people to justice, even if they are in the government, police or military, wherever they are." US Ambassador Aurelia Brazeal said in a statement that if the perpetrators of the killings were not tried, that would only incite new violence in the region. "As promised by the Ethiopian government, it is important that all those involved in the outbreak of ethnic strife in the region in December 2003 and early 2004 should be brought to justice, including those in the government, police, or military," she said. "Doing so would discourage renewed violence and restore confidence." Hundreds of people where killed and thousands displaced from their homes after clashes in the region, some 800 km west of the capital, Addis Ababa, between December 2003 and early 2004. The ambassador, whose comments came after a visit to the region, also called for greater protection of human rights by the security services in Gambella. She said the region, which is rich in oil and gold reserves, was "the conscience of Ethiopia". Gambella’s population of 228,000 is multi-ethnic. In addition to people from the Nuer, Anyuak, Majanger, Komo and Opo ethnic groups, it includes an estimated 60,000 people from other parts of Ethiopia, who are known locally as highlanders. Tensions had been simmering since eight government officials were killed in an ambush. The Anyuak ethnic group was blamed and dozens killed in reprisal attacks. Fighting then spilled over into refugee camps while 196 workers at a gold mine in the region were killed in an attack. The government has rejected claims by opposition and human rights groups that more than 1,000 people were killed in the several months of unrest. Opposition political groups claimed educated Anyuaks had been targeted in reprisal killings that followed the ambush. The government also dismissed claims that the army was behind widespread abuses, although a commission of inquiry set up to probe the incident reported that four army members were involved in the killing of 13 people. Ethiopia’s former Minister of State for Federal Affairs, Gebre-Ab Barnabas, made a rare apology for the government’s late response in trying to prevent the massacre. It added that the federal police were training a new force for the region. Last month, the Gambella State Police Commission said it had fired 32 police officers allegedly linked to the violence.

Kenya

AP 31 Jan 2005 Maasai herdsmen attack ethnic rivals 1,500 farmers flee after attack kills 1, wounds 5 NTULELE, Kenya (AP) -- Dozens of Maasai herdsmen attacked ethnic Kikuyu farmers using spears, machetes, bows and arrows southwest of the Kenyan capital, killing one person and wounding five others, officials said Monday. The late Sunday attack was triggered by clashes between members of the two communities that occurred last week northwest of the capital, Nairobi, said Police Superintendent Jaspher Ombati. On Monday, at least 1,500 Kikuyus and members of other tribes fled their homes and farms in the area that the Maasai consider as their ancestral home, said District Commissioner John Egefa. Some 50 Maasai warriors, clad in traditional red robes, attacked the Kikuyu farmers who were walking home after a day's work in their fields near the Nairegi-Enkari trading center, some 110 kilometers (68 miles) southwest of Nairobi, Egefa said. Schools and businesses remained closed Monday as tensions rose in the area after the surprise attack. "What I can tell you is that there is anxiety in the area. ... There were no signs of provocation before the attack," Ombati said. "Our senior officers have gone to the ground. We are beefing up our presence and patrols in the entire area now." At least 16 people were killed in clashes last weekend between Maasai and Kikuyu tribesmen over scarce water in Mai Mahiu, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of Nairobi. In a separate conflict last week, hundreds of people fled their homes and farms in the western district of Trans Nzoia after Pokot herdsmen attacked a farm owned by a Luhya tribesman in a simmering two-month-old tribal dispute over scarce pasture and water. Police and army reinforcements arrived in the area Friday to prevent further attacks. Local officials have said that Pokot tribesmen have killed at least 18 people since November in attacks on Luhya farmers. Some 500 people who fled their homes remain in two makeshift camps on the grounds of a Roman Catholic church and a satellite earth station. The victims say they would only return to their homes after the government guarantees their security.

Nigeria

This Day (Lagos) 28 Jan 2005 3 Killed in Communal Violence in Rivers By Donald Andoor Port Harourt Co fewer than three persons were feared killed in Ula-Upata, the ancestral home of Upata people of Ekpeye communities in Ahoada East Local Government area of Rivers State when some armed youths attacked those who were attending a meeting of Upata National Assembly. Rivers State Police command has confirmed the killings but claimed it was suspected to have been carried out by "Ekpeye Peace Vanguard." The command said it has already launched intensive investigetions to unravel those that were remotely or directly connected with the incident. The incident, which has generated so much tension in the area, has degenerated into accusations and counter- accusations by the two paramount rurers in the area. While Eze Igbu-Upata II, Eze C. C. Nwuche has raised an alarm that his life was in danger as some people were planning to assassinate him, Eze Ekpeye Logbo of Ekpeye land, Robinson O. Robinson, is accusing Nwuche to have disregarded the police order banning the said meeting. Nwuche, who called on the police to thoroughly investigate the circumstances leading to the killing of the three persons, explained that "Ekpeye Peace Vanguard" had earlier attempted to kill him while on his way to attend the meeting. "Even when the youths attacked us at the meeting, it was God that saved my life because I was already sitting down when the sound of gunshots broke out and the youths started breaking chairs and cannopies. It was God that made my ascape possible," he explained. He denied any knowledge of organising youths to disrupt the meeting, saying "why should I want to destroy the house that I laid the blocks to build. And why should a organise people to dirupt a meeing I called with my council of chiefs and was in attendance?" On the other hand, Robinson in a statement, accused Nwuche of convenning the meeting and inviting the "Sceptre (Owhor) holders from the 21 communities to invoke terrible curses on his perceived enemies." He said the youths in a bid to stop the meeing went and complained to the police but after he (Robinson) was assured the meeting would be well conducted he agreed that it should go on only for him to hear of the horrifying incident later. The Police Public Ralations Officer, Mrs. Ireju Barasua, in a statement, said all the chiefs of of the community as well as Ekpeye Peace Vanguard have been invited for interrogation and appealed to the people of the area to remain calm

IRIN 4 Feb 2005 Soldiers kill four protesters at oil terminal, activists say [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] © IRIN A typical Chevrontexaco facility in the Niger Delta WARRI, 4 Feb 2005 (IRIN) - Nigerian troops on Friday shot and killed four villagers who were protesting at the main export terminal run by ChevronTexaco in the Niger Delta, one of the demonstration's organisers said. More than 200 protesters from the village of Ugborodo near Warri stormed the Escravos plant just before dawn to demand a fairer share of the 300,000 barrels of crude oil that are pumped out every day. "Soldiers shot at them, killing four and injuring three others," Helen Joe, one of the activists' leaders, told IRIN by phone. ChevronTexaco's Nigerian subsidiary said in a statement that its Escravos facilities had been "forcibly entered" and they had reported the incident to the security forces "who have since contained it." The company declined to give further details and did not confirm the deaths or the injuries. The ethnic Itsekiri villagers from Ugborodo accuse ChevronTexaco of reneging on promises of amenities and jobs that were made in the wake of a similar protest in July 2002. During that protest, disgruntled locals camped out at the terminal, stopping oil exports for 10 days. "Whatever they promised they never fulfilled, that's why the community is very angry," said Helen Joe. Oil operations in the 70,000 sq km Niger Delta, which accounts for nearly all of Nigeria's daily oil exports of 2.5 million barrels, have increasingly become the target of attacks. Since the July 2002 protest, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has deployed thousands of troops to guard vital oil facilities, which are classed as assets vital to economic security. More than 90 percent of oil production in Nigeria is generated by joint ventures with international oil companies in which the government has the majority stake. The government has a 60 percent stake in ChevronTexaco holdings in Nigeria, the third biggest operator in the country. Similar joint ventures are run with Royal Dutch/Shell, ExxonMobil, Total and Agip. Since 1970, the country has earned US$320 billion from oil sucked out of the Niger Delta, but its seven million residents are among the poorest in Nigeria. In the face of mismanagement of oil wealth by a succession of Nigerian regimes, restive inhabitants have tended to target the oil companies as the only visible face of government in their remote districts. In 1998, two unarmed protestors were shot and killed by soldiers at another ChevronTexaco oil platform. A lawsuit has been filed in the US charging ChevronTexaco with responsibility for the deaths because they had invited the troops onto the site to quell the disturbance.

IRIN 8 Feb 2005 30 killed in clashes between farmers and herdsmen in Adamawa state [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] ABUJA, 8 Feb 2005 (IRIN) - At least 30 people have been killed in a week of clashes between farming communities and nomadic cattle herdsmen in Adamawa state, near the eastern frontier with Cameroon, local officials and residents said on Tuesday. The deadliest fighting took place last Thursday when ethnic Fulani herdsmen attacked the farming village of Bali, killing 28, said Saidu Adamu, a local government official. “Farmers in the area have been complaining that cattle have been grazing on their land, and on Tuesday last week killed two Fulani herdsman over the dispute,” Adamu told IRIN. “This latest incident was obviously a reprisal,” he added. One Bali resident, Kwanga Dogo, told IRIN that the attackers had been armed with assault rifles, machetes and bows and arrows and had stormed the village in the early hours of the morning. Dogo said the dialects spoken by some of the assailants suggested they hailed from nearby Chad and Niger, but police and local officials would not confirm the claims. Dogo said he had escaped from the village and had fled to the state capital, Yola. Adamawa state police chief, Hafiz Ringim said police reinforcements were being sent to the affected area to stop the violence from escalating. Over the last decade, clashes between indigenous farming communities and nomadic herdsmen have increased in several parts of central Nigeria, including the country’s eastern flank. Increasing desertification in northern Nigeria has been forcing herders further south into the central region in search of pasture, raising the ire of farmers that work the land. Remnants of former rebel forces in Chad and Niger have moved into Nigeria during this period, engaging in banditry. Residents and police have in the past blamed these armed gangs for some of the violence, alleging that they often hire themselves out as mercenaries.

Rwanda see DR Congo and Tanzania ICTR.

Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne) 9 Feb 2005 Kigali NO MORE MASS RELEASES OF GENOCIDE SUSPECTS, SAYS SENIOR RWANDAN PROSECUTOR Rwanda does not plan to hold any more mass releases of genocide suspects who plead guilty and ask forgiveness, Deputy Attorney General Martin Ngoga told Hirondelle News Agency on Wednesday. "There won't be a repeat or anything similar to 2003", he said. "Most of the work has now been left to Gacaca courts. We will only do gradual releases of smaller numbers of prisoners in different parts of the country", he added. Over 20,000 genocide suspects were released in May 2003. They were mainly those who had pleaded guilty and apologized. The Office of the Prosecutor has previously said that it was working on a single release of about 30,000 accused. Observers in Kigali say the Office of the Prosecutor is reluctant to release many suspects simultaneously following last year's murders of genocide witnesses. Released genocide suspects were implicated in some of the killings.

BBC 2 Feb 2005 UK grant for raped Rwandan women By Mike Wooldridge BBC world affairs correspondent 800,000 people were killed in the 1994 Rwandan genocide Britain is to give a £4m ($7.5m) grant to help women survivors of the Rwandan genocide who were raped and often deliberately infected with HIV/Aids. An estimated 25,000 girls and women were raped during the 1994 genocide. About 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by Hutu militias after the assassination of an ethnic Hutu leader. The five-year Department for International Development funding will enable more survivors to have access to anti-retroviral treatment. Until recently, very few of the women have had access to anti-retroviral treatment The plight of the infected women was overshadowed for a long time. It was overshadowed by Rwanda's emergence from the 100 days of slaughter, during which time the mass killings took place, and the women's fate was largely a taboo subject. But many of the women were widowed and they now not only have their own children to care for but, in many cases, orphans too. Changes afoot As the women die, the number of Rwanda's orphans rises. Until recently, very few of the women have had access to anti-retroviral treatment. That is now starting to change. This funding is intended to make anti-retrovirals and other care available for some 2,500 women. Mary Kayitesi Blewitt, founder of the Survivors Fund (SURF), one of the organisations through which the funds are being channelled, said it was a recognition, before it was too late, that the survivors should be a priority for help.

Canadian Press 9 Feb 2005 PaxWarrior recreats events of Rwandan genocide Julia Necheff Canadian Press February 9, 2005 If you knew the decision you were about to make would mean the difference between life and death, how would you choose? So asks a software simulation called Pax Warrior, which depicts the events leading up to and during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. The interactive learning software puts you in the shoes of the United Nations commander of the ill-fated peacekeeping mission. You progress through the simulation as conflict reignites between bitter enemies in the small Central African country. Along the way you come to situations and as commander you must choose a course of action. A chain of events, with sometimes unintended or dire consequences, is set in motion depending on the choices you make. A Canadian, the now retired Lt.-Gen. Romeo Dallaire, was the UN commander at the time. In many ways, Pax Warrior is his story. The simulation is historically accurate. Each key event in the module took place as Rwanda descended into horror. After calling on the international community to help him avert an impending bloodbath - to no avail - Dallaire and his peacekeepers watched helplessly while Hutu extremists in power set about exterminating their enemies, the Tutsis. They methodically slaughtered somewhere between 500,000 to 1.2 million men, women and children in just 100 days. Andreas Ua'Siaghail is president of 23 YYZee, the Toronto company that designed and produced the software. "We were looking to extend new media as a form and for new ways of telling stories, and at the same time to engage folks (for whom) these days, frankly, the new media is one of the prime ways they get their information," Ua'Siaghail says. "People are now spending more time on the Internet than they do actually watching television." One story that was in the news in 1995 was of Dallaire being found drunk on a park bench in Hull, Que. Haunted by his experiences in Rwanda, the former UN commander was a broken man. "What went through our minds was, 'What did he (Dallaire) see, what did he witness on our behalf, as Canadians, as world citizens?'"Ua'Siaghail says. Then the focus shifted to, "What do you do in such a situation?" he says. The designers felt it was important that Dallaire be involved in the project. They approached him and asked for his input. After having a look at the project Dallaire says he agreed to participate. In fact, while this is a commercial program for 23 YYZee, Dallaire says he donated his time because he thought it was a worthwhile project. "I ... found a very valuable instrument of decision-making and information for Canadian youth in regards to conflict and conflict resolution," he said in an interview. Dallaire helped the designers develop the scenarios. It's not possible to capture all the complexities and nuances of the Rwandan situation in a software program but overall, says Dallaire, Pax Warrior captures the essence of what happened. Ua'Siaghail says Pax Warrior is mainly intended for senior high school and university students. The goal is to teach students about making decisions and how decisions have consequences. Users also learn about the Rwandan genocide, how the UN works and related topics. It's also about good citizenship, Ua'Siaghail says. Both he and Dallaire say users become aware of their own morality when they are confronted with difficult choices. "By going through the exercise, it's not a white or black solution. It's grey," says Dallaire. "There are ambiguities; there are ethical, moral questions, there are value-based decisions. To me, it's testing the essence of the individual." There are those who disagree with some of the decisions Dallaire made at the time, but he stresses he didn't take part in Pax Warrior to find vindication. "It was, to me, no exercise in self-reviewing. I've done that and I've taken my decisions and I stand by them." About 25 schools or districts in various parts of Canada - Toronto, the Ottawa-Carleton region, Regina, Calgary and New Westminster, B.C. - are finalizing details to begin testing the software in their classrooms. A number of universities across Canada are also using the simulation as a case study or are planning to, Ua'Siaghail says. A school in Edinburgh, Scotland, that is using Pax Warrior has been featured in a report by the British Broadcasting Corp. Tom Doerksen, an e-learning consultant based in Calgary, says preparations are under way to link three schools _ in Calgary, Ottawa and the school in Edinburgh - so students in all three places can go through the simulation together via web conferencing. "I just thought it was such compelling content, such an important activity for kids to do," Doerksen says. He says the program is loaded with information which users draw on as needed. Research has shown that hands-on learning is superior to simply reading something, Doerksen says. That includes making mistakes, he adds. "We learn best by doing and we learn even better by failing, and Pax Warrior gives us a safe place to do that. "Unfortunately, Romeo Dallaire didn't have such a safe place to do that."On the web: www.paxwarrior.com.

Xinhua 14 Feb 2005 US to assist in relieving Rwanda, Congo tension Xinhua KIGALI, Feb 12, 2005 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- The US Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Therese Whelan said Saturday in Kigali the United States is to assist Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to come to a common understanding on maintaining regional peace. Whelan, who met Rwandan President Paul Kagame, called upon the responsible authorities to take measures to end the great lakes region conflicts, particularly in Congo. "The Rwandan rebels, the Interahamwe in Congo continue to threaten the regional security and there is need for responsible authorities to end the insurgents," she said. She added that her visit is aimed at accessing peace and security in the region mainly in Uganda, the DRC and Rwanda. She visited a genocide site in Kigali where she called on the world to hold back the genocide participants to face courts of law. "Rwandan genocide should be a lesson for other states," she said, adding that Rwandan government has taken a step a head in overcoming most of the problems left behind by the 1994 genocide.

Sudan - UN Report

washingtonpost.com 31 Jan 2005 U.N. Panel Finds No Genocide in Darfur but Urges Tribunals By Colum Lynch Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, February 1, 2005; Page A01 UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 31 -- A U.N. commission investigating atrocities in Sudan has concluded that the government did not pursue a policy of genocide in the Darfur region but that Khartoum and government-sponsored Arab militias known as the Janjaweed engaged in "widespread and systematic" abuse that may constitute crimes against humanity. The five-member U.N. commission of inquiry "strongly recommends" that the U.N. Security Council invite the International Criminal Court to pursue a war crimes prosecution against those suspected of the worst abuse. The Sudanese justice system, it concluded, "is unable or unwilling" to address the situation in Darfur. The 177-page report documents a concerted campaign of violence directed primarily at Darfur's black African Fur, Masalit, Jebel, Aranga and Zaghawa tribes. Since the violence began in early February 2003, more than 70,000 people have died from violence and resulting disease, and more than 1.8 million have been driven from their homes. The commission's work is the most extensive international effort yet to document the atrocities in Darfur and to analyze their legal implications. In doing so, the commission was more cautious on the question of whether the violence amounted to genocide, the position taken by former U.S. secretary of state Colin L. Powell. Nevertheless, the commission set the stage Monday for international war crimes prosecutions, charging the government and the Janjaweed of engaging in violence that included murder, torture, kidnapping, rape, forced displacement and the destruction of villages. Senior U.S. officials said the commission's findings were serious enough to prosecute rights abusers as war criminals, despite the panel's decision not to declare that genocide had occurred. A finding of genocide -- an attempt to systematically destroy a nation or ethnic group -- would have been considered a more powerful and symbolic statement, experts said, but its practical and legal impact would not have been significantly different from the commission's finding of possible crimes against humanity. "Our interest here is accountability for the perpetrators of the atrocities, and there are obviously various ways that can be achieved," said Anne W. Patterson, acting U.S. representative to the United Nations. The report's author, Antonio Cassese of Italy, said the commission placed the names of suspected war criminals, and the supporting evidence of their crimes, in a sealed file that will be presented to a future prosecutor. The report's long-anticipated release precedes what many expect will be an intensified political battle in the Security Council over how to pursue such prosecution. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and European governments on the council want the International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, to oversee prosecution of Sudan's alleged war criminals. "This is a case which is tailor-made for the ICC," said Emyr Jones Parry, Britain's U.N. ambassador. But the United States opposes the ICC and wants to create a new African court to handle the prosecutions. The Bush administration refuses to recognize the legitimacy of the ICC out of concern that U.S. citizens could be subject to politically motivated charges before it. Pierre-Richard Prosper, the U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes, has cautioned European supporters of the ICC not to force the Bush administration into a "thumbs-up or thumbs-down" vote in the council on an ICC prosecution. Instead, he sought to rally support for a new tribunal in Tanzania that would be headed by the African Union and supported by the United Nations. Stuart Holliday, the U.S. representative to the United Nations for special political affairs, said: "We're still in the process of discussing a variety of options, including with our African colleagues." The violence in Darfur began in February 2003, when rebels from the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement took up arms against the government. Khartoum organized and equipped the Arab militias known as the Janjaweed, which participated in a counterinsurgency campaign aimed at expelling many of the region's black tribes. Khidir Haroun Ahmed, Sudan's ambassador to the United States, did not respond to a request to comment Monday before the report's release. But the Sudanese government has long denied that it has targeted civilians as part of its military campaign against the rebels. The U.N. commission's report said a court could still determine that government officials or militia leaders did commit acts "with genocidal intent." But the panel found that "the crucial element of genocidal intent appears to be missing" from policy pursued by the government. "Generally speaking," it said, "the policy of attacking, killing and forcibly displacing members of some tribes does not evince a specific intent to annihilate, in whole or in part, a group distinguished on racial, ethnic, national or religious grounds." That, however, should not "detract from the gravity of the crimes perpetrated" in Darfur, the report said, adding that they may be "no less serious and heinous than genocide." Report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur 25 Jan 2005, released January 31. (PDF 176 pages )

IPS 1 Feb 2005 Politics: U.N. Team Splits Hairs Over Sudan Genocide Inter Press Service (Johannesburg) By Thalif Deen New York A U.N. special commission, which refused to declare the widespread killings in Sudan to be acts of "genocide," has been criticised for restraining its condemnation of the massacre of some 400,000 Sudanese in that politically troubled African nation. Reacting to the 177-page report released by the commission Monday, Claudio Cordone of Amnesty International said "the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Darfur region of Sudan are no less serious than genocide." The Washington-based Africa Action, which rejected the conclusions of the U.N. commission, said the international community was "splitting hairs" -- even as genocide was unfolding in Africa. "International leadership is still missing to stop genocide that has already killed 400,000 Sudanese and that still continues," it said in a statement released Tuesday. A U.S. Congressman, Rep. Henry J. Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, also rejected the assertion that atrocities committed in the Darfur region do not constitute genocide. "I am deeply disappointed by the commission's decision to engage in semantics and shirk in its responsibility to the people of Darfur," Hyde said in a statement Tuesday. While the five-member U.N. commission, led by Antonio Cassese of Italy, concluded that the government of Sudan has not pursued a policy of genocide, it nevertheless declared that both the government and the Janjaweed militia were responsible for "serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law amounting to crimes under international law." The commission has "strongly" recommended that the 15-member U.N. Security Council request the newly created International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to pursue charges of crimes against humanity in Sudan. This, however, will depend largely on the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Council -- namely the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia -- who have remained reluctant to act ever since the killings in Darfur began in February 2003. The United States, which opposed the creation of the ICC, wants a special tribunal set up in Tanzania to prosecute those charged with war crimes in Sudan. But Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the 25-member European Union want the ICC to take the initiative. "My own support for the ICC is well known," Annan told reporters Tuesday. "But this is a decision for the Security Council, not for me. What is vital is that these people are indeed held accountable. Such grave crimes cannot be committed with impunity." "The United States, China and Russia, in particular, should set aside their reservations about the Court in order to bring justice to the people of Sudan," said Amnesty's Cordone. Amnesty International is calling on the Security Council not only to refer the situation in Sudan to the jurisdiction of the ICC, but also to support a comprehensive, long-term strategy for bringing all those responsible for the crimes to justice, he added. The deadlock in the Security Council has also been triggered by key members trying to safeguard their own economic, political and military interests in Sudan. Ann-Louise Colgan, director for policy analysis and communications at Africa Action, said the reason the Security Council continues to drag its feet is two-fold. "Firstly, there seems to be a real lack of political will to take action to stop this genocide in Africa, just as we saw a decade ago in Rwanda" she told IPS. In addition to this international apathy toward Africa, several of the permanent members of the Security Council have "vested interests" that make them very reluctant to risk antagonising the Khartoum government. "China is the largest single investor in the petroleum industry in Sudan, and Russia is a major arms supplier to Khartoum," Colgan said. Both China and Russia, which are opposed to sanctions on Sudan, also have strong military relations with the government in Khartoum. Last year, the U.S. State Department said it would view with "grave concern" the sale of 12 Russian MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter planes to Sudan, "if reports of such sales were confirmed." Responding to the State Department, the Russian foreign ministry said: "Yes, this is a longstanding contract. We're just filling the conditions. It's got nothing to do with the (current) situation" in Sudan. Cordone said that Amnesty International is also calling on China and Russia to "stop arming the killers and to allow the existing arms embargo on Darfur to be extended to include the government of Sudan." Colgan said that both China and Russia "are very sensitive to the notion of international intervention in internal affairs, especially when it comes to human rights issues." The United States is the only member of the Security Council, and indeed the only country, to have recognised that genocide is taking place in Darfur. "But yet the United States is unwilling to expend real political capital to prompt Security Council action in response. Across the board, there is a shocking unwillingness to show leadership in the face of another ongoing genocide in Africa," Colgan added.. According to the United Nations, there are over 1.6 million internally displaced persons in Darfur and more than 200,000 refugees who have moved into neighbouring Chad. The United Nations also says that there has been large-scale destruction of villages throughout the three states of Darfur. The commission deployed a legal research team and an investigative team composed of forensic experts, military analysts and investigators specialising in gender violence to probe the charges of crimes against humanity. "There is an internal armed conflict in Darfur between the governmental authorities and organised armed groups," the commission said. "A body of reliable information indicates that war crimes may have been committed on a large-scale, at times even as part of a plan or a policy."

usinfo.state.gov 1 Feb 2005 Genocide Has Been Occurring in Darfur, U.S. Government Reaffirms United States Department of State (Washington, DC) NEWS February 1, 2005 Posted to the web February 2, 2005 By Charles W. Corey Washington, DC United States welcomes U.N. commission on Darfur but differs on conclusion Even though the U.S. government welcomes the work that has been completed by a United Nations commission of inquiry on Darfur, the United States still stands by its own conclusion reached September 2004 that genocide has been occurring in Darfur, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said February 1. Speaking to reporters at the department's regular noon briefing, Boucher stressed: "We stand by the conclusion that we reached that genocide had been occurring in Darfur. And we think that the continued accumulation of facts on the ground, the facts that are reported here in the commission's report, supports that view, that conclusion that we reached and continue to hold." "Nothing has happened to change those conclusions," Boucher said. "We stand by those conclusions." Boucher's comments came in response to the January 31 release of a report by the U.N. International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur, which concluded that the government of Sudan did not pursue a policy of genocide in Darfur but that crimes against humanity and war crimes have been committed that "may be no less serious and heinous than genocide." Boucher told reporters the U.S. government will continue to work with the international community to stop the violence and the atrocities in Sudan. "We're calling on the Government of Sudan to take steps," he said. "We're calling on the rebels to take steps, immediate action to stop the violence." He said the United States is continuing to work with the African Union to expand its peacekeeping presence in Sudan. Additionally, he said, "we are continuing to support the efforts being made for a political solution, support the efforts being made by Africans in countries like Nigeria to try to reach a political solution." Boucher said now that the U.N. commission has completed its report, "we need to move â-oe to the stage of accountability." As part of that process, he said, "we are discussing elements of our proposals for accountability with other [U.N.] Security Council members and with interested African countries." "We believe that the best way to address these crimes, as detailed in the report, is to establish a U.N. and African Union tribunal that would be based in Arusha, Tanzania. It would involve African countries integrally in the process, in keeping with the African Union's leading role in Darfur," he said. "We understand that the commission itself talks about the International Criminal Court (ICC)," Boucher noted, but he cautioned, "We think it's important for the Security Council to consider the various options, and we believe that having accountability for these crimes in a tribunal that's based in Arusha, Tanzania, is the best way to ensure accountability." When asked about the case being referred to the ICC, as suggested by the commission, Boucher said there should be no "automatic referral to the ICC" and that "when you look in more detail at the facts and the legal aspects of this, we do think that the tribunal in Africa is a preferable way, is the better way to ensure that there is accountability to these crimes." Boucher said there are a number of advantages in referring the case to a tribunal in Africa. Such an option, he said, "would involve the Africans and the African Union in playing a continuing role for accountability, as they have played one in trying to stop the crisis in Darfur to begin with." Such an option, he said, "also has the practical advantage of building on the existing infrastructure of the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. "That would allow the Sudan tribunal to commence more rapidly, to take advantage of the expertise in lessons learned in dealing with the crimes in Rwanda." Boucher also pointed out that the U.N. Commission of Inquiry, in its reporting, details crimes that took place in 2001 and 2002. "Those crimes pre-date the establishment of the International Criminal Court, and â-oe therefore the court wouldn't have jurisdiction over those crimes," he said. "So you have all the crimes of 2001 and 2002 that couldn't be handled by the International Criminal Court because of the way its statute reads, whereas a tribunal in Africa could deal with all the crimes that have been committed in Darfur from the beginning." For these reasons and others, Boucher told reporters, the U.S. government is proposing to other governments the establishment of a tribunal in Arusha. "We think it's important that the council look at the various options seriously," he said. Boucher said the United States is also proposing the establishment of a U.N. peacekeeping mission for Sudan that could "support the African Union and the eventual deployment to Darfur, as conditions permit." He said the United States is also making proposals on how to increase pressure on the parties to abide by their commitments under current standing U.N. resolutions that are already in place. "We have, in our consultations already with a number of council members on this question, made clear we believe it's time to move toward sanctions. We have raised a number of measures, including oil sanctions and targeted sanctions, with other council members, and we'll continue discussion of those," he told reporters. (The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

washingtonpost.com U.N. Report on Sudan Draws Mixed Reaction Leaders Decry Call for War Crimes Trials By Emily Wax Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, February 2, 2005; Page A16 NAIROBI, Feb. 1 -- Sudanese officials said Tuesday that they felt vindicated by a U.N. investigation that found that atrocities in Sudan's western region of Darfur did not amount to genocide. But they disagreed with the call by the U.N. investigators to prosecute Sudanese government and military officials for crimes against humanity. "We feel relieved," said Jamal Ibrahim, a top official in the External Affairs Ministry, speaking by phone from the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. "But we are also still studying the report. There are parts we take issue with." Human rights observers warned that the tragedy in Darfur should not be forgotten, pointing out that the 177-page report did find widespread evidence of war crimes, killing of civilians, torture and rape. The report said individuals responsible may have acted with "genocidal intent" and should be brought to an international criminal court. The U.N. Security Council commissioned the investigation. Last August, the Bush administration formally labeled the still-unfolding two-year conflict in Darfur as genocide. In recent days, several U.S. legislators have pushed for U.N. intervention to end the violence. Attacks by the Janjaweed militia and bombardments by the air force have driven nearly 2 million African farmers from their land. Rebel leaders said Tuesday that they were disappointed that the word "genocide" was not used in the U.N. report. They also said the investigators failed to probe reports of mass graves in the vast and rugged desert area of Darfur, which has few paved roads and is the size of France. "It's unbelievable, actually," said Bahar Ibrahim, spokesman for the Sudanese Liberation Army, Darfur's main rebel group. "We hoped that the U.N. body would have seen the systematic attacks on our people. Maybe they didn't look closely enough. I don't know what you call it. But it's still very serious, and we hope we aren't forgotten." The report followed claims of new violence last week, with aid groups and African Union monitors reporting Arab militia attacks followed by government bombings in South Darfur. An estimated 9,000 people were displaced and 105 people were reported killed. African Union forces investigating the bombings were shot at by unknown assailants. Peace talks are scheduled to resume this week in the Nigerian capital, Abuja. The previous round of talks collapsed in December. Humanitarian groups have renewed appeals for food and medical aid. Officials of the independent group Human Rights Watch said the Sudanese government was ignoring the facts outlined in the report. They said they hoped world leaders would remain attentive to the issue. They also said the Security Council must prosecute war criminals in the International Criminal Court at The Hague. "The report unequivocally condemns the Sudanese government for massive atrocities. It's amazing that if it's not genocide, it does not matter. There is no such thing as saying something is just war crimes against humanity," said Leslie Lefkow, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who investigated atrocities in Darfur. "There's been mass murder, mass rape and mass displacement of hundreds of thousands of people," Lefkow said. "It's just appalling if the international community does not act on this." The debate over the term genocide began last year, during events marking the 10th anniversary of the slaughter of more than half a million Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus in Rwanda. Revived discussion of those atrocities prompted U.N. officials to question whether what was happening in Darfur amounted to genocide. Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, sent researchers to interview more than 1,000 Sudanese refugees on the Chad-Sudan border. They found evidence of intent to commit genocide by the Janjaweed militia, backed by the government, against a largely African population. The United States has called for economic sanctions and an arms embargo against Sudan. But China, a major oil client of Sudan, has opposed sanctions. The Bush administration has urged action against Sudan but opposed setting up an international criminal court, for fear that such courts could prosecute U.S. soldiers and officials living abroad. Instead, the administration wants to set up a U.N.-backed tribunal like the one established in Tanzania after the Rwandan genocide.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation 2 Feb 2005 www.abc.net.au Sudan expresses relief at UN finding on genocide Wednesday, 2 February , 2005 08:16:00 Reporter: Zoe Daniel TONY EASTLEY: Most governments would be horrified if a United Nations report accused its troops and militias of carrying out systematic rapes, abductions and killings, but for the Sudanese Government it was, in a way, a relief. The government had been worried that the UN report would hand down a finding of genocide – that the government had set about to wipe out the people in the Darfur region in the west of the country. Instead, the report named, in secret, alleged war criminals it said should go before the International Criminal Court. Africa Correspondent Zoe Daniel reports. ZOE DANIEL: The United Nations says the absence of a finding of genocide shouldn’t take away from the gravity of the crimes committed in Sudan. But that seems to be the way Sudanese authorities are taking it. HASSAN ABDIN: And I think now the report has exonerated the Sudan Government. ZOE DANIEL: Hassan Abdin, the Sudanese Ambassador to the UK, speaking to the BBC. He doesn't deny that crimes have taken place, but he says the government's already acknowledged that and conducted its own investigation. HASSAN ABDIN: Some people should be held accountable for crimes and violations of human rights in the region, and this is precisely what the Sudan Government, even before the release of this report, had started to investigate. ZOE DANIEL: As he spoke, reports were emerging about fresh incidents of violence in the western region of Darfur. African Union peace observers investigating air raids that killed 100 villagers last week claimed they were shot at while trying to access the area. It's believed the Sudanese Air Force was responsible for the raids near the border of north and south Darfur. And the African Union has unreservedly condemned attempts to prevent its investigation. Sudan Foreign Minister, Mustafa Ismail, denies any government involvement in bombing civilians. MUSTAFA ISMAIL: It is not our policy to bomb any civilian. It is not our policy. ZOE DANIEL: But, at the African Union Summit in Nigeria, other leaders were finding that hard to believe. Nigerian President Obasanjo. OBASANJO: We cannot but condemn (inaudible), no matter what excuse may be raised to try and justify it. ZOE DANIEL: Ironically, today the Sudanese Parliament ratified a peace deal for southern Sudan, marking the end of a 21-year war – hopefully. But, in Sudan's west and east, violence has reignited in recent weeks. The United Nations is now under pressure to prosecute a sealed list of war criminals in Sudan. But even that seems destined for conflict. The UN and Europe favour the use of the International Criminal Court at the Hague, the United States does not. This is Zoe Daniel reporting for AM.

Index on Censorship, UK 2 Feb 2005 www.indexonline.org Words & meanings - the consequences of defining genocide What does adding the 'genocide' label to the Darfur crisis really mean? By Alex de Waal Victims of genocide, 2005 The UN’s decision, announced Monday, not to follow the US and categorise what is going on in Darfur as ‘genocide’ reflects the world’s established caution in applying the term, at least as long as recognition of genocide implies the right – even the duty - to intervene militarily to stop it. For if the events in Darfur are genocide, then we must accept that there are many more genocides than we normally care to admit. Alex de Waal, one of the world’s leading experts on the crisis in Sudan, considers the debate over the hardest word in world politics. Is the US government’s determination that the atrocities in Darfur qualify as ‘genocide’ an accurate depiction of the horrors of that war and famine? Or is it the cynical addition of ‘genocide’ to America’s armoury of hegemonic interventionism – typically at the expense of the Arabs? The answer is both. The genocide finding is accurate according to the letter of the law. But it is no help to understanding what is happening in Darfur, or to finding a solution. And this description neatly serves the purposes of a philanthropic alibi to the US projection of power. The war in Darfur is thoroughly confusing. Many of those in command on both sides are themselves unclear why they are fighting – the conflict has become locked into its own cycle of escalation. When a band of farmers-turned-guerrillas swept out of their mountain hideout and stormed the police station at Golo in central Darfur, their immediate aim was to take weapons. Over the preceding months and years, the local Popular Defence Forces had been selectively confiscating guns from the civil populace, leaving other groups well armed. A young lawyer called Abdel Wahid Nur had been gaoled in the town of Zalingei for protesting about this. The village elders selected Abdel Wahid as their political spokesmen. With some other educated sons of the villages, they announced the creation of the Sudan Liberation Army. Darfur had already been flickering with the sparks of conflict, fostered by 20 years of no government, and endemic banditry. The SLA manifesto blamed the government in Khartoum for neglect, discrimination and divide-and-rule tactics. In just a few weeks, SLA fighters were running rings around demoralised and under-supplied army garrisons; they even raided the regional capital, El Fasher, destroying six military aircraft and kidnapping a general. The PDF in Darfur were local militia set up in the wake of an incursion by the southern-based Sudan People’s Liberation Army in 1991. For some time they were broadly representative of the population, but after the ruling National Congress Party split in 1999, the security cabal that controls the government began to replace the leadership. They brought in loyalists, mostly Darfurian Arabs from the same groups as an air force general on the Presidential Council, Abdalla Safi el Nur. Mostly young men from poor backgrounds, from camel-herding families who had lost their livestock in the droughts of the 1970s and 1980s, they were tough and bitter. The next step in the escalation of the war was when the government franchised these PDF units to take the lead in counter-insurgency. Using a label formerly applied to Chadian Arab militias – janjawiid – these paramilitaries have become notorious for their cruelty. They have killed, burned, raped and starved their way across the central belt of Darfur. In doing so, they have killed thousands of people and deliberately starved thousands more. They have also managed to stop a runaway insurgency that was rapidly seizing control of the entire region. Immediately thereafter, some of Darfur’s Islamists, purged from government after 1999, formed their own resistance front, the Justice and Equality Movement. Smaller but better funded, the JEM has raised the spectre in government that their erstwhile colleagues are aiming to use Darfur as a springboard to take power. The Darfur war has ratcheted up through a series of miscalculations, each time unleashing human suffering and political crisis beyond the original problems. The peace talks hardly deal with the initial causes of the war at all, and instead focus on the horrors unleashed by the PDF massacres, the humanitarian crisis and the government’s string of broken promises. On 9 September 2004, US Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that ‘Genocide has been committed in Darfur and the government of Sudan and the janjawiid bear responsibility – and genocide may still be occurring.’ This is historic: it is the first time the US government has declared ‘genocide’ while events are still in train. Powell is correct in law. According to the facts as known and the law as laid down in the 1948 Genocide Convention, the killings, displacement and rape in Darfur are rightly characterised as ‘genocide’. But his finding has significant political implications. The genocide determination is a substantial expansion on the use of the term in contemporary international political discourse – and arguably, therefore, in customary international law. It is also a politically significant act in the shadow of the US occupation of Iraq and the (mis-)characterisation of the war in Darfur as between ‘Arabs’ and ‘Africans’. According to the letter of the law, it is genocide in Darfur. The terms of the 1948 Convention, as interpreted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, provide us with enough of a case. Let us examine the objections. Is it bad enough? Do the nature and scale of the crime qualify for genocide? After all, critics will argue that among the well over 3 million Darfurian non-Arabs, best estimates are for a death toll of 70,000, mostly due to hunger and disease, not violence. There are many other contemporary or recent events – including several episodes in Sudan’s civil war – with higher death tolls, and clear evidence for ethnic targeting. However, for an event to count as genocide it does not need to involve the absolute liquidation of groups. It is enough for them to be deliberately harmed – physically attacked, driven off their land or collectively damaged in some way. There is enough evidence for ethnically-targeted violence across a wide area to meet the criterion. And in Sudan, the verb ‘to starve’ is transitive – people are dying of hunger, it’s because someone has deliberately inflicted this state on them. Today’s Darfur famine is a crime. Can we identify intent by the perpetrators? Unlike the Holocaust or Rwanda, there was no blueprint for a transformed, post-genocidal society, no titanic ideological ambition. Definitely, the murderous campaign was informed, in part, by dreams of an Arab homeland across Sahelian Africa. Former members of Colonel Gaddafi’s Islamic Legion, disbanded for more than a decade, may have continued to nurture those dreams. But they do not in themselves amount to a grand plan. The ongoing and extremely violent process of identity change in Sudan, which long precedes the current government, may also include a misty vision of a homogenous Arab-Islamic homeland. At some point in the 1990s, the government did entertain such ambitions – and they contributed directly to the attempted genocide of the Nuba – but that was in the heyday of its visions of re-engineering all of Sudanese society in an Islamist mould. Many of the ideologues who promoted that dream (notably Hassan al Turabi) are now in opposition, and some are even aligned with one of the Darfurian resistance movements, the Justice and Equality Movement. Those who remain in government are now concerned solely with staying in power. However, while the absence of an ideological schema and transformational blueprint is important for diplomats and genocide scholars, it does not entail lack of guilt in law. The bar is lower. This can be inferred from the successful ICTR prosecution of a Rwandese genocidaire, Jean-Paul Akayesu, in which it was found that intent could be inferred from a number of presumptions of fact, including the general context in which deliberate harm was systematically being inflicted on the target group. In the Darfur case, the fact that the state did not plan genocide is immaterial. It planned a counterinsurgency and gave its officers complete impunity to commit atrocities, which they have routinely done on a gross scale and an ethnic basis. This was ethics-free counterinsurgency, escalated to a genocidal extreme. An interesting and sophisticated objection is that the target group cannot be adequately defined. In Darfur, the term ‘African’ is historically, racially and anthropologically bogus. It’s a recent ideological construct, of which more later. But one can identify groups subjectively, including by native language. The case of distinguishing the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda was tougher, but the ICTR overcame that problem. It emphasised what was subjectively believed in the minds of those perpetrating the acts in question. The popular racialised or essentialised viewpoint may have been discredited by scholars, but this scholarly argument cannot be adduced to explain away the specific labels used and the intent to kill selectively, based on those labels. The ICTR used the definition ‘a stable and permanent group, whose membership is defined largely by birth’. That fits Darfur’s complex ethnicities. Concealed within the ‘arbitrary ethnicity’ objection is another argument: that declaring genocide itself causes the polarisation and solidification of ethnic and racial categories. This is significant: once a conflict is construed in these terms, complex over-lapping or shifting identities are stamped into a simple bipolar mould. Usually, the simplified labelling of ethnic groups long precedes outsiders’ designations of genocide. But in Darfur, this may not be the case: there was an Arab-non-Arab divide, but it was a moot question whether it would prevail over other identity markers including ‘Darfurian’ and ‘Muslim’. Ethnicity in Darfur is fabulously complex; to understand, one must discard all the presuppositions inherited from analysing the rest of Africa, including the rest of Sudan. Historically, Darfur was an independent sultanate. It had a structure similar to that of a string of states across Sudanic Africa. At its core was a ruling ethnic group (the Keira clan of the Fur), which had adopted Islam and used Arabic as the language of jurisprudence. This core expanded, drawing in neighbouring groups. Indeed, the larger part of the Fur are known as ‘Kunjara’, which means ‘gathered together’. Beyond this were tributary groups, including Arabic-speaking Bedouins (closely integrated into the state, because they ran the trans-Saharan camel caravans on which the Sultanate depended for its revenue), and a range of others – non-Arabic speakers and Arabic-speaking cattle herders. To the far south were the people of the hinterland, forest dwellers who were raided for slaves. In the Fur language, the collective term for these people was ‘Fertit’, and there is an amalgam of groups in the western part of Southern Sudan who still bear this label. The Darfur Arabs are just as black, indigenous, Muslim and African as their non-Arab neighbours. To speak of an African-Arab dichotomy is historical and anthropological nonsense. But Sudan as a whole has inherited such a distinction between the Arabised ruling elites from the far north and the Southerners, mostly non-Muslim, who have been fighting for separation or equal status since Sudan achieved independence in 1956. The country has often been regarded as a ‘bridge’ between the African and Arab worlds, or an amalgam of the two traditions. Within that, it’s clear that the Southerners belong to an ‘African’ pole and the ruling elite to an ‘Arab’ pole. (No matter that one of the three tribes of the ruling elite is in fact Nubian—these are complexities familiar to the political ethnographer.) The comparable historic distinction for Darfur would have been ‘Fur’ at one pole and ‘Fertit’ at the other. But, absorbed into a Sudanese state, and compelled to accept the discourses of the wider nation, Darfur has been shoehorned into an alien mould. First to embrace an externally-constructed ethnic label were some of Darfur’s Arab Bedouins, who lived in Libya and served in Gaddafi’s ‘Islamic brigade’. They found that the label ‘Arab’ was a useful political tool, buying them identity and solidarity in Libya and also in Khartoum. In response, educated young men from Darfur’s non-Arab groups – principally Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa –found the label ‘African’ in use by the Southerners and especially the SPLA leader, John Garang, who sought to build a non-Arab majority coalition across Sudan. Political Arabism is therefore fairly recent in Darfur, and political Africanism an elite construction of just a few years’ vintage. But the war, the atrocities and above all the international engagement around it may yet set these labels in stone. Already, community leaders in Darfur are using these labels in their interactions with aid agencies and diplomats. Annihilation If the events in Darfur are genocide, then we must accept that there are many more genocides than we normally care to admit. At least three earlier episodes in the Sudanese civil war must count as genocide – the militia raids into Bahr el Ghazal in the 1980s, the jihad in the Nuba Mountains in the early 1990s, and the clearances of the oilfields in the late 1990s. Add to that the mass ethnic killings in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the persecution of minorities in Myanmar, and a host of others. Gone will be the doubts over Bosnia, Cambodia and the Armenian massacres. In lay usage, and in international relations, ‘genocide’ has always been reserved for the most extreme cases in which there is a plan, with realistic expectation of success, for the complete physical annihilation of a target group. In recent history there are just two instances of this, the Holocaust and Rwanda. We may call these ‘absolute genocides’ to distinguish them from the much longer list of cases of ‘convention genocide’. Activists and scholars have long resisted grading or categorizing genocides: the U.S. determination on Darfur obliges them to do just that. One of the reasons why international practice – which we can take to be customary international law – has been so conservative in using the label genocide has been the fear of the repercussions. It implies the right, and perhaps the duty, to intervene militarily. Although Colin Powell insisted that U.S. policy towards Sudan would remain unchanged – thereby seeming to defeat the purpose of making the determination in the first place – there is no doubt that declaring genocide creates legal and political space for intervention. The 9 September determination is thus the first time the Genocide Convention has been used to diagnose genocide (rather than prosecute it), and it has the effect of radically innovating what counts as genocide in customary international law. What does the US determination signify? At one level, it is the outcome of a very specific set of political processes in Washington D.C., in which interest groups were contending for control over U.S. policy towards Sudan. In this context, the call to set up a State Department inquiry into whether there was genocide in Darfur was a tactical manoeuvre designed to placate the anti-Khartoum lobbies circling around Congress (an unlikely alliance of liberal journalists and human rights advocates, and the religious right), while buying time for those in the State Department committed to pushing a negotiated settlement. It was, in Washington terms, a minor turf war and a policy cul-de-sac: as Colin Powell remarked after announcing the determination, US policy will not change. Overstretched in Iraq, the Pentagon has only reluctantly provided transport planes to help the African Union observer mission deploy in Sudan. The department of defense would veto any US military presence. But at another level, the genocide determination reveals much about the US role in the world today, and the unstated principles on which US power is exercised. Those principles are shared by both the advocates of US global domination and their liberal critics, and are revealed in the commonest narrative around genocide, which takes the form of a salvation fairy tale, with the US playing the role of the saviour. The term ‘genocide’ consigns its architects to the realm of pure evil, beyond humanity and politics. They are Nazis. As their sinister plot unfolds, good people implore America to use its might to intervene. But, caught up in their own concerns, and ensnared by the United Nations, America’s leaders are indifferent, and fail to act until it is too late. The paradigm of this tragic melodrama is presented at the opening display of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, where the visitor is invited to step into the role of the victorious US soldiers liberating Nazi concentration camps. For six decades, Americans have been dreaming of redeeming that historic fatal tardiness, and dispatching troops in time to save the day. Their failure to do so in Rwanda and Bosnia ten years ago sparked another round of soul searching and led directly to the Kosovo bombing campaign and the Darfur genocide determination. This intervention narrative is a travesty of what actually happens, especially when we broaden the canon of genocides to include cases such as Stalin’s persecuted minorities, the Indonesian massacres of 1965, Tibet, Bangladesh, the Guatemalan counter-insurgency, Bosnia, Chechnya, the Myanmar minorities, Biafra, the Luwero Triangle in Uganda, Burundi, Congo and at least three previous episodes in Sudan’s civil war prior to Darfur. How did these genocides end? With the sole exception of Kosovo, not with the US cavalry. Usually because the perpetrators decided they had had enough – they had achieved their goals or changed those goals – or because the victims were strong enough to resist. Sometimes a regional power intervened (usually when the worst was over) – India in Bangladesh, Vietnam in Cambodia. In a couple of cases, of which Southern Sudan is one, there has been a negotiated settlement. However, the study of genocide remains dazzled by the reality of the Holocaust and the redemptive tale of liberating intervention. It’s easy to understand why such a narrative is so compelling: any story that puts us at the centre of events is intrinsically more engaging than one that claims that the events in question proceed regardless of what we do. The truth is that the political agendas of the genocidaires in Rwanda and Sudan have precious little to do with the US, and it is likely that if solutions are found, the US role will be marginal and will not involve intervention. There’s a deeper logic at work. What the melodrama reflects is a potent mix of untrammelled power and humanitarian sensibility. This mix persuades us to see the world in a certain way. Increasingly, it’s a Manichean worldview, in which we – meaning the US and its close ally Britain – are the upholders of good in a world of evil. Of course, our actual use of power is far from perfect, and it is this gap between aspiration and reality that provides the leverage for a moral critique of power. We have the power and occasionally the will to intervene militarily almost wherever we like. And we like to portray these interventions as humanitarian, and make a humanitarian logic for other interventions. Furthermore, we are frustrated by the shackles placed on these actions by international law and its cumbersome procedures. In the specific case of Darfur, it was the US left that railed against these shackles and beat the drum for a declaration of ‘genocide’ and a policy of intervention, though it is the right that will inherit this weapon and, at some future date, perhaps use it. And the fact that the group labelled as genocidaires in this conflict are ‘Arab’ is no accident. There’s no covert masterplan in Washington to brand Arabs genocidal criminals, but rather an aggregation of circumstance that has led to the genocide determination. It has special saliency in the shadow of the US ‘global war on terror’, misdirected into the occupation of Iraq and seen across the Arab and Muslim worlds as a reborn political Orientalism. After 11 September 2001, the US sees Muslim Arabs as actual or potential terrorists targeting the homeland. After 9 September 2004 (and the Darfur atrocities are indeed a crime), Arabs (and perhaps all Muslims too) are actual or potential genocidaires and their targets are Africans. It’s sad but predictable that too many Africans will fall for this trap and that the brave efforts of the African Union to build a continental architecture for peace and security will be impaled on an externally constructed divide. The outcome of the Darfur genocide determination is to lower the bar on US interventions. It adds another tool to the armoury of an interventionist hegemonic power. At the appropriate moment – which isn’t Darfur – a ‘genocide’ finding may be a philanthropic alibi for an imperial venture. The genocide determination is correct in law. There are atrocities that need to be stopped and their perpetrators punished. There’s a war that needs a negotiated settlement. The US decision to use the label ‘genocide’ – the outcome of intra-beltway political calculus as much as anything else – drags Darfur into a wider global scheme, a polarity in which Arabs are collectively labelled and stigmatised, and divisive identities imposed upon poor and strife-ridden parts of the world. In this case, let us hope that a remed