Global

Human Rights Watch 28 Feb 2004 Darfur: New Atrocities As Security Council Dithers (Washington, DC) PRESS RELEASE February 28, 2005 Posted to the web February 28, 2005 New York New eyewitness accounts from Darfur of rapes, torture and mutilation by government-backed militias underscore how the U.N. Security Council must take urgent action to protect civilians and punish the perpetrators, Human Rights Watch said today. Last week, eyewitnesses in South Darfur told Human Rights Watch how government-backed Janjaweed militia attacked villages in the Labado area in December and January, and singled out young women and girls for rape. Male relatives who protested were beaten, stripped naked, tied to trees and forced to watch the rape of the women and girls. In some cases, the men were then branded with a hot knife as a mark of their humiliation. In violation of the April ceasefire agreement and a November 9 commitment to cease hostile aerial activity in Darfur, the Sudanese government in mid-December 2004 used Antonov aircraft, Mi-24 helicopter gunships and Janjaweed militia to attack the civilian population in the Ishma and Labado areas of South Darfur. Thousands of people were forced to flee their homes. On the outskirts of the South Darfur state capital Nyala, the sound of bombs exploding in Labado and Ishma were heard all day on December 17. In mid-January, Sudanese government aircraft and Janjaweed forces also attacked Hamada, another village in South Darfur, reportedly killing more than 100 civilians. Both offensives appear to have targeted civilians as well as rebel bases in areas under the control of Darfur\x{2019}s two main rebel movements, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). "The Sudanese government talks peace at the U.N., but then orders airstrikes and militia raids against its own people in Darfur," said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "The Security Council risks losing its relevance unless it finally takes meaningful steps to stop the atrocities in Darfur." Human Rights Watch said that the U.N. Security Council must take immediate action to protect Darfur\x{2019}s civilians, who suffer ongoing atrocities while the 15 members of the Security Council stall on effective measures to end abuse. For a third week, Security Council members are discussing a new resolution that will authorize a U.N. "peace support" force of 10,000 personnel to monitor the peace agreement ending the 21-year civil war between the Sudanese government and the main southern-based rebel movement, the Sudan People's Liberation Army. The draft resolution, which focuses on southern Sudan, provides little relief for civilians suffering from the armed conflict that is now devastating Darfur. The resolution would impose only travel sanctions and asset freezes on yet to be designated individuals for their involvement in human rights abuses, and extend an arms embargo on the Sudanese government\x{2019}s arms shipments to Darfur. "Increasing the international protection force in Darfur is urgently needed to stop the violence," Takirambudde said. "The Security Council can ensure prosecution of grave crimes by referring Darfur to the International Criminal Court; this would deter the Sudanese authorities from committing even more atrocities." The African Union, which currently has a ceasefire monitoring force of approximately 1,800 personnel on the ground in Darfur, remains mainly based in the state capitals and larger towns of Darfur. It lacks sufficient numbers of armed troops to adequately patrol and investigate ongoing violations in the rural areas. After the December attack in Labado, a small AU force moved into the burned and destroyed town, which allowed some civilians to return. Despite the AU presence in Labado, Janjaweed activity in the area continued as recently as February 16. Militia forces disrupted humanitarian relief efforts on the main roads by shooting at vehicles and returned to burned villages to destroy any remaining infrastructure. The Janjaweed forces were believed to be partly acting to prevent civilians from returning to their home areas. "With so few troops in Darfur, the AU force today simply cannot protect civilians," said Takirambudde. "The United Nations must work with the African Union to come up with a plan to vastly increase the force in Darfur." Human Rights Watch called on the African Union to urgently increase their deployment to the rural areas of Darfur, aggressively patrol the main roads and smaller rural villages and proactively protect civilians from the ongoing abuses, including rape, torture and murder. Meanwhile, as the Sudanese government's offensives in December and January, aid agencies working in South Darfur came under increasing harassment from government officials and rebel groups. In January, staff from several international non-governmental organizations were detained by government officials often based on unfounded allegations. Aid workers have also been detained by rebel movements in Darfur, most recently in mid February. Members of the international media and human rights groups have also found it increasingly difficult to acquire visas for Sudan and Darfur, an indication of the Sudanese government's efforts to reduce international exposure of its "ethnic cleansing" campaign in Darfur. "The Sudanese government has long closed off regions where it's committing massive abuses, but in Darfur last year it was forced to open its doors to media and human rights monitors," Takirambudde said. "Now it's trying to close that window by intimidating aid agencies and refusing visas to journalists." Human Rights Watch said that the largest rebel group in Darfur, the Sudan Liberation Army, has also been responsible for attacks on civilians, particularly in January around the South Darfur town of Malam. Human Rights Watch called on the rebel movements to respect civilians and civilian infrastructure and to cease attacks on humanitarian workers and convoys.

UN News Centre 22 Feb 2005 World must address racism now to prevent new genocide, massacres – UN panel 22 February 2005 – The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has opened its new session with an urgent call to address current manifestations of racism and xenophobia in order to prevent a recurrence of the terrible massacres that marked the last decade. “We must never forget such tragedies as that of Rwanda in 1994 and the horrifying drama and the massacre in Srebrenica one year later, both largely driven by racial and ethnic intolerance and hatred,” the Chief of the Treaties and Commission Branch of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Maria-Francisca Ize-Charrin, said, referring to the genocide that killed up to 800,000 people in the central African country, and the slaughter of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Bosnia. Those events remind the international community in all their brutality that racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance were not vanishing phenomena, and that vigilance was never exaggerated in such cases, she declared. The importance of addressing the current and most acute manifestations of racism and xenophobia by focusing on steps that could prevent situations of discrimination, including their escalation to some of the worst forms of human rights violations, could not be over-emphasized, she added. Preventive measures were one of the most useful tools in dealing with the dangers posed by racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia. The Committee, beginning its session in Geneva yesterday, will consider country reports from several nations and may also decide to take early warning measures or initiate urgent action procedures with regard to situations in States parties.

washingtontimes.com 13 Feb 2005 Has Bush forgotten Darfur? By Nat Hentoff While a special commission of the United Nations was in Darfur to investigate whether the black African Muslims there are the victims of genocide by the Khartoum government of Sudan, the bombing by the government of these tribes' villages and the murders of their inhabitants were still going on. Now the special United Nations commission has somehow reported that while atrocities are being committed, it's not genocide. The U.N. special commission did admit that crimes against humanity and war crimes are taking place in Darfur, perpetrated by government-directed Arab Janjaweed and Khartoum's own soldiers and helicopters. Yes, said the commission, there is "killing of civilians, torture, enforced disappearances, destruction of villages, rape and other forms of sexual violence, pillaging and forced displacement ... It is clear that most attacks were deliberately and indiscriminately directed against civilians." This is not genocide? So far, at least 300,000 civilians have died from violence and disease, and some 10,000 more are annihilated every month. Yet, says this shamefully sophistic U.N. commission: "Generally speaking 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's the definition, in international law, of genocide. Specifically speaking, international genocide is then, indeed, the case in Darfur. At least 800,000 were massacred in Rwanda while Bill Clinton and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan — then the head of the U.N. peacekeeping division — deliberately did nothing to stop it. How many more will have to be slaughtered in Darfur before enough of the world is able to confront the horrifying face of genocide and end it? One million? Two million? Or,asTerry George — director, producer and co-writer of the film "Hotel Rwanda" — says in the Jan. 18 edition of Newsday: "Is it that we consider human life in Africa of less value than elsewhere?" Is that how we feel in America? Where are the protests of the genocide by religious leaders in the streets? Does Michael Moore or MoveOn.org care? Now, the United Nations, increasingly useless in matters of life and death, is debating where those its commission has accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity should be prosecuted. There is a movement, supported by Mr. Annan, to turn the suspects over to the International Criminal Court. The United States vigorously disagrees, for it has no confidence in that court, and instead suggests a new tribunal run by both the African Union and the United Nations. It would be installed at the war-crimes court in Arusha, Tanzania, now dealing with suspects in the Rwanda genocide. TheNewYork Sun's Benny Avni — a persistently perceptive and candid reporter on the United Nations — wrote on Jan. 30 that this new debate, as the killing goes on in Darfur, is "like arguing about the shape of the prosecution table at Nuremberg while the gas chambers of Auschwitz are still active." Can anything be done while this next debate at the U.N.GeneralAssembly drones on — and the Janjaweed enjoy their murderous assignments from the Khartoum government? The United States — in a statement by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell — has been the only nation to explicitly and honestly declare these atrocities in Darfur are genocide. And President Bush has shown deeply felt concern. But is there anything more we can do beyond words? As Mr. Avni says: "What is needed, instead, is action. Backed by an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean, Washington should immediately declare and enforce a no-fly zone over western Sudan. A few British and American military experts should then help organize a sizeable African Union force on the ground, which will put an end to the slaughter and ensure that villagers can go back to their homes, now occupied by Khartoum-backed Janjaweed militias." As of now, there are some 1,300 African Union observers in Darfur, and they do not have the power or the authority to do more. They are without a mandate to stop the genocide — or whatever the slippery United Nations chooses to call it. But the United States and Britain could provide the funds to equip 10,000 or more African Union troops to go after the Janjaweed and protect those black African Muslims who still survive. The British, however, want the International Criminal Court to prosecute the war criminals; but if Prime Minister Tony Blair and Mr. Bush can transcend that disagreement, there is still a chance that Darfur will not become more of a Rwanda-like nightmare than it already is. Both Messrs. Blair and Bush had the courage and determination that resulted in the resounding elections in Iraq. Will they lead a coalition of the willing to bypass the impotent United Nations and demonstrate to the world that human life in Africa is of universal value? I see no other hope for the remaining victims in Darfur.

BBC 22 Feb 2005 Tutu calls for child registration Governments are urged to ensure all children are registered South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has helped launch a global campaign calling for governments to ensure all children are registered at birth. He said it was a matter of life and death - an unregistered child did not officially exist and was vulnerable to traffickers and during disasters. In South Asia alone, there are no records for six out of every 10 babies, campaign organisers Plan say. The agency fears around half a billion children worldwide may be unregistered. Archbishop Tutu said a birth document was important because it "proves who you are". Without it children are often barred from education, health care and citizenship. "It is, in a very real sense, a matter of life and death," the Nobel Peace Prize laureate told a news conference at the UN headquarters in New York. "The unregistered child is a nonentity. The unregistered child does not exist. How can we live with the knowledge that we could have made a difference?" Cambodia success The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child imposes an obligation on countries to register every child immediately after birth. But Plan, the international agency organising the registration campaign, said that was not happening in many parts of the world. An unregistered child does not officially exist: Desmond Tutu In a report released to coincide with the campaign, Plan said no records existed for 60% of babies born annually in South Asia, and that 55% of births in sub-Saharan Africa go unrecorded. "Governments worldwide are failing the world's children, as millions of youngsters without a birth certificate find it very difficult to prove their age or nationality," said Thomas Miller, Plan's chief executive. "And parents whose children go missing during disasters like the tsunami or because they are abducted by traffickers may even be unable to get help with tracing their sons or daughters because they cannot prove the age of their children - or in many cases that their children even exist." He said a recent campaign in Cambodia - in which they registered 2.4 million people in less than four months - showed it could be done without incurring high costs. Universal Birth Registration campaign www.writemedown.com

Africa

IRIN 21 Feb 2005 Great Lakes: Call for Special Fund for War-Torn Region UN Integrated Regional Information Networks NEWS February 21, 2005 Posted to the web February 21, 2005 Kigali Declaring Africa's Great Lakes region a "specific reconstruction and development area," foreign ministers from countries in the region called on the international donor community on Friday to set up a special fund to transform the volatile region into a "haven of peace". Such a fund, they said, would enable the countries to establish programmes that would help end instability in the region. "The ministers committed themselves to undertake efforts to sensitise development partners on this proposal to advocate for its support, while highlighting its regional scope," according to the summary of a report adopted at the end of their two-day conference in Kigali, the Rwandan capital. The meeting - dubbed the Regional Inter-Ministerial Committee - was held under an initiative of the UN and the African Union (AU). The ministers mapped out strategies of implementing a regional pact on security, stability and development signed in November 2004 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Their meeting was the first in a series of follow-up conferences of the November summit, ahead of a second regional heads-of-state summit, due to be held in Kenya later in 2005. The ministers resolved to ask key donors, including the UN and the international donor community, to fund efforts aimed at improving peace and security in the region. The Great Lakes, a region encompassing Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda - has been unstable since Rwanda's 1994 genocide, in which up to 937,000 people were killed, according to Rwandan government estimates. Despite their abundant natural resources, some countries in the region rank among the poorest in the world, a result of years of recurrent conflicts that led to stagnation in economic growth, and the destruction of economic and social infrastructure. The ministers said they would use an upcoming meeting of the Group of Eight countries to advocate their proposal. Tanzania's foreign minister, Jakaya Kikwete, said his country would chair the UN Security Council in early 2006 and was planning to put the region's proposal on the council's agenda. "There must be sustainable mobilisation and international attention on the problems in the Great Lakes region, with its dire humanitarian and socio-economic consequences, which merit the promotion of a comprehensive development package," the summary of the ministers' report said. They expressed concern that the region risked further marginalisation and could face stiff competition for international resources, notably in the wake of the Asian Tsunami disaster and the signing of a peace accord in Sudan - two issues which have attracted considerable international support in recent times. During their meeting, the ministers discussed proposals on four themes of the AU-UN-supported International Conference on the Great Lakes Region. These are: peace and security; democracy and good governance; economic development and regional integration; and, humanitarian and social issues. Heads of state within the region are expected to adopt proposals on these themes when they meet later in 2005. These suggested protocols focus on efforts to improve peace and security and entail curbing the proliferation and circulation of small arms and light weapons, improving border security, carrying out systematic disarmament of combatants, as well as increasing defence and security cooperation among the countries in the region. The ministers also discussed proposed protocols on improving democracy and governance, including restoration of law and order in the region, improving judicial systems, promoting human rights and fighting impunity. Fifteen African leaders, among them the heads of state of the Great Lakes countries, signed a declaration 20 November 2004 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, outlining protocols of the proposed regional pact. [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]

Burundi

Agence France-Presse (AFP) 28 Feb 2005 Burundians vote on constitution in first post-conflict polls by Esdras Ndikumana and Beatrice Debut BUJUMBURA, Feb 28 (AFP) - Voters in Burundi on Monday cast ballots in a nationwide referendum on a power-sharing constitution aimed at bringing a final end to an 11-year civil war that has claimed 300,000 lives. Polling stations opened at 6:45 am (0445 GMT) for some 3.1 million Burundians to vote in the referendum, the first election in the tiny central African nation since it was plunged into chaos in 1993. "I hope this constitution will bring peace," said Marie, a 40-year-old farmer, as she prepared to cast her vote at Bujumbura's Kanyosha suburb. The new constitution, which is widely expected to be approved, envisages a balanced power arrangement between majority Hutus and minority Tutsis, who have dominated politics in the country of 7.1 million since independence from Belgium in 1962. "I am happy because this is the first time I am voting," Geoffrey, a 43-year-old Hutu told AFP. "In 1993, I was a refugee. I now hope we have recovered from this war situation." Polling stations are to close at 4:00 pm (1400 GMT) with preliminary results expected by Tuesday and final returns to be announced on March 4, according to election officials. Monday was a public holiday due to the landmark polls. In the capital, the atmosphere was calm as the polls opened about 45 minutes behind schedule with hundreds of voters waiting in line under tight security to cast their vote. "I came to vote because it is important for the transition to peace and democracy," a 55-year-old teacher told AFP outside the Sirphanie polling station in Bujumbura. "It's been a very long time since we've had this right," another 40-year-old voter chimed in. Under the constitution, Burundi's president will have a deputy from each of the ethnic groups while 60 percent of the cabinet will be Hutu and 40 percent Tutsi. Representation in the parliament, made up of a National Assembly and Senate, will be apportioned on a 50-50 basis with Hutu and Tutsi parties required to field candidates from both ethnicities to reach the mix. And, it calls for the army and the police force to also be equally split along ethnic lines: a critical component as the civil war erupted after the 1993 assassination of Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu who was the country's first democratically elected president, in an attempted Tutsi-led military coup. Analysts predict that pro-referendum Hutu parties, to which some 85 percent of eligible voters belong, will easily overpower opposition from Tutsi parties, which account for only 14 percent of voters. Many Tutsis believe the constitution, in place since November but unendorsed by the population, will mark their political death with its strict apportionment rules. A leading Tutsi opposition party, the Party for National Recovery (PARENA), has urged people to vote "no" in the referendum. Meanwhile, Burundi's Hutu President Domitien Ndayizeye -- who earlier this month abandoned plans to modify the draft ahead of the vote to allow him to stand for re-election -- has urged a "massive 'yes' vote." Monday's referendum, postponed three times since last year for logistical reasons, is the first step in a seven-tier election process, including legislative polls now set for April 22. On that date, Burundians are to vote for members of parliament who will then elect a president at an as-yet undetermined date. The president must then appoint a government. The referendum is key part of a peace process that has brought on board all but one of Burundi's seven rebel movements since it began in 2000. But even the lone rebel holdouts, the National Liberation Forces (FNL), have said they will not interfere with voting. With the constitution's success nearly assured, one analyst said its expected approval would be important mainly "as a curtain raiser before the actual elections." In the unlikely event that the constitution is rejected, it will still be in force until the end of the electoral process and will be left for the new government to deal with.

Côte d'Ivoire

Reuters 28 Feb 2005 Ivory Coast rebels say mediation efforts dead BOUAKE, Ivory Coast, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Ivory Coast's rebels said on Monday that international mediation efforts in the West African country were now dead after an attack on their positions by pro-government militia. "By these acts of war, (President) Laurent Gbagbo has definitively buried all the mediation efforts of the African Union and the international community," a statement from Sidiki Konate, spokesman for the rebel New Forces, said. The statement came after militia attacked rebels in Logouale, north of the western town of Duekoue. Ivory Coast has been divided into a rebel-held north and government-held south since a rebellion in Sept. 2002 triggered civil war.

Reuters 28 Feb 2005 Ivory Coast pro-government militia attack rebels By Ange Aboa ABIDJAN, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Pro-government militia attacked rebel fighters in western Ivory Coast on Monday, raising fears of a return to all-out war in the world's top cocoa grower. The fighting erupted around 4 a.m. (0400 GMT) in Logouale, 55 km (34 miles) north of Duekoue at the first rebel roadblock after a U.N.-policed buffer zone, rebels and militia fighters said. There was no immediate word of casualties. The fighting was the first outbreak of hostilities since forces loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo bombed rebel towns in the former French colony in November -- shattering a truce and demonstrating the fragility of a two-year peace process. "We started fighting with the rebels in Logouale this morning," said Felix Maho, head of administration for the FLGO militia based in the western town of Guiglo. Ivory Coast has been divided between a rebel-held north and government-held south since a rebellion in Sept. 2002 sparked a civil war that killed thousands and displaced over a million. "Our men are heading towards Logouale as we speak because of the fighting which started this morning. We don't know if there have been any injured or dead yet," said David Cisse, a rebel fighter in Man, a major rebel town north of Logouale. There are some 4,000 French and 6,000 U.N. troops policing the ceasefire zone between the two sides stretching right across the West African country. Monday's fighting started north of the zone after pro-government forces crossed the ceasefire line. "They attacked around 4 a.m. (0400 GMT). By now, the situation is almost under control. I cannot say any more. We have to push them back first," a senior rebel in the western town of Man, north of Logouale, told Reuters by telephone. The French army, which has soldiers nearby, said it had dispatched a team to check reports of fighting. ROAD BLOCKED BY ARMY Jules Yao Yao, a spokesman for Ivory Coast's army in the main city of Abidjan, said he was not aware of any fighting. A source at an Ivory Coast army command centre in Yamoussoukro said the country's armed forces were following events closely but the attack was nothing to do with them. In the cocoa town of Duekoue, Panou Charlemagne, manager of the Sifca-coop, said Ivory Coast's army had blocked all traffic from heading north on the road towards Man this morning. Some of the fiercest fighting of Ivory Coast's civil war took place in the west, a lawless territory where rebels, pro-government militia and fighters from neighbouring Liberia all roam and where ethnic tensions serve to inflame the mix. Fighters from the FLGO militia previously fought alongside Gbagbo's forces against rebels in the west. Helped by Liberian fighters they drove back the rebels in early 2003. FLGO fighters also swelled the ranks of Model, one of the rebel groups that helped oust Liberia's President Charles Taylor after invading Liberia from the west of Ivory Coast. The leader of another pro-government militia, known as the UPRGO, said they were planning to head to Logouale. "We are getting ready to go to Logouale. My men are getting dressed to go into battle. We are going to reinforce the FLGO who are fighting the rebels right now," said General Bahou Plou. "We are tired and we want to free our territory," he said. A peace deal was signed in 2003 between Ivory Coast's warring parties but political wrangling has stalled its implementation and the rebels have refused to disarm.

Congo

IRIN 18 Feb 2005 UN official in plea to Brazzaville over genocide suspects [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] © ICTR BRAZZAVILLE, 18 Feb 2005 (IRIN) - The prosecutor of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Hassan Jallow, asked the Congolese government on Thursday to strengthen its cooperation with the UN court to facilitate the arrest and prosecution of key suspects of the Rwandan genocide of 1994. "We need the international cooperation because the tribunal has no police to arrest people," he said during his visit to the Republic of Congo (ROC). "It's the national authorities who arrest them for the transfer to Arusha [Tanzania], based on our petitions." Jallow also lauded the ROC government for its long-time collaboration in prosecuting suspects who were involved in the genocide and who fled to Congo. "The Congolese government has helped us and facilitated our work," he said. "Since several years, the Congolese authorities arrested persons who were implicated in the Rwandan genocide. These people were transferred to Arusha where they wait for their trials." In 1995, the UN Security Council set up the tribunal, based in Tanzania, to try suspected participants in the genocide. The killings resulted in the deaths of up to 937,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus, according to official estimates. Jallow said the tribunal was looking for suspects of crimes that were committed inside and outside Rwanda. Many of those responsible for the genocide fled to other African countries and to the West. ROC is among the nations that experienced a major influx of Rwandan refugees. Most of them are dispersed in the southern regions of the country. Some of them stay in an official camp at Kintélé, 25 km north of Brazzaville, where Rwandan Hutus, Tutsis and Twas are living together. The tribunal is on the lookout for civilians and military personnel, as well as politicians who allegedly organised the ethnic cleansing between April and July 1994 in Rwanda. "We have already processed 25 people," Jallow said. "Another 18 are detained at Arusha and will be prosecuted. The tribunal is looking for another 14 high-ranking persons. They need to be found before the mandate of the tribunal ends." That will be in 2008. Should the tribunal fail complete its work, Jallow said: "The national authorities must be ready to judge persons who cannot be tried by the tribunal before 2008. We have decided to transfer the dossiers to the national authorities." Jallow said the tribunal had the support of the current Rwandan authorities.

DR Congo

Australian 15 Feb 2005 21 soldiers to be put to death From correspondents in Kinshasa A MILITARY court has sentenced 21 soldiers to death in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for looting, rape and refusal to obey orders. The soldiers were sentenced in Beni for crimes committed in December when they were sent as combat reinforcements to Kanyabayonga, an army statement said. Kanyabayonga is one of the regions in post-war DRC where various armed groups persist. In December, regular army soldiers clashed around Kanyabayonga with mutinous troops who were taken into the armed forces following a war that wracked the country between 1998 and 2003. People in the Kanyabayonga, Lubero and Rutshuru areas, near the vast DRC's eastern borders, have given many accounts of extortion and atrocities committed by both regular troops and former rebels. The human rights department of a large post-war UN mission in DRC (MONUC), deployed across the country to watch over a peace process and a political transition to democracy, has opened inquiries and taken eyewitness evidence from civilians of cases of harassment and worse by troop.

IRIN 16 Feb 2005 Prosecute ex-militia leaders, Kinshasa urged [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] KINSHASA, 16 Feb 2005 (IRIN) - The International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) has urged the Congolese government to vet and prosecute former militia leaders instead of appointing them to high-ranking positions in the newly integrated national army. "If the Democratic Republic of the Congo [DRC] is to achieve a lasting and sustainable peace, it must not appoint individuals to the army when there is evidence that they may be responsible for serious abuses," Juan Méndez, the president of the ICTJ and UN Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, said. He issued the statement in New York on Tuesday, just days after a military court in the DRC capital, Kinshasa, sentenced 21 soldiers to death for atrocities they committed in the east of the country. The court handed down the sentences only a few weeks after the government commissioned four suspected human rights abusers as army generals. The ICTJ said there were reports that two more alleged human rights violators also wanted to become generals. The ICTJ urged the Congolese government to desist from appointing militia leaders, "suspected of penetrating massacres and other war crimes", to senior command positions in the army. Instead, it urged the government to "prosecute the promoted former militias". The four, recently made generals, were leaders of militia groups that allegedly terrorised, abused and killed civilians in the south and east of the country until a peace deal was reached in 2003. Under the agreement, former rebels could to be assimilated into the national army. Last week, two other militia leaders, Jean-Pierre Guena, also known as Shinja Shinja - meaning "throat-cutter" in Swahili - and Bakanda Bakoka, both from the southeastern Katanga Province, demanded military appointments in exchange for commitments to disarm their groups. In an interview with UN-supported Radio Okapi, Guena threatened to burn down north Katanga if he received a rank lower than general, the ICTJ said. It added that the alleged crimes of the former militia and aspiring generals compared with those of the 21 rank and file soldiers who received death sentences. The soldiers received death sentences for looting, raping and disobeying orders. The convicted soldiers were fighting against dissident army units when they committed their crimes. "The objective of the Beni trial was to instil discipline in the reunified army," Jean-Willy Mutombo, the spokesman for the chief of staff of the Congolese armed forces, said. He said besides those sentenced to death, another soldier was jailed for 20 years for raping minors while six others received prison sentences of 10 to 20 years for indiscipline. Commenting on the trial, the official in charge of the human rights section of the UN Mission in the DRC, Sonia Bakar, told IRIN: "The trial was fast, Everything was done on one day while there should have been a thorough investigation into the matter." The president of a Congolese NGO, the Association for the Defence of Human Rights, Amigo Gonde, said it was unacceptable that people "who have blood on their hands" are named into the army hierarchy instead of being punished. "They should be brought to justice," he said. In October 2003, three Congolese NGOs submitted a report to the International Criminal Court (ICC), documenting atrocities committed by militias led by Guena and Bakoka. An investigation by the UN Mission in the DRC concluded that Guena and his militiamen were responsible for killings, torture, rape and mutilations of civilians in Katanga in February 2004. ICTJ has been involved in transitional justice in the DRC since early 2003 by providing advice and support to civil society groups, government institutions and international humanitarian organisations. Mendez said steps must be taken to end impunity and to promote justice and accountability. He said the Congolese government should implement a comprehensive and publicly transparent vetting programme for prospective and current high-ranking military officers, based on a criteria designed to exclude human rights abusers from military service. "Experience has shown that integrating rebel leaders into the regular army does not guarantee their loyalty," the ICTJ said. "Dissident army units led by two reintegrated rebels, Col Jules Mutebusi and Gen Laurent Nkunda, clashed with regular army forces in May and June of 2004 and occupied a provincial capital for several days."

AFP 25 Feb 2005 Nine UN peacekeepers killed in DR Congo ambush KINSHASA, Feb 25 (AFP) - Nine Bangladeshi UN peacekeepers were killed and as many as 11 wounded on Friday when their patrols were ambushed in northeast Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the UN mission in the country said. The attack, one of bloodiest against a UN peacekeeping mission in recent years, occurred in the Ituri region of the DRC which is a stronghold of several ethnic and political armed militias, the UN mission (MONUC) said. "At around 9:20 (0720 GMT) this morning, two foot patrols of a Bangladeshi MONUC contingent were caught in an ambush five kilometres (three miles) west of Kafe" in the Ituri region, MONUC mission spokesman Mamadou Bah said. He said nine peacekeepers had been killed but that another four, initially reported as missing, had later been found "in good health." In Washington, UN Undersecretary General Jean-Marie Guehenno, who is in charge of peacekeeping operations, said that in addition to nine dead, 11 had been injured and that all the casualties were from Bangladesh. Details of the ambush were sketchy and it was not immediately clear who was behind the attack, but Bah said the attack took place in an area where the Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI), one of six militias, is active. The security situation in the region has deteriorated in recent weeks despite MONUC operations in the region to dismantle militia camps run by a range of groups which have been terrorising villagers living in the region. Peacekeepers began those missions in December and on Thursday, MONUC arrested 30 people, including 27 suspected of being FNI members in the northern town of Datule. Since the end of last year, there had been a surge of violence in Ituri where the militias have gone on a spree of looting, rape and murder against civilians, driving more than 70,000 people from their homes. The displaced have generally been resettled at sites protected by the peacekeepers and received, until mid-January, emergency humanitarian assistance from UNICEF and the World Food Programme. The United Nations has been targetted for attack in Ituri in the past. Two MONUC military observers were killed there in May 2003 and another in February of last year. MONUC is currently the largest UN peackeeping operation in the world with some 14,500 so-called "blue helmets" under its command. It reinforced its presence in eastern DRC, in particular the Ituri region across the border from Uganda, where about 3,000 peacekeepers -- from Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Morocco -- are now deployed.

NYT 26 Feb 2005 9 U.N. Peacekeepers in Congo Killed by Militia Fighters By MARC LACEY GOMA, Congo, Feb. 25 - Unidentified militia fighters ambushed and killed nine United Nations peacekeepers on Friday in the volatile Ituri region of eastern Congo. It was the worst attack in the six years of the mission and a sign of continued instability ahead of planned nationwide elections. The nine soldiers were Bangladeshis on a foot patrol near the town of Kafe, about 20 miles northwest of Bunia, the capital of Ituri Province. They were protecting a nearby camp housing thousands of people who had fled their villages in recent weeks because of attacks by militias. The fallen soldiers were part of a larger group of about 20 peacekeepers who were walking through rugged vegetation in the heavy rain when they were attacked, United Nations officials said. The attack came as the peacekeepers had adopted a more aggressive posture in recent months, confronting and forcibly disarming militia groups that had been terrorizing the local population. "These blue helmets were out there protecting civilians, and they got ambushed while doing it," said Mamadou Bah, spokesman for the United Nations mission in Congo, which is known by the French acronym Monuc. Although a peace agreement has quelled much of the fighting in Congo, Ituri remains a lawless enclave marked by militia skirmishes and frequent attacks on the local people. In recent months more than 70,000 people have fled their homes and settled in camps scattered throughout the region. "The situation has been deteriorating over the last two months," said Johannes Wedenig, the head of Unicef in Goma. "Militias have been attacking civilians, and if Monuc was not protecting the people there would be no one to rely on. They'd be at the mercy of the armed men, who have been raping and killing and burning villages." Although the attackers were not immediately identified, some suspect militias from the Lendu tribe, who are bitter rivals of the Hema, who also live in the area, and clash frequently with them. There is some suspicion as well that the attack on the peacekeepers was in retaliation for the recent effort to confront the militias. On Thursday, peacekeepers arrested 30 people just east of Bunia. Most of those arrested were believed to be members of the Nationalist and Integrationist Front, a Lendu militia. Elections are planned in Congo for this year, although they will most likely be put off until next year. Many of the armed groups now attacking the population have been given the status of political parties, although the government has threatened to revoke that status if the violence does not stop. Interior Minister Théophile Mbemba made that announcement on Monday while visiting the village of Baliba, east of Bunia, which was attacked the day before his arrival by a Lendu militia. He also said the government planned to deploy a police brigade in Ituri to supplement the United Nations forces and some government forces already there. After the attack, the United Nations sent more military personnel to the region. Two attack helicopters and 90 peacekeepers headed to the scene of the ambush, officials said, but bad weather reduced their effectiveness in seeking out the attackers. At the United Nations, Secretary General Kofi Annan said he was saddened by the deaths and said the peacekeeping mission would continue its work. The United Nations has 4,800 troops in Ituri from four countries: Pakistan, Morocco, Nepal and Bangladesh. Across all of Congo, the mission has about 16,000 members, making it the largest of the organization's peacekeeping operations. UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo www.monuc.org

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.

AFP 24 Feb 2005 Six killed in Ethiopian ethnic violence Thursday February 24th, 2005 02:14. Printer-Friendly version Send this article to a friend Destinator : (enter destinator's email address) From (enter your name) (enter your email) ADDIS ABABA, Feb 23 (AFP) -- Six people were killed in clashes between rival ethnic groups in the border areas separating their regions in the east of Ethiopia, a UN agency said in a statement Wednesday. "Six people were killed and many others wounded during a conflict between the Oromo and Somali ethnic groups, near the town of Miesso, in the Oromo controlled region of western Haraghe on February 15," the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said. In total, 21,000 people have been forced to leave their homes after a referendum organised in October 2004 between the Oromo and Somali regions failed to resolve a dispute over administrative areas. "At the end of December we noticed the first forced movements of people in the town of Miesso, following disagreement about which region they belonged to," OCHA spokeswoman Kirsten Mildren said by telephone Wednesday. About 200,000 people in Ethiopia have been forced to leave their homes by either drought or ethnic conflicts, according to a UN report published in July. There are a number of different ethnic groups among Ethiopia's 70 million inhabitants who speak more than 70 languages.

Kenya

Reuters 24 Feb 2005 Man speared to death in Kenyan ethnic clashes LONGONOT, Kenya, Feb 24 (Reuters) - One man was speared to death on Thursday in the latest bout of fighting over land between rival ethnic groups in Kenya's Rift Valley, police said. The spearing brought to at least 20 the number of people killed since the fighting started last month, pitting rival Kikuyu and Masai groups against each other in the giant Rift Valley's landscape of volcanic peaks and craters. The man killed on Thursday, a Kikuyu, had strayed into a group of Masai warriors, Naivasha District Officer Kamau Karugo said. Police moved in shortly afterwards and arrested 15 Masai. About 200 officers are in the area but are thinly spread, witnesses said. The latest round of fighting began this week with house burnings. Two people were killed in clashes on Tuesday, and a day later police shot dead two men they said were preparing to attack a house. Witnesses say both sides have reinforced their ranks of fighters, most of whom are young men armed with spears, machetes and bows and arrows. The clashes, participants say, are rooted in issues of access to land and water. A Masai leader told Reuters that his pastoralist tribe had no intention of moving off of land it sees as its own. "A long-term solution to the water problem should be found, otherwise I don't see the tribal animosity ending soon," Masai elder David Kiblekenya said. Kamau Macharia, a Kikuyu whose house was burned on Monday night, said the government must act immediately. "This clash is senseless. All that we had was burned. The government should end these skirmishes now, and not tomorrow," he told Reuters. The violence was the latest in a series of clashes between members of various Kenyan communities over land in the past few months, an explosive issue that President Mwai Kibaki's government has promised to address.

Niger

BBC 11 Feb 2005 Born to be a slave in Niger By Hilary Andersson BBC Africa Correspondent, Niger Slavery continues to blight the lives of many millions around the world. Although officially abolished in some countries two centuries ago, people trafficking, bonded labour and child labour still exist. Slaves come from the poorest communities in Niger There are some places on earth that few outsiders visit or know about, vast empty sections of the earth where time has stood still for centuries. Niger is one of those places. It is a country that you can drive through for hours without seeing a soul. A nation of vast, barren and windswept landscapes, a country of people who live almost entirely off cattle, and off the labour of human slaves. Slavery in Niger is not an obscure thing, nor a curious relic of the past, it is an intrinsic part of society today. A Nigerian study has found that almost 8% of the population are slaves. You wonder how this can be in the 21st Century and why people do not know about it? We began a journey to find out more. Humiliation We drove for hundreds of miles north across the desert. There were no roads for much of the journey and our cars rattled and jarred across plains set with, what seemed like, solidified waves of sand every few feet. We choked on the dust, hour after hour, wondering if we would ever see another human being at all in this desolate place, let alone a slave. We were heading for a well, owned by a local nomadic leader and we had been told he, like many here, owned slaves. We eventually found his tents and reversed our cars immediately, hoping to locate his slaves without his knowledge first, so that we could speak freely to them, without them being afraid of intimidation. We found the slaves' tents some way off, and there we met Fatima, a mother of seven children. She lived in a scrawny brown tent that rose no higher than my elbow off the ground. Her children were all around and one of them had a face bloated with a terrible infection for which she had no medicine. She seemed humiliated by her status, but seemed to have no greater expectations of her life Fatima told us she had been working for her master for as long as she could remember. She said her master did not pay her, but fed and clothed her. "What can I do?" she said. "I have no money, I need food, I have children and so if I can work for a man who at least feeds me then that is good." When I asked her if she was a slave she looked at the ground, and said yes. She seemed humiliated by her status, but seemed to have no greater expectations of her life. Appalling abuse When we spoke to her masters they denied owning slaves. The practice of slavery was outlawed in Niger last year. Trading in slaves has been banned in Niger since the days of the French colonists in the last century, but ownership of slaves was never specifically banned. Most slaves in Niger today are the descendents of slaves who were kidnapped in wars and raids centuries ago, and were simply born into their status. Many slaves in Niger are appallingly abused by their masters. Slave children are taken away from their parents before they are two-years-old, to break the bonds between parent and child and to eliminate any sense of identity. The children grow up working in the house of the master. Assibit was born into slavery, as was her mother and her husband The slave owners encourage the slaves to reproduce to increase their numbers, sometimes even determining when they have sexual intercourse. They treat the slaves like their cattle. Slaves are often beaten for small misdemeanours. They work long hours and are sometimes deprived of food as punishment. There are documented cases of slaves being stripped naked in front of their families to humiliate them, of female slaves being raped by their owners, and even of male slaves being castrated by their owners as punishment. Hopes and fears Assibit, another slave we met, could not bear the punishment any longer and ran away from her master last July, leaving her husband, also a slave, behind. She undertook a traumatic journey back to her former owner with us and a human rights worker to see if, under Niger's new laws, her husband could be freed. When we got to his tents, she lowered herself in the seat so that she would not be seen. The human rights activist confronted the owner, a lanky thin older man, surrounded by his tall sons. They became aggressive and began to shout at us to turn off our cameras and leave. They screamed that the human rights activist was a slave too, and that he deserved a beating. An entire section of the population would have to be taught that they are not intrinsically inferior to others We tried to retreat into the car, but our vehicle was stuck in the deep soft sand and would not move. Eventually, with the sons banging on the windows the car began to plough forward slowly, and we fled. When Assibit first ran away from her owners she was asked what it was like to be free, but she did not understand the question. She did not understand the concept of freedom, or even the word. When I arrived in Niger, I could barely believe that slavery exists in this century on such a scale, but when I left I could not see how it could end in our generation. Ending slavery in Niger would require a social revolution. An entire section of the population would have to be taught that they are not intrinsically inferior to others, but that is what they have believed for generations. The slave owners, and the establishment, are reluctant to teach them.

Nigeria

IRIN 21 Feb 2005 Plateau state IDPs face daunting obstacles to return to "home of peace and tourism" [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] © IRIN Allocated land for IDP resettlement near Marrabaran Bauchi state. YELWA, 21 Feb 2005 (IRIN) - Throughout Plateau state in central Nigeria, colorful billboards urge people to "give peace a chance", to "stand united" and to "restore Plateau the beautiful". However, almost one year after spiraling violence between Christians and Muslims left more than 1,000 people dead and over 200,000 others displaced, many of those who fled are still too scared to return to the "home of peace and tourism", as this picturesque hilly state is officially known. A six-month, state of emergency was imposed in Plateau by President Olusegun Obasanjo in May 2004 to stop the indiscriminate slaughter of mainly Muslim cattle herders by Christian farmers and retaliatory attacks by the Muslims, which were equally bloody and horrific. Yet the state of emergency was lifted in mid-November. Many fear the lifting of exceptional security measures could presage a slide back into the bloody cycle of revenge attacks. Worse still, people fear that such killings could spread to other parts of Nigeria, Africa's most populous country with 126 million inhabitants. It would not be the first time. The massacre of several hundred Muslims in the small town of Yelwa in southern Plateau state last May, sparked deadly reprisals in Kano, Nigeria's second largest city, 350 km to the north. Yelwa's Muslim majority went on the rampage against Christians from the south of the country. The destruction wrought in last year's clashes is still plain to see in a string of towns and villages in and around Yelwa, where the violence reached its climax. In Yelwa itself, life remains grim. The Nigerian Red Cross reported at least 600 Muslims were killed in the town during one particularly bad fight in May 2004. This incident finally triggered the imposition of a state of emergency. Several mass graves in both the Muslim and Christian areas of the town attest to heavy losses on both sides over a period of intermittent skirmishing during the preceding four months. According to an assessment mission led by the European Commission's Humanitarian Office in July 2004, up to 80 percent of houses in Yelwa were destroyed, decimating the population of about 26,000. The Plateau state government calculated the total number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) within the state at almost 220,000 in September 2004, representing a cumulative total since ethnic and religious violence erupted in the state capital, Jos, in September 2001. Some of those who fled Yelwa have returned and are trying to pick up the pieces among the rubble and charred remains of their homes. Still, few have the means to start rebuilding. Esther Joseph and her nine children, who live in the one small part of her compound that remains relatively intact, are among these impoverished returnees. Joseph witnessed her husband being hacked to death when gangs of Muslim Hausa-Fulani attackers killed some 70 people from her own, predominantly Christian, Tarok tribe, as they hid in a church in February 2004. Her house overlooks both the church, which was burned to the ground, and the mass grave where her husband and scores of others are buried. "I never know what tomorrow will bring," Joseph said. "But I am not afraid because I have faith in God's protection." The church is slowly being rebuilt, as are several mosques that were destroyed in the violence. Pastor Sunday Wuyep described the reconstruction of these places of worship as a "confidence-building measure" to help heal wounds and encourage the community to return. Some of the wounds run deep, though, and will not heal easily. Since news of the crisis in Plateau disappeared from the headlines within Nigeria and further, humanitarian assistance has been virtually non-existent. The only relief agency present in the area, Medecins Sans Frontieres (Holland), is treating around 150 people a day, mostly for malaria and diarrhea, but also for trauma. Many people witnessed their own relatives being mutilated and killed, and hundreds of women and girls were abducted. Some were raped. Six-year-old Abdul Majid haltingly described how his Christian captors forced him to do domestic work and to drink alcohol. Relatives managed to trace him after he had spent seven months in captivity. Although some of those who fled their homes at the height of the violence have returned, many others are too afraid to come back. These include several thousand displaced people who remain stuck in camps in neighboring Bauchi and Nassarawa states. Many others have been taken in by friends and relatives and are effectively hidden within their host communities. As a result, there is no reliable data about the overall number of displaced people. Zanna Muhammed, the deputy director of Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency, said there had been no registration or verification of numbers of IDPs and many of the estimates in circulation were "grossly misleading". Displaced girls awaiting feeding at Womens' Centre camp Bauchi. Credit: IRIN In Nassarawa state, to the south of Plateau, only 250 people remain in the Shinge IDP camp near the town of Lafia. Some of the camp's former residents have integrated into the local community; some have joined relatives in other states, while others have returned to the Yelwa area to try and salvage what they can of their homes. Many of those who remain cite a lack of shelter as the main obstacle to their return. In Bauchi state - which is predominantly Hausa-Fulani and administered under Islamic Sharia law - about 3,000 IDPs from Plateau are living in a variety of public buildings in and around Bauchi city. They have even occupied two primary schools. In the Muazu House camp, 32-year-old Maimuna Adamu, who lost her husband and five of her seven children in the May 2004 attack on Yelwa, spoke for many of those who fled. "I definitely don't want to return there - ever," she said. "This will be my home now. But I need help to get shelter." In the nearby Women's Centre, camp leader Husain Mohamed echoed the same sentiment. "The great majority of people here will never return," he said. "In this place our own brethren welcome us. As long as Yelwa is under Shendam [the Christian-dominated local government authority] it won't be safe for us to live there." Conditions in the IDP camps are generally good, with the Bauchi state government providing food and other relief items, as well as allocating some land for resettlement. "It is not our policy to encourage resettlement in Bauchi," said Mohamed Babayo, director of the Bauchi state Task Force Committee set up to look after the people displaced from Plateau. "But with an estimated total of 24,000 internally displaced people still staying here, who may never return to their homes, we have to do something about it. Of course we have to be careful that we're not inundated with bogus IDPs trying to claim land, so we're proceeding very slowly and waiting for IDPs themselves to show genuine commitment to staying here and trying to rebuild by themselves." More than 2,000 plots of land have so far been allocated to displaced families near Bauchi city, but conditions vary greatly. At Baram there is electricity, there is a newly built primary school and a few new houses are going up. Meanwhile, at Marrabaran, a handful of people have started trying to clear the rocky land to put up new houses, but there is no infrastructure for them. There has been some ad hoc assistance with building materials, but nothing at all in terms of income-generation projects. Babayo blamed this on financial constraints and a lack of donor interest. He acknowledged that it could take "a very long time" for people to rebuild their homes and livelihoods. "But people are extremely enterprising," he added. "Host communities have also been extraordinarily generous and accommodating, so ultimately, people will succeed in resettling here." Despite the high levels of fear and animosity, the majority of Muslims and Christians in Plateau state agree that land disputes and a long history of ethnic rivalry are the underlying cause of the simmering conflict between them - not religious differences. Hausa-Fulani Muslims in Plateau have long complained that predominantly Christian farmers steal their cattle and prevent them from grazing, whilst the farmers counter that the Hausa-Fulani cattle encroach on their land. "The crux of the problem is that a lot of people are coming to this part of the country and trying to stake a claim to land that is not rightfully theirs," said Sheikh Yusuf Gomwalk, an Islamic scholar of the Jama'atu Nasril Islam organisation in Jos. He was referring to the entrenched divisions throughout Nigeria between people who are considered indigenous to an area, and those regarded as settlers. Even though settlers may have lived in an area for hundreds of years, they are consistently discriminated against in terms of land ownership, control of commerce, jobs and education. In predominantly Christian Plateau state, the majority of "settlers" belong to the Hausa-Fulani ethnic group, who have gradually trekked south from northern Nigeria and even Niger as the expanding Sahara desert has dried up their traditional grazing lands. "It is only the politicians who play the religious card," Gomwalk said. "This whole crisis is part of a larger scheme by the northern power base to dominate the country's Middle Belt. But there is particularly intense resistance to this in Plateau." IDP resettlement in Baram, where some houses are slowly going up. Credit: IRIN Some Plateau residents, including prominent community leaders, remain convinced that the state government initiated the recent crisis in order to rid the area of Muslim settlers. To them, the state of emergency was a blessing, which helped to restore confidence. Others are adamant that the recently re-instated state governor, Joshua Dariye, was made a scapegoat for the crisis. He was ejected from power six months ago, while Chris Ali, a former army general, handpicked by Obasanjo, was put in charge of Plateau. Nigeria has experienced numerous outbreaks of serious violence since the end of military rule in 1999, yet such emergency powers had not previously been invoked. Obasanjo will be forced by the constitution to retire after serving two consecutive, four-year terms as Nigeria's elected president, but there are already two main candidates limbering up for the presidential nomination of his People's Democratic Party (PDP). One is Vice President Atiku Abubakar. The other is former military head of state, Ibrahim Babangida, who like Obasanjo, is a former army general. Both these contenders are powerful northerners. However, Obasanjo, a Christian from the Yoruba southwest of Nigeria, is widely regarded to favor Babangida, who supported his own bid for power. Yet one of Abubakar's key supporters is the disgraced Plateau state governor, who lost his power. Against this background of Machiavellian politics at a national level, there are many who fear that the federal government's attempts to bring peace to Plateau state are largely empty gestures. One set event that formed part of this process was a Plateau state peace conference in September 2004, which President Obasanjo personally attended. This event was described by Yelwa councilor Abullahi D. Abdullahi II as "superficially good, but definitely not truly representative of the Plateau state residents and if anything, entrenching divisions even more deeply". Questions are also being asked about a proposed Truth and Reconciliation Commission. "This may be just a cover to avoid the issue of prosecuting and bringing to justice the perpetrators of the violence - including the security forces," said one Yelwa resident. "Until this happens there can be no forgiveness and no chance of peace." Further violence could trigger potentially massive population movements with a destabilising effect on the entire country. Ordinary Nigerians can only hope that the politicians will see this as a risk too far.

Reuters 23 Feb 2005 Nigeria probes deaths in military raid in oil delta 23 Feb 2005 15:12:46 GMT Source: Reuters ABUJA, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Nigeria's Senate has launched an investigation into allegations that several people were killed by Nigerian troops in a raid on a remote Niger Delta village, a senator said on Wednesday. The commander of the military task force in the delta has said only one person was killed in Saturday's raid on a group suspected of killing civilians and stealing crude oil in Odiama. But Bayelsa East Senator Rufus Spiff said he believed many more died in a gunfight that lasted several hours. "According to my constituents, many people have been killed and several people are missing in the surrounding bush, but they might come back. We'll have to investigate before we come to any concrete conclusion," he told Reuters. The Senate passed a motion on Wednesday for a special committee to visit Odiama, which is a three-hour boat ride from Bayelsa state capital Yenagoa, and report back within a week. The wetlands of the Niger Delta in southern Nigeria produce almost all of the OPEC member nation's 2.3 million barrels per day of oil, but output was unaffected by the latest fighting. The military launched the attack in Odiama in response to the killing of 12 people, including four local councillors, in early February in a boat ambush by militiamen embroiled in a bitter dispute over an oil-rich parcel of land. Tensions have been high in the fishing community since energy giant Royal Dutch Shell started developing an oilfield at Obioku, which has been claimed by rival communities in the Odiama area. Nigeria's military has been criticised for using excessive force in previous attacks on communities sheltering militiamen, particularly in the Niger Delta, where the army has deployed thousands of troops to protect oil installations operated by foreign multinationals. Nigeria is the world's eighth largest oil exporter and the fifth top supplier to the United States. In 1999, the army killed hundreds of people in the Odi community in Bayelsa after the killing of 12 policemen, rights activists say. The oil-rich but impoverished Niger Delta has been volatile for decades and local communities feuding over land rights as well as oil revenues clash frequently. Armed gangs backed by senior political and ethnic figures have mushroomed in recent years, building up sophisticated arsenals with the proceeds from stolen crude oil. Industry officials estimate about 10 percent of Nigerian crude oil is stolen and sold on international markets. The delta saw an upsurge of fighting in March 2003 when an ethnic Ijaw revolt against their Itsekiri neighbours and oil multinationals killed about 100 people, prompting the deployment of thousands of troops. The bloodletting forced oil companies to evacuate their facilities, briefly shutting 40 percent of Nigerian output.

IRIN 24 Feb 2005 Residents accuse soldiers of burning rural delta town, killing 30 [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] © PORT HARCOURT, 24 Feb 2005 (IRIN) - Residents in a rural town in the southern Niger Delta said government troops killed at least 30 people and torched houses during a raid carried out as part of investigations into an oil dispute between two local communities. More than 200 soldiers in gunboats attacked the remote town of Odioma in the Nembe district of Bayelsa state on Saturday, burning houses and firing at the inhabitants as they fled in confusion, residents said. Nimi Barigha-Amange, a clan chief in the area, said more than 30 bodies had been recovered and that many people were still missing. Felix Tuodolo, a local minority rights activist, circulated a list compiled by the Odioma community of 33 people allegedly killed by the soldiers. But a spokesman for the Nigerian army denied that there had been any deaths in the incident, which took place near the Atlantic coast 80 km southwest of Port Harcourt, the hub of Nigeria's vital oil industry. “Nobody died. The commander who led the operation didn’t report any deaths,” army spokesman Mohammed Yusuf said. Both Odioma and the neighbouring town of Obioku each lay claim to a stretch of swampland adjoining the two communities where Shell recently began drilling for oil. Earlier this month, a boat taking local leaders mediating in the dispute to Obioku was attacked by gunmen, whom the authorities suspect came from Odioma. Four local officials were among the 12 people killed in the attack. Army spokesman Yusuf said troops had been sent to hunt down those responsible. But he said the soldiers came under fire as they approached Odioma last Saturday and opened fire in return. A Shell spokesman declined to comment on the violence, saying the land dispute was a matter for the Nigerian authorities to resolve. Shell has in the meantime suspended drilling activities in the disputed patch of swamp land, known as Owukubu. Violence between communities laying competing claims to oil land and the jobs and welfare amenities associated with it, is rife in the impoverished Niger Delta, the region that produces much of Nigeria's 2.5 million barrels of daily oil exports. In response to violence by gangs of criminals and militants who steal oil from pipelines, kidnap workers and generally disrupt oil operations, President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government has deployed thousands of troops to the region in the past two years. Under Obasanjo, troops have often been accused of committing brutal atrocities against unarmed civilians in the oil-producing southeast of Nigeria. In November 1999 soldiers pursuing gunmen who killed 12 policemen, burnt down the town of Odi in the Niger Delta and were accused of killing hundreds of people.

Reuters 23 Feb 2005 Six die in communal clash in northern Nigeria 23 Feb 2005 18:30:12 GMT Source: Reuters ABUJA, Feb 23 (Reuters) - A clash between herdsmen and farmers in remote northern Nigeria has killed at least six people and prompted the deployment of hundreds of police to the area, a police spokesman said on Wednesday. Police said violence erupted around Monday when roaming ethnic Fulani herdsmen fleeing a clash with farmers three weeks ago in the area of Ringim, encroached on farmlands in the neighbouring Taura area. "The herdsmen were trying to graze their cattle on the farmers' farmlands, and they clashed, attacking each other with bows and arrows and cutlasses. Two died on the Fulani side and four died on the farmers' side," said Jigawa state police spokesman Sunday Digha. At least 300 policemen had since been moved to Taura to calm the situation down, he said. At least four people were killed and several were injured in the clash in Ringim earlier this month. Communal clashes between roaming Fulani herdsmen and indigenous farmers are common in Nigeria's dusty north, as nomads fleeing the expansion of the Saharan desert and over-grazed lands push onto more fertile farmlands. The country has seen a surge in violence since the end of 15 years of military rule in 1999. At least 11,000 have died in religious, ethnic and communal killings. Many Nigerians say worsening poverty in Africa's most populous country has heightened tensions between rival communities.

Rwanda see France

Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne) 15 Feb 2005 First Gacaca Trials For Early March (Official) Kigali The long-awaited, repeatedly postponed trial hearings in Rwanda's semi-traditional Gacaca courts are scheduled to start in early March, the Executive Secretary of the Gacaca department told Hirondelle News Agency on Tuesday. Since the inauguration of the courts over three years ago, only pre-trial hearings aimed at identifying victims and suspects have been held. "Everything is in place for the trials to start either on March 3 or 10," Domitilla Mukantaganzwa said. "A cabinet meeting later this week will decide the exact date from those," she added. Gacaca courts were set up to speed up genocide trials and reconciliation after authorities realized that regular courts would take over 100 years to complete all genocide trials. The courts are presided over by volunteer judges elected from their communities. The judges are elected on the basis of 'high moral integrity'. Prior knowledge of conventional legal principles is not a prerequisite. The judges have all been given training in basic legal principles and the Gacaca law. Authorities are also counting on the judges invoking traditional Rwandan legal skills. "All necessary logistical arrangements for the start of the trials have been made", said Mukantaganzwa. "In areas that have not yet received equipment, we have it stocked up nearby", she added. Political leaders have recently embarked on promotional tours of the country, encouraging participation in the courts.

Guardian UK 16 feb 2005 From four-star sanctuary to star of Hollywood: the hotel that saved hundreds from genocide Film tells story of manager who created an unlikely haven in Rwanda by keeping militiamen at bay with wit and bribes of cheese and wine Jeevan Vasagar in Kigali The scorched carpet has been ripped up and replaced, the smoke-stained walls wear a fresh coat of paint, and the swimming pool where desperate refugees came to drink the stagnant water has been cleaned and refilled. From the fourth-floor restaurant, where waiters serve grilled fish as a jazz saxophonist plays, guests at the refurbished Hotel des Mille Collines enjoy a panoramic view of Rwanda's tree-studded capital, Kigali. But memories are not erased as easily. "There were people sleeping everywhere," the concierge, Zozo, recalled. "There was no water. It was filthy here. In the city, guns were shooting - boom, boom - and there was smoke rising." In 1994, as genocidal violence swept Rwanda, the four-star hotel became a sanctuary for 700 Tutsis whose lives were saved largely by the guile of the manager, Paul Rusesabagina. The remarkable story of the Mille Collines, where not a single life was lost during the 100 days of slaughter, is now an Oscar-nominated Hollywood film starring Don Cheadle as Rusesabagina. It opens in the UK next week. Elsewhere in Rwanda, churches and stadiums that terrified Tutsis believed would be a place of refuge were turned into places of mass murder. Even at the Mille Collines, bullets were fired into the lobby and a shell landed on the first floor. Militiamen made regular attempts to clear out those seeking safety. The refugees survived through the wits of the manager, a Hutu, whose wife Tatiana, played in the film by British actress Sophie Okonedo, was a Tutsi. He bartered fine cheeses, wine and cognac from company stores to keep the killers at bay. "The UN was here but they did nothing," said Zozo, a stocky man in navy blue livery, who still welcomes guests through the glass double doors. "Monsieur Paul did everything." Within the 113-room, five-storey hotel, a micro-society established itself. The hotel kitchens provided meals of beans and rice for refugees; a priest celebrated mass and conducted marriages in the conference room; there was a doctor and nurses, who helped deliver a baby in room 216. In the early days after the blood-letting began, on April 7 1994, the hotel was the assembly point for western expatriates. It became a magnet for middle-class Tutsis, who hoped the presence of foreigners might save their lives. "We thought that would be our protection, the fact that the hotel was a place for whites," said radio journalist Thomas Kamilindi, who got to the hotel on April 14. Evacuated But within the first few days, the expatriates were evacuated, and the Rwandans were forced to rely on their own ingenuity and contacts. The Mille Collines was a place of shelter for the well-connected and the wealthy rather than the masses. "There were lawyers, doctors, journalists and civil servants here," said Mr Kamilindi, whose elder daughter Igihozo, then five, was murdered in the genocide. "There were simple people here too, but they were people who had been brought here by their bosses." More middle-class refugees joined them. As it became clear that churches would not be safe, some wealthy Tutsis bribed militiamen for safe passage to the Mille Collines. Part of the reason for the survival of these refugees was the connections they still maintained. Even as Rwanda plunged into the abyss, guests such as François Xavier Nsanzuwera, a former attorney general and moderate Hutu, used their contacts in an attempt to raise international attention. They were able to communicate because the génocidaires had cut the phone lines but failed to cut off the fax, which could also be used to make voice calls. "We formed a committee. We wrote and sent faxes," said Kamilindi. "François Xavier was a lawyer and a human rights activist. He knew many different numbers. We sent faxes to the White House, the Elysée Palace and several human rights organisations." The journalist went on French radio to describe conditions in Kigali. The interview prompted the Rwandan army to send a soldier to kill him; the soldier, a former childhood friend, spared his life. As the genocide raged on, spanning three months from its start in April till early July, conditions got steadily worse. "By June it was terrible. The electricity was cut, and the generator was not working," said Abias Musonera, 47, the hotel's technical manager, who survived and has stayed on in his old job. "People uprooted the bushes outside, and chopped the hotel doors down to make firewood. They lit fires to cook, even in the corridors, and burned holes in the carpets." Musonera's wife, Immaculée, gave birth to son Moise, now 11, in a hotel room. As time went on, the lack of water grew increasingly dire. Water from the pool was rationed out to those in the hotel, who drank it even after Hutu soldiers urinated in it, saying: "This is just water for Inyenzi [cockroaches, the term for Tutsis]." People were crowded 10 to a bedroom, which cost $125-a-night before the genocide began. More slept in the corridors, the lobby and in the bar by the pool. Whenever the refugees in the hotel were threatened by militiamen, the manager and other inmates used contacts in the Rwandan military to ward off the danger. Rusesabagina used alcohol to buy off Hutu leaders such as the army commander, Major General Augustin Bizimungu. He persuaded such senior officers to restrain more junior commanders who wanted to exterminate the hotel's occupants. Kamilindi said: "What Paul did was extraordinary. He gave us the hotel for free. When the water in the pool ran out, he sent a lorry to get more water, I don't know where from. "Each time they menaced the hotel, he called the army officers, he opened the cellars and he distributed the wine and the champagne." Bizarrely, even while it sheltered people who were targets for the Hutu extremists, the Mille Collines was a haven for the families of some alleged génocidaires too. This may have provided some protection. Father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, who presided over the Sainte Famille cathedral where Tutsis were butchered, entrusted his elderly mother to the hotel's protection - because she was a Tutsi. The Catholic priest, who carried a revolver in his belt during the genocide, is accused by human rights groups of colluding with the killers. Robert Kajuga, national president of the Hutu extremist militia, the Interahamwe, checked his brother Wyclif into the Mille Collines for the same reason. The Kajuga brothers were from a Tutsi family whose father had acquired Hutu identity papers for his family, and Robert knew even his brother's life was at risk. A degree of protection was also provided by the UN, whose commander, Roméo Dallaire, is played by Nick Nolte in the film. A UN armoured car was stationed outside the hotel's reception, and the blue flag was flown. Survivors believe this was because UN officers were staying at the hotel too. "They were protecting their own," said Zozo, real name Wellars Bizumunumyi, 50, whose wife and four children were killed in 1994. Rusesabagina now lives in Brussels and runs a trucking firm in Zambia. Last month he told the American People magazine: "What happened in Rwanda is now happening in Darfur, in the Congo, in all of these places they are butchering innocent civilians. It is high time we know that a human life in Africa is as important as a human life in the west." The Mille Collines is up for sale, following the bankruptcy of its Belgian parent company Sabena, but executives say none of the staff will be fired. "I would rather lose my life than see the people here lose their jobs," said Christian Van Buggenhout, president of the trustees administering the bankrupt firm. The hotel is still a place of inaccessible luxury for most Rwandans. Room rates range from $88 (£49) to $202 (£112) a night, in a country where 80% live on less than $2 a day. Despite this, the story of the hotel has become a small symbol of hope amid the horrors of the genocide. Another film set in the hotel is being made. It is based on Canadian writer Gil Courtemanche's novel A Sunday by the Pool in Kigali, which tells the story of a foreign journalist's relationship with a Tutsi waitress.

VOA 24 Feb 2005 UN Tribunal Hands 15 War Crimes Cases to Rwanda By VOA News 24 February 2005 The United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal for Rwanda has handed 15 of its cases over to Rwandan authorities. Tribunal officials say the move is intended to help the court speed up its work prosecuting suspected leaders of Rwanda's 1994 genocide, in which an estimated 800,000 mostly ethnic Tutsis were killed. They say the 15 suspects, still at large, are accused of genocide and crimes against humanity. Rwandan officials have been pressing the tribunal to hand over suspected masterminds of the genocide for trial in their home country. Rwanda's Deputy Chief Prosecutor Martin Ngoga Thursday welcomed the tribunal's decision. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has convicted 20 people and acquitted three since it was set up in 1994. Another 25 people are on trial, while 18 others are awaiting trial. Some information for this report provided by AP and AFP.

Reuters 24 Feb 2005 Rwandans Say Genocide Film Doesn't Capture Horror By REUTERS Published: February 24, 2005 Filed at 5:39 a.m. ET KIGALI (Reuters) - Survivors of Rwanda's 1994 genocide criticized newly released films set amid the massacres on Thursday, saying they failed to capture the full extent of the horror or contained historical inaccuracies. While some Rwandans welcomed ``Hotel Rwanda'' as a reminder for the world of the killings of some 800,000 people, survivors who watched copies of the film said it should have contained more graphic scenes of violence. ``I do not think an outsider can really understand the gravity of the genocide by watching that movie ... The terror suffered by the victims was unimaginable,'' said Jacqueline Ruhamyambunga, who lost almost 60 family members during the 100 days of slaughter. ``The film does not show the rape, blood, thousands of decomposing corpses and horrible suffering that we people out of that hotel witnessed.'' ``Hotel Rwanda,'' which has grabbed the limelight with three Oscar nominations, focuses on a hotel in Kigali where the brave manager creates an oasis of safety amid the genocide, in which Hutu extremists killed minority Tutsis and Hutu moderates. Paul Rusesabagina, the real-life played by Oscar-nominated ``Ocean's Twelve'' star Don Cheadle, has defended director Terry George's decision to focus on events in the hotel more than those on the streets outside. But some survivors were disappointed that the film did not take a more explicit approach to the massacres. ``The killings occur off-camera for the most part, away from the film's settings,'' said Augustine Ndoba, another survivor. ``This definitely fails to bring to the screen the reality of the slaughter -- it's another Hollywood fiction.'' OLD WOUNDS But some survivors say the film is still powerful enough to reopen old wounds. ``The killings in the background reminded me of my relatives -- many of them were slaughtered in a similar way,'' said Claudette Basinga, who was 14 at the time of the genocide and lost over a dozen relatives. ``I almost failed to finish the entire movie -- I was busy recalling the killings -- almost failing to concentrate on the subject matter,'' said Basinga, who used to hide on the roof of her house with her parents when Hutu militia came knocking. Another new film on the genocide, ``Sometimes in April,'' directed by Raoul Peck, takes a much more explicit approach, featuring scenes such as the execution of one of the leading characters, shot in the back just as a friend, himself held at gunpoint by extremists, prepares to hack at him with a machete. Soldiers open fire on a room full of girls at a school where they thought they would be safe. A teacher and a girl who survive have to climb from under a pile of bloodied bodies. The wife of central character Augustin, played by Idris Elba, blows herself and several soldiers up with a hand grenade to avoid being raped. But although the film paints a more detailed picture of the grisly reality of the genocide, some Rwandans say it portrays the killings as the responsibility of the Hutu militia, neglecting the careful planning by the government and military. Francois Ngarambe, president of an association of genocide survivors, said many were pleased that it reminded the world that preventable atrocities had been committed in Rwanda but the film neglected to portray the element of planning. ``The film is characterised by very serious inaccuracies and omissions which made most of survivors say 'It is not our story!''' he said.

NYT 26 Feb 2005 Women's Voices Rise as Rwanda Reinvents Itself By MARC LACEY KIGALI, Rwanda, Feb. 23 - The most remarkable thing about Rwanda's Parliament is not the war-damaged building that houses it, with its bullet holes and huge artillery gashes still visible a decade after the end of the fighting. It is inside the hilltop structure, from the spectator seats of the lower house, that one sees a most unusual sight for this part of the world: mixed in with all the dark-suited male legislators are many, many women - a greater percentage than in any other parliamentary body in the world. A decade after a killing frenzy left this tiny Central Africa country in ruins, Rwanda is reinventing itself in some surprising ways. Women make up 48.8 percent of seats in the lower house of Parliament, a higher percentage than in the legislative bodies in countries like Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, known for their progressive policies. The rise of women stems in part from government initiatives aimed at propelling them to the upper ranks of politics. But their numbers do not necessarily add up to influence. They are more a reflection of the demographics and disillusionment spawned by the killing spree that left 800,000 or more people dead, though some lawmakers are trying to use their new place in government to enhance the lot of women in what remains a deeply patriarchal land. "Before the genocide, women always figured their husbands would take care of them," said Aurea Kayiganwa, the coordinator of Avega, a national organization representing Rwanda's many war widows. "But the genocide changed all that. It forced women to get active, to take care of themselves. So many of the men were gone." At the end of the ethnic warfare of the 1990's, women greatly outnumbered men - some estimate the ratio as 7 to 1 - a result of the wanton killing of so many men and the escape of so many others involved in the carnage. During the rebuilding of the country, then, women's anguished voices were difficult not to hear, and they became what was seen as a powerful and credible force for reconciliation. "I used to see politics as something bad," said Athanasie Gahondogo, a member of Parliament and executive secretary of the Forum for Rwandan Women Parliamentarians. "It's what caused our problems and made me a refugee for so long. But now I want to have a seat at the table." Women were a tiny percentage of those jailed for taking part in the strife between the Tutsi, who make up about 15 percent of the population, and the Hutu, who represent nearly all of the rest. One study put the portion of women involved at just 2.3 percent. A minister of family and women's affairs in the old government, Pauline Nyiramasuhukon, is on trial on genocide charges at the International Criminal Tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, but the heinous charges attributed to her, including inciting others to rape Tutsi women, are considered by many here to be an aberration when it comes to women. "There's a widespread perception in Rwanda that women are better at reconciliation and forgiveness," said Elizabeth Powley, who has studied Rwandan women's political rise for Women Waging Peace, an organization based in Cambridge, Mass. "Giving them such prominence is partly an effort at conflict prevention." During the drafting of the country's new postwar Constitution, 30 percent of the seats in the two house of Parliament were designated for women. But an unexpected thing happened in October 2003 when voters went to the polls to elect a Parliament for the first time since the war. They chose even more women than many male politicians expected. "Some men even complained that women were taking some of the 'men' seats," said Donnah Kamashazi, a representative in Rwanda for the United Nations Development Fund for Women. Six of the 20 seats in the Senate are held by women, meeting the 30 percent set aside. But in the lower house, which has 80 seats, women won 39, 15 more than the number reserved for them. Taken together, women make up 45 percent of the two chambers, just below the 45.3 percent in Sweden's single-chamber Parliament. The political representation of Rwandan women is not limited to the legislative arena. There is a female chief justice of the Supreme Court, several female cabinet members, a female head of the influential National Unity and Reconciliation Commission and a female deputy police chief, to name but a few of the prominent women in Rwanda's political world. All that said, women continue to suffer profoundly in today's Rwanda. "I try to forget what happened in 1994," said one of the suffering ones, Cécille Mukampabuka, 64, whose leg was shattered and who lost much of her family back then. "I would go mad if I didn't try to forget. But I can't ever forget. It's not over yet for me. I'm still suffering." Rwanda remains a male-dominated land, far more than the gendersensitive numbers would suggest. Patriarchal traditions remain strong in the home, where experts say women continue to suffer from spousal abuse and where the notion that the man is the lord of the manor thrives. A female senator disclosed to colleagues recently that she still deferred to her husband during official functions in her home so as not to question his supremacy there. And the uppermost reaches of government remain the preserves of men. In Rwanda, President Paul Kagame, the former rebel leader whose forces quelled the mass killing of Tutsi and moderate Hutu in 1994, holds a firm grip on power, and loyalty to him remains a prerequisite for political survival, no matter one's sex. Criticism of any aspect of governing in Rwanda, including the country's promotion of women, is done at one's own risk. Recently, when the head of a women's organization questioned the effectiveness of the country's female legislators in solving women's problems and likened them to flowers, which look good but do little else, she was condemned and threatened. Shortly afterward, she fled the country. "It was bad research," complained Odette Nyiramirimo, an influential senator and former cabinet minister. "She was calling the women stupid. She used the word flower to describe them. I think she was wrong." Ms. Nyiramirimo and other women in politics here acknowledge that Parliament does not play an overly confrontation role with the executive branch, an outgrowth, they say, of the divisive politics of the country's past. Only a handful of pieces of legislation have originated in Parliament in recent years, for instance, and little if anything that Mr. Kagame suggests is rejected, or even substantially altered, before adoption. Women also agree that it has taken some time for the female legislators to get their feet wet in politics. During a recent afternoon of political debate, it was clear that the proceedings were being dominated by men. But women are making inroads. Legislation passed in 1999, before the current influx of women, liberalized the rules restricting inheritance for women, which were a major force in keeping women poor. Penalties for child rapists have been toughened, an outgrowth of the brutal treatment that women and girls suffered in 1994. "Men are watching us," Ms. Nyiramirimo said. "They wonder if we'll rise up to a higher level. We're learning fast, because we have to. We say to each other that we can't be as good as the men - we have to be better." Ms. Nyiramirimo said the true test of women's success would be how much they changed the lives of rural women, those who do not tool around the capital in chauffeur-driven vehicles and do not spend their time debating the issues of the day. "Women in leadership are doing the little they can, but the problems are as big as the sea," said Mrs. Kamashazi of the United Nations Development Fund for Women. "Sometimes you just say, 'Oh, my goodness.' " Rwanda remains a desperately poor country, where social indicators like life expectancy, child mortality and literacy lag significantly behind most of the world. Much of the day-to-day toil falls squarely on the shoulders of the nation's war-weary women. "I grew up in a rural area, and every morning before school I had to get up early and fetch water at the river," Ms. Nyiramirimo recalled. "It was so painful to balance it on your head. Every time I go to my village I see girls and women still doing it." One initiative she hopes to push her colleagues to adopt is a program to import donkeys, which are common in other parts of Africa but rather rare here. They would be bred and then distributed to villages to help relieve the loads women must bear. Talk of putting 1994 in the past is difficult for many women across Rwanda, who find themselves poor and alone, or who suffer from AIDS contracted during a violent rape then, or who are now raising many children who are not their own but who were orphaned in the killing spree. One of them is Winfred Mukagirhana, 46, who was raped repeatedly in 1994 and like so many other Rwandan women is now dying of AIDS. She lost her husband and four of her five children in 1994. Her lone surviving boy, who was 12 back then, is now an emotionally disturbed young man who cannot get the brutal attacks that he witnessed out of his head. "What can the government do for me?" she asked, saying she could not feel much satisfaction from the statistics on women's progress that have put Rwanda so high compared with other countries in the world. "My life is over. I'm almost dead."

Sudan

International Herald Tribune 12 Feb 2005 www.iht.comA losing strategy on war crimes by Stéphanie GirySaturday, February 12, 2005 Darfur and the ICC NEW YORK In September, the Bush administration went out on a limb to call the ethnic cleansing in Darfur a "genocide" and threaten UN sanctions, only to balk at more concrete measures. Now, the recommendations of the UN commission that investigated the crisis - which rest on questionable legal grounds - promise to be just as ineffective. The panel has urged the Security Council to refer the matter to the new International Criminal Court, the "logical" place, Secretary General Kofi Annan has said, to try these crimes. Though the suggestion may seem sensible, there's one big problem with it: Most of the perpetrators in Darfur can't be tried before the ICC because Sudan hasn't ratified the court's founding statute. The panel's failure to admit this limitation is staggering. It is so staggering, in fact, that coming from a group of respected experts, it may not be an oversight at all. More likely, it's a daring strategy to expand the court's ambit over one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. Unfortunately, it's also a losing strategy. Consider the basics. The Rome Statute, which created the ICC, gives it the authority to handle genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression. But the court can only consider these crimes if it also has jurisdiction over the accused. The Rome Statute requires that those persons be either nationals of a state party to the treaty or people acting there. Sudan hasn't ratified the statute, so the ICC could only hear cases from Darfur that involve non-Sudanese nationals from states recognizing the court - hardly the bulk, one suspects, of the perpetrators. Yet the UN panel ignored this requirement, invoking instead parts of the treaty that set out how ICC procedures get started. The ICC's jurisdiction can be "triggered," the panel argued, if the Security Council refers a case to the court's prosecutor. Here, it took liberties with an important distinction between what cases the ICC has authority to hear and how those can be brought to it. Meanwhile, it accomplished little by recommending a procedure for funneling cases that can't be prosecuted. Another problem is that the Security Council can't be trusted to act on the commission's request. Washington has already said it will oppose any measure that could boost the ICC's legitimacy; it favors handing the Darfur cases to a new ad hoc tribunal. There's also China, which spent the summer bickering over the wording of Security Council resolutions designed to pressure Khartoum into stopping the killings. As Washington sponsored drafts threatening sanctions, Beijing, which invests heavily in Sudan's oil industry, worked hard to defang them and then abstained from voting. By overlooking these politics and the inherent limits on the ICC's authority, favoring talk of accountability over real prospects for it, the UN panel may have harmed its cause and its court. Curiously, in the process, the panel has begun to sound a lot like the Bush administration, which has denounced the massacres more than most governments but done as little to stop them, thus eroding rather than upholding its obligations. Whether Washington's failure to stop a "genocide" might damage the standard itself is a question that seems not to have even crossed the minds of White House staffers. With the UN panel's new report, the United States now finds itself in an awkward position: opposing the Security Council's mobilization, which it spent the summer advocating, because of a longstanding beef against the ICC. Once again, it is at odds with the UN, arguing that while the Darfur massacres are genocide, they aren't for the ICC to look into, whereas the UN panel claims that they aren't genocide but must be examined by the ICC. Yet the more the two disagree over terminology and methods, the more alike they become: In handling the crisis in Darfur, they seem equally ineffectual and perhaps even irresponsible. Together, they have muddled an important legal standard and damaged the credibility of an important institution, complicating the prosecution of the massacres in Sudan today and the prevention of crimes elsewhere in the future. (Stéphanie Giry, an associate editor at Foreign Affairs, was in 2002 a lawyer with the U.N. Office of Legal Affairs.)

www.sudantribune.com 15 Feb 2005 Sudanese government ready to try "genocide" suspects : minister Tuesday February 15th, 2005. KHARTOUM, Feb 14, 2005 (SUNA) -- Minister of Justice Ali Mohamed Osman Yassin has stressed that the government will try anyone who is indicted in genocide cases inside Sudan, pointing out that everyone is equal before the law, and that no one is above the law, or will be protected by the state because of his post or social class. Photo caption - a special judge, sits in court in Nyala Sept 30, 2004 to try six Sudanese men accused of belonging to the Janjaweed, who killed 24 people in the southern Darfur region last Oct.

AP 17 Feb 2005 U.N. Wants ICC to Take Up Darfur Abuses Thursday February 17, 2005 4:16 AM AP Photo KHT104 By LEYLA LINTON Associated Press Writer UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. human rights chief on Wednesday urged the Security Council to immediately refer abuses in Darfur to the International Criminal Court, while Kofi Annan called for ``urgent action'' to end the violence in the vast region in western Sudan. Louise Arbour strongly backed the recommendations of a U.N. commission that concluded last month that the Sudanese government and militias carried out mass killings and probably war crimes in Darfur. The commission called for the killings in to be referred to the ICC, the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal. The U.N. secretary-general also told the 15-nation Security Council it was ``vital'' that the perpetrators of the crimes were punished. The commission's report was ``one of the most important documents in the recent history of the United Nations,'' Annan said. ``It makes chilling reading. And it is a call to urgent action.'' ``This report demonstrates, beyond all doubt, that the last two years have been little short of hell on earth for our fellow human beings in Darfur. And despite the attention the council has paid to this crisis, that hell continues today,'' he said. ``As others have said before me, while the United Nations may not be able to take humanity to heaven, it must act to save humanity from hell,'' Annan said. After years of tribal clashes over scarce resources in the desert region, conflict erupted in earnest in February 2003 when rebels took up arms against what they saw as years of state neglect and discrimination against black Sudanese by Arab tribes. The government is accused of responding with a counterinsurgency campaign in which Arab militia known as Janjaweed committed rape, mass killings and wanton destruction against the African population. The government denies the allegations. Arbour said the ICC, which began operating in The Hague, Netherlands, in 2003, was the right place for any prosecutions and was ``ready to go.'' The United States, China and Algeria expressed opposition to the ICC at the Security Council meeting to discuss the commission's report, diplomats said on condition of anonymity. Arbour also said that although the commission did not find that the Sudanese government had a genocidal policy, individuals accused of atrocities in Sudan could still be convicted of genocide. The United Nations has called Darfur the world's worst humanitarian crisis, saying the conflict has claimed 70,000 lives since March - mostly from disease and hunger. It affects 2 million people and U.N. officials say the situation is deteriorating. President Bush's administration is vehemently opposed to the International Criminal Court, claiming Americans could be prosecuted for frivolous or political reasons. The United States has called instead for a separate tribunal based in Arusha, Tanzania, to prosecute alleged perpetrators in Darfur, a proposal that has received little support among council members. The United States has circulated a draft U.N. resolution calling for a 10,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission to help enforce the recent peace deal between the government and rebels in southern Sudan and authorizing the peacekeepers, subject to approval by Annan, to assist an African Union force which is trying to help end the conflict in Darfur. The AU has deployed about 1,900 of an expected 3,320-strong force. But at his monthly lunch Wednesday with the Security Council, Annan urged members to think about the implications of deploying a large U.N. force to monitor the relatively peaceful north-south agreement while the conflict in Darfur was getting worse, a council diplomat said. Annan indicated that the U.N. Secretariat was considering several options to beef up the force in Darfur, the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity. In a separate development, six tribal leaders in a southern Darfur area fraught with violence agreed Wednesday to cease attacks against each other and drop all claims for blood money for past assaults on tribesmen. It was not clear how the agreement would be enforced.

Reuters 18 Feb 2005 UN Council deadlocked over court for Darfur trials By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council was split on Thursday over where to try war crime cases from Sudan's Darfur region, with Europe, China and the United States pushing different options and diplomats seeing no easy solution. For the first time, 12 of the 15 Security Council members said they favored sending perpetrators of atrocities in Darfur to the new International Criminal Court in The Hague, which the Bush administration opposes. No formal vote was taken. Opposition during consultations late on Wednesday also came from China and Algeria, which agreed with Sudan that Khartoum should use its own courts and want no referral to either the ICC or to a U.S.-proposed new ad hoc court in Tanzania. Although the Bush administration has been in the forefront of recommending tough action on Sudan, it rejects using the ICC, which it fears could bring political prosecutions against Americans abroad. Instead it has lobbied for a new court for Sudan be convened in Arusha, Tanzania, using facilities of the 1994 Rwanda genocide tribunal. "Our position hasn't changed," said Richard Grenell, spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations. "We want immediate sanctions and that is what we are pushing for," Grenell said. "We certainly want to hold them accountable and the exact mechanism we will talk about later." The United States proposed a draft resolution on Monday that would impose an arms embargo, an asset freeze on violators of a cease-fire in Darfur and restrictions on offensive government military flights. But the draft omitted a venue for the trials. "HOPE FOR PEACE" The issue of prosecutions became acute after a U.N.-appointed panel last month gave Secretary General Kofi Annan a list of 51 suspects and evidence of killings, pillaging and rape in Darfur where at least 70,000 people died and 2 million were forced out of their homes. The panel of law experts recommended the ICC. "There is no hope for sustainable peace in Darfur without immediate access to justice," Louise Arbour, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights told the council on Wednesday in formally introducing the report. "This is a case where to indict and arrest certain persons could actually prevent the commission of crimes and actually save lives and protect victims." According to diplomats at the meeting, France, Greece, Denmark, Brazil and Argentina strongly backed the ICC. "The ICC has the mandate, the capacity and the funding to ensure swift and cost-effective prosecution," Danish Ambassador Ellen Margrethe Loj said on Thursday. Japan and Philippines supported a referral to the court while Russia, Romania, Tanzania and Benin backed the ICC but said there was a need for council unity. Britain strongly backed the ICC but emphasized the entire council had to decide. The meeting came after Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy representative, told Reuters the EU might fail in its bid to refer the Darfur crisis to the ICC because of Washington's opposition and may have to settle for the Tanzanian option. France's U.N. ambassador, Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, said a referral to the ICC could "certainly not" be ruled out yet. He and other EU envoys apparently hope the United States might abstain on an ICC vote if offered an exemption from prosecution in Darfur, although there is little sign of this. It is also uncertain how China, which has veto power, would vote. All council members except China and the United States have signed or ratified the treaty establishing the ICC, the world's first permanent global criminal court to try individuals for genocide and war crimes.

NYT 23 Feb 2005 OP-ED COLUMNIST The Secret Genocide Archive By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF Photos don't normally appear on this page. But it's time for all of us to look squarely at the victims of our indifference. These are just four photos in a secret archive of thousands of photos and reports that document the genocide under way in Darfur. The materials were gathered by African Union monitors, who are just about the only people able to travel widely in that part of Sudan. This African Union archive is classified, but it was shared with me by someone who believes that Americans will be stirred if they can see the consequences of their complacency. The photo at the upper left was taken in the village of Hamada on Jan. 15, right after a Sudanese government-backed militia, the janjaweed, attacked it and killed 107 people. One of them was this little boy. I'm not showing the photo of his older brother, about 5 years old, who lay beside him because the brother had been beaten so badly that nothing was left of his face. And alongside the two boys was the corpse of their mother. The photo to the right shows the corpse of a man with an injured leg who was apparently unable to run away when the janjaweed militia attacked. At the lower left is a man who fled barefoot and almost made it to this bush before he was shot dead. Last is the skeleton of a man or woman whose wrists are still bound. The attackers pulled the person's clothes down to the knees, presumably so the victim could be sexually abused before being killed. If the victim was a man, he was probably castrated; if a woman, she was probably raped. There are thousands more of these photos. Many of them show attacks on children and are too horrific for a newspaper. One wrenching photo in the archive shows the manacled hands of a teenager from the girls' school in Suleia who was burned alive. It's been common for the Sudanese militias to gang-rape teenage girls and then mutilate or kill them. Another photo shows the body of a young girl, perhaps 10 years old, staring up from the ground where she was killed. Still another shows a man who was castrated and shot