IRIN 23 Mar 2005 AU proposes pan-African contingency force [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] © IRIN EU troops in eastern DR Congo in August 2003. The AU would like to have a stand-by force by June 2006. ADDIS ABABA, 23 Mar 2005 (IRIN) - The African Union (AU) began drawing up plans on Tuesday to establish a 15,000-strong African stand-by force by June 2006. The entire contingent should be able to be deployed within 30 days of an order from the AU's Peace and Security Council. A draft roadmap on peacekeeping in the continent, released by the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, said five brigades of 3,000 men each would be in place by next year. The roadmap was presented to conflict-resolution experts at the start of a two-day meeting to draw up guidelines for the force. These experts, who represent regional bodies in Africa, are expected to endorse the roadmap and draw up plans to improve cooperation between the continent's regions. Said Djinnit, the AU's peace and security commissioner, said it was critical that Africa addressed its own conflicts by "harmonising" its regional peacekeeping forces. "We need to agree on a roadmap for an African stand-by force," he told the experts. "It is extremely important we all move forward in the same direction." In addition, a "robust" rapid-reaction force, able to be deployed in 14 days, would be set up by 2010 to prevent genocide if the international community failed to step in, according to the roadmap. The five brigades of the stand-by force, whose troops would be based in their countries of origin, were expected to be comprised of up to 750 men and 120 military observers, plus helicopter units, engineer units, logistics, military police and medical staff. A police force would also work with the peacekeepers for more difficult missions. The proposed force, intended to prevent and combat wars on the continent, would be made up of forces from five regions - north, east, south, west and central Africa. Initially it would offer military expertise to political missions like those in Cote d'Ivoire and the observer mission in Sudan. At the meeting, the AU said that while southern and West African nations had made considerable progress in drawing up plans for the stand-by force, central Africa was lagging behind. Funding for the stand-by force also remained an issue. The AU will present its plans to the G8 group of wealthy countries in April, where it will try to secure support. The European Union has already donated euros 250 million (US $327 million) to the AU’s peace fund, which will be used for training the stand-by force. In its report, the African Union admitted that lessons needed to be learnt from its mission in Darfur, where it has been criticised for not having enough troops on the ground. Earlier in March , AU commission chairman Alpha Oumar Konare appealed to African countries to provide more peacekeepers for hotspots. He said that while African nations were willing to offer troops, the international community must be willing to provide greater logistical support.

Burundi

IRIN 29 Mar 2005 Annan recommends dual inquiries on genocide 29 Mar 2005 14:26:08 GMT Source: IRIN NAIROBI, 29 March (IRIN) - UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has recommended the establishment of two panels - a non-judicial "truth commission" and a special chamber within Burundi's court system - to bring to justice those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in the country since its independence from Belgium in 1962. In a letter to the UN Security Council, dated 11 March but made available to the media on Monday, Annan said his proposal would avoid having two identical commissions, but would include "a mixed composition of both national and international components". His letter accompanied a report compiled by an assessment mission that visited Burundi in May 2004. Annan said the mission's report also took into account facts and events that post-dated its visit, "to the extent of their relevancy to its final recommendations". He added, "Given a mandate to consider the advisability and feasibility of establishing an international judicial commission of inquiry for Burundi, the mission is convinced of the necessity of establishing a commission, though not necessarily in the shape and form requested by the government of Burundi." Burundi had previously requested a single, judicial, truth commission. Annan said the recommendation was nonetheless based on the recently enacted law that provided for a national Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Burundi, as specified in the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement. Burundi's transitional government was set up under the Arusha agreement of 28 August 2000. He said that the mission took into account not only the Arusha agreement, but also the needs and expectations of Burundians, the capacity of the Burundian administration of justice, established UN principles and practice, and the practicality and feasibility of any proposed mechanism. A truth commission with a substantial international component would enhance its objectivity, impartiality and credibility, Annan said. A sense of national ownership would be provided by the participation of Burundians in the process of clarifying historical truth and pursuing national reconciliation. In recommending a special chamber within Burundi's legal system, Annan said that the mission opted for a "court within a court". This would leave behind a legacy of international standards of justice, as well as trained judges, prosecutors, defence counsel and experienced court managers. He said three UN commissions of inquiry had been established in the last decade at the request of the Burundian government, to investigate the assassination of Burundian President Melchior Ndadaye in 1993 and the massacres that followed. "No legal or practical effect, however, has been given to any of their recommendations, and no action has been taken by any of the United Nations organs," Annan said. "The mission concludes that the United Nations can no longer engage in establishing commissions of inquiry and disregard their recommendations without seriously undermining the credibility of the organisation in promoting justice and the rule of law. I fully concur with this conclusion," he added. If the Council approved the report and instructed him to negotiate its practical implementation, Annan said he would initiate negotiations with the Burundian government. National actors and members of civil society would be consulted to ensure that the views and wishes of the people of Burundi were taken into account, he added.

Côte d'Ivoire

www.crisisgroup.org 24 Côte d'Ivoire: The Worst May Be Yet to Come Cynically exacerbating social tensions for political gain, Côte d'Ivoire's leaders risk losing control, sparking wide-spread ethnic cleansing and initiating a disastrous regional conflict. With both UN and French peacekeeping mandates expiring in April, the international community must act decisively to prevent an explosion of violence. The UN Security Council should strengthen the efforts of the African Union (AU) mediator, South African President Thabo Mbeki, and the AU, together with the UN, should organise the process to disarm, demobilise and reintegrate former soldiers; undertake voter registration; and establish a new calendar for the elections. Targeted sanctions should be introduced against those who attempt to block the peace process. While Paris should gradually withdraw its controversial peacekeeping force, any departure of French troops should only happen once adequate UN replacements are on the ground.- Crisis Group reports and briefing papers are available on our website: www.crisisgroup.org

DR Congo

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."

Independent Online 16 Mar 2005 www.iol.co.za Will Africa unite to disarm Congo rebels? March 16 2005 at 05:55PM By Anthony Mitchell Addis Ababa - The African Union is considering sending 6 000 to 7 000 troops to eastern Congo to forcefully disarm Rwandan rebels linked to the country's 1994 genocide - but the organisation still has to work out key details for the operation, an official said on Wednesday. Experts will hold meetings later this month to flesh out details of the mission and whether the force will operate on its own, with United Nations troops are already in Congo or with Congolese forces, said Peace and Security Commissioner Said Djinnit. The presence of Rwandan rebels in eastern Congo has fuelled years of warfare in the vast Central African nation. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The rebels, who include members of the former army and extremist Interahamwe militia from Rwanda's Hutu majority, fled to Congo after leading the genocide of at least 500 000 minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus. They then attempted to invade Rwanda in a bid to regain power. Rwanda has invaded Congo twice in the last decade. A total of 13 775 UN peacekeepers are also deployed in Congo, mainly in provinces bordering Rwanda, to improve security. "These groups live in mountainous areas and forests and it is very difficult to access. Issues we will need to look at include air support" for the African force, Djinnit said. He was speaking to reporters at the end of a two-day meeting attended by representatives of the UN mission in Congo, the UN refugee agency, the European Union and officials from Rwanda, Congo and Burundi. The crisis is the worst humanitarian situation in the world, overtaking Sudan's troubled Darfur region, the UN's humanitarian chief said on Wednesday. Killings continue unabated in the east of the African country, despite the official end of hostilities over two years ago, said Jan Egeland, head of UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs. "Measured in human lives lost, I think that Congo is the number one problem in the world today," Egeland told reporters, adding that the number of casualties amounts to "a tsunami every month, year in and year out, for the last six years". About three million Congolese are now in acute need of assistance, Egeland said. Congo's five-year, six-nation war killed nearly four million people, according to aid groups. The war ended in 2002 with the formation of a transitional government that has struggled to extend its authority to the long-ungoverned east, where violence continue. Both Congo's President Joseph Kabila and Rwanda's President Paul Kagame have agreed to allow the African Union to coordinate any new operation involving African Union troops to help restore order in the region. - Sapa-AP

Reuters 21 Mar 2005 Congo arrests militia leader from lawless east 21 Mar 2005 19:41:57 GMT Source: Reuters By David Lewis KINSHASA, March 21 (Reuters) - Congolese security services have arrested the head of a militia group accused of widespread human rights violations in the lawless northeastern district of Ituri, the government and militia sources said on Monday. Congo has been under pressure from the United Nations and foreign governments to hunt down those responsible for 60,000 deaths in the district since 1999 and to find the killers of nine Bangladeshi U.N. peacekeepers who died there last month. A government spokesman confirmed the arrest of Thomas Lubanga but declined to give any details. "The international community says he is responsible for atrocities during his time in Ituri but he is not thought to be involved in the killing of the Bangladeshis," a security source said. A senior member of Lubanga's Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) said he was arrested and sent to Makala prison in the capital Kinshasa on Saturday. "His arrest is arbitrary and does not conform to any procedures," UPC secretary general John Tinanzabu told Reuters. Lubanga had been based in Kinshasa for more than a year and had registered the UPC, an ethnic Hema rebel group, as a political party, Tinanzabu said. Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is suffering the world's worst humanitarian crisis with a death toll outstripping that of Sudan's Darfur region, the U.N. said last week. The conflict in mineral-rich Ituri pits various ethnic-based militias against each other and has displaced some 100,000 people since December, hampering the former Belgian colony's efforts to recover from a wider five-year war. Security sources said that Lubanga was being held alongside eight other military and political leaders from Ituri after several weeks of house arrest. International pressure to arrest Ituri's warlords, some of whom have joined Congo's national army as part of a peace deal, increased last month after the Bangladeshi peacekeepers were killed in an ambush by unknown gunmen. Security services arrested Floribert Ndjabu, head of the ethnic Lendu-dominated Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI) militia, earlier this month along with an FNI commander and a general allied to the group. The U.N. has stepped up efforts to disarm militia groups in the past few months. It said on Monday some 550 militiamen had disarmed in the district in the last two days alone. "The growing number of militia members giving in their weapons and joining the reintegration process indicates that the recent political and military efforts in the district are staring to bear fruit," the U.N. mission said in a statement. The prosecutor for Ituri and U.N. human rights experts have been gathering evidence of crimes carried out in the district. Those accused will be tried either in a Congolese court or the International Criminal Court, due to try those responsible for crimes committed in Ituri after July 1, 2002.

IRIN 23 Mar 2005 Ituri militias take war to civilians [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] © IRIN An aerial view of the IDP camp in Tche, Ituri District. BUNIA, 23 Mar 2005 (IRIN) - Three months after the resumption of fighting between Lendu and Hema militias in Ituri, a district in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a vivid picture of human-rights violations is emerging. Pregnant women have been gang raped, children burnt to death and villages razed to the ground. UN observers and NGOs believe the militias' objective is to change the ethnic composition of Djugu, a territory to the north of Ituri's main town, Bunia. "The strategy of the Lendu militias is to chase away the Hemas from their territory in Djugu. The means to achieve this is a policy of burnt earth, selected killing, rape, total destruction of entire villages and kidnapping for sexual slavery," said Louis-Marie Bowaka, coordinator for human rights in Ituri for the UN mission in the DRC, known as MONUC. Large portions of Djugu certainly seem abandoned from the air. Neither livestock nor people are visible. Verdant hills with neatly carved plots are unattended, even though it is the start of the planting season. Safety in Tche Thousands of people have fled to a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Tche, a village 62 km north of Bunia. Tche's camp, dotted with hundreds of straw-and-stick huts, sits between rolling hills. On the overlooking hilltop, MONUC's Pakistani 2nd Battalion, armed with tanks, keeps watch - its presence a comfort to the camp's 20,000 residents. Our mortars control the hillsides," Irfan Hashmi, a major in the battalion, told IRIN. His troops, he said, had "directly saved about two thousand people from the Lendu, and rescued three children who came with their necks half cut-off." UN peacekeepers guarding the Tche IDP camp, Ituri District, eastern DRC. "He said his battalion had secured a perimeter of four to six kilometres around the camp in order to keep the IDPs safe from militias. A community defence committee had also been set up, with the support of village chiefs. Almost two months since the camp was established, some kind of a routine has returned to life. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has set up a special primary school for displaced children. Women are able to pound corn, while others haul water from a water point constructed by Oxfam, a British-based NGO. Newcomers have flattened portions of the hillside and started to build new homes. The battalion set up the camp at Tche on 28 January, following several Lendu raids on Hema villages. Since mid-December 2004, these attacks have caused the displacement of some 100,000 Hema; 80,000 of them are now living in the Kakwa, Gina, Tchomia and Tche camps according to MONUC and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Bunia. Inhabitants of Tche gave vivid accounts of their ordeals. One of them, Bubu Moubin, came from the village of Niamamba near Lake Albert, about 30 km southeast of the camp. He told IRIN that attackers had used machetes to kill 10 of his 80-member extended family. He had hidden in the bush for a month before reaching Tche. "They left us nothing; now we are half naked," he said. Losina Bius, from Bui village, about seven kilometres north of Tche, recounted the day when Lendus attacked. "The children were in the church praying - then we heard the sound of bullets being fired and the older ones ran outside and fled," she said. Another witness, Leonard Losida, said: "We were running to the hill and saw that the church was burning. We did not see the children anymore." Some of the attacks have been extremely brutal; victims have been badly mutilated and often raped. "Now Hemas run away as soon as they hear the Lendus coming," Losida said. However, it was not always like this. Lonema Lano, who used to be a teacher in Tche village, said: "Six years ago there were no problems between Lendus and Hema. We even intermarried. "Now many have divorced. We don't know why the Lendus attack us." The Lendu have killed four members of Lano's family. Background to the latest hostilities The fighting in December probably sprang from a struggle to control smuggling operations and tax fiefdoms along Lake Albert, according Modibo Traore, the OCHA humanitarian affairs officer in Bunia. By the beginning of January, the Hema Union des patriotes congolais (UPC) and Lendu Front des nationalistes et integrationnistes (FNI) had begun to attack civilians as well as each other. The fight was no longer simply over revenue but territory too. One political observer of the Ituri situation for the last 30 years, who did not want to be named, said the situation in the district was similar to ethnic wars elsewhere. "We often talk about Bosnia and what happened there. It looks very similar here," the observer said. Witnesses of the Lendu attacks said the raids followed a familiar pattern: militias attacked with guns and machetes, and were followed by women, children and even elderly people who looted the villages and carried away everything of value. Then they burned homes to the ground. Rudi Stelz, the project coordinator at German Agro Action, the largest NGO providing food and non-food items to the IDPs in Tche, said this type of action was already the "normal behaviour" of the militia. "Looting and stealing is part of the conflict culture here. It is like an income," he said. Traore said six years of war had removed all inhibitions among young men. "For them, killing and raping is now totally normal - the militias even maltreat their own people. The latest conflict is no longer between militias; it is against civilians," he said. MONUC's coordinator for human rights in Ituri, Bowaka, said that what was happening in Ituri could be described as "ethnic cleansing". He said: "What we see is definitely not genocide. Their goal is to drive the villagers into the camps and keep them there." In fact, he said, on 14 and 15 January, FNI militias found 1,500 Hema in the bush and brought them to the camp in Kakwa. In another instance in Lydio, eight kilometres south of Tche, FNI militias held 52 people for four days before telling them to seek protection at the Pakistani camp. While investigating a number of human rights abuses, Bowaka said, "Now there are very few people actually killed." A local NGO in Bunia, Justice Plus, has been monitoring the Hema - Lendu conflict since 1999. The organisation's director, Aime Magbo, said the Lendu and Hema had both committed "grave human rights violations" in the three months they had been fighting over control of territory. Degeneration of the conflict Following the killing of nine Bangladeshi peacekeepers on 25 February, aid operations have been suspended several times. "The dynamics before December 2004 were clear, we knew who and where the commanders were. Now everything is out of control," Massiomo Nicoletti-Altimori, the head of the UNICEF office in Bunia said. "There are problems within the militias themselves - FNI, UPC, and PUSIC [Parti pour l’unité et la sauvegarde de l’intégrité du Congo] are split." He added: "Some [combatants] entered the process of disarmament and reintegration - and the demilitarisation of commandos caused confusion among the militias. With the exit of the big bosses, there is no more control over them." Major Hashmi of MONUC said: "The FNI became disorganised after MONUC retaliated for the killing of the Bangladeshi blue helmets. They are now trying to establish a new base in villages. They have lots of AK-47s and mortars but no ammunition." He described the situation as calm, but not normal. One of the most serious problems facing humanitarian actors and the Congolese government is how to deal with incredibly brutal rape. Some women have even been sexually abused with knives, according to Nicoletti-Altimori. UNICEF, together with its partners, is now trying to set up a women's committee, which will sensitise the public to the problem. However, this is a difficult task since it touches on cultural sensitivities. "Women don't want to come forward when they were raped," Nicoletti-Altimori said. "The problem is that their husbands abandon them and the victims are stigmatised. We have to handle the issue in a very delicate manner." Cooperazione Internazionale, an Italian NGO, has been providing psychological care for rape victims. Those with physical trauma are taken to Bunia for medical treatment, obeying strictures laid out by the UN World Health Organization. If five days have elapsed since the rape occurred, the victims receive contraceptive pills and antibiotics against venereal diseases. If, on the other hand, up to 72 hours have elapsed, then women also receive post-exposure prophylactics against HIV infection. "But this is in an ideal situation. Mostly, it is too late," Nicoletti-Altimori said.

cririsgroup.org 30 Mar 2005 The Congo's Transition Is Failing: Crisis in the Kivus As the UN Security Council debates this week the terms of renewing the mandate of its peacekeeping force in the Congo (MONUC), decisive action is needed to prevent a return to full-scale combat and the possible destabilisation of much of Central Africa. The country's political transition is stalled, and there are new military tensions in the Kivus region, where 1,000 people are dying every day in the ongoing political and humanitarian tragedy. The international community, which funds the political transition, needs to rein in spoilers, both inside the transition and outside it, and do a better job of training the new Congolese army. MONUC also needs to get tougher with the Rwandan insurgents. All sides must live up to the promise of the Sun City Agreement that brought the transition into existence: former belligerents must complete their military integration. ------------------------------------- Crisis Group reports and briefing papers are available on our website: www.crisisgroup.org

Ethiopia

IRIN 18 Mar 2005 Soldiers to be tried over Gambella killings [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] ADDIS ABABA, 18 Mar 2005 (IRIN) - Six Ethiopian soldiers are to face trial for their role in a massacre in the border region with Sudan where hundreds were killed in months of violence, officials said on Friday. "Those six army members' allegedly participated in the killings and will face trial," government spokesman, Zemedkun Teckle, said. No date, he added, had been set for the trial. Hundreds of people were killed and thousands fled their homes after clashes in the oil and gold-rich region of Gambella, 800 km west of the capital, Addis Ababa, in 2003. An independent inquiry said the army was involved in the extra-judicial killing of 13 people. Gambella, which has a total population of 228,000, is ethnically diverse with people from the Nuer, Anyuak, Majanger, Komo and Opo tribes. Fighting erupted in December 2003 after eight government refugee workers were killed in an ambush on their vehicle. Anyuaks were blamed for the attack and dozens died in a violent three-day clash in Gambella. The government said 56 people were killed, while a human rights report from the US State Department stated that 100 people were killed, mostly from the Anyuak ethnic group.

BBC 24 Mar 2005 Ethiopia army 'killed and raped' Thousands of people have fled Gambella since the December 2003 massacre The Ethiopian army has been killing, raping and torturing people in the western Gambella region since the end of 2003, Human Rights Watch says. It says some 425 Anuak people were killed after an alleged ambush by Anuak gunmen on a government vehicle. The army carried out the human rights violations under the guise of combating Anuak bandits, the organisation says. Ethiopia's Information Minister Bereket Simon has rejected the claims, calling them a "blatant lie". "We don't accept such recriminations. We don't believe this is a crime against humanity," Mr Simon told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme. Government investigations had revealed that 65 people were killed in December 2003 in violence between local ethnic Anuaks and highlanders, in which the army had remained neutral, he said. 'Soldiers shooting' The HRW report says: "The prevailing climate of impunity that now exists in Gambella has allowed ENDF (Ethiopia National Defence Forces) soldiers to prey upon and terrorise the Anuak communities they patrol." A three-day rampage followed the ambush in December 2003 in which local Anuak people were killed, raped and mobs burned down more than 400 houses. The soldiers tied his hands to his legs and put him on the road and then ran him over with a military truck Eyewitness of the Gambella massacre Out of the 19 communities surveyed by HRW, entire villages were burned to the ground and thousands of Anuak fled their homes after the reprisal attacks. "I saw people running. All of a sudden I saw and heard the government soldiers shooting," a young Anuak man told HRW about the first moments of the massacre. "Because there were so many people running here and there we collided and I fell down. I started to see people who were fallen down dead and so I got up and started running again." The 64-page report also quoted a person who saw soldiers tie an Anuak man's hands to his legs before running him over with a military truck. On trial HRW says the vast majority of the army are drawn from the same ethnic group as Gambella's highlander community. Four hundred homes were destroyed in the violence Gambella's former governor Okello Akuaye, who accused the soldiers of taking the highlanders' side during three days of ethnic fighting, has sought political asylum in Norway. But Mr Simon said the army during this period had been "on a mission to stabilise the situation". Government investigations had found six military officers were involved in the killings and they would be prosecuted, he said. "Now they are in custody and are going to be charged for the killing and will face the court." HRW has called for an independent investigation into the human rights violations in Gambella from December 2003 to the present. The BBC's Mohammed Adow in Addis Ababa says insecurity in Gambella - one of Ethiopia's least developed regions - is often aggravated by competition for land.

Kenya

Coalition for the International Criminal Court For more information, contact: Sally Eberhardt, Media Liaison Telephone: (+)1.212.687.2863, ext. 17 Email : eberhardt@iccnow.org FOR IMMEDIATE DISTRIBUTION Kenya brings ICC States Close to 100 Mark As Conflicts Rage in Neighboring Countries, Kenya's ICC Ratification Offers Bacon of Hope (New York, 15 March 2005) - This afternoon, Kenya, a country that continues to play a leadership role in peace-building in the most troubled areas of Africa, became the 98th State Party to the International Criminal Court (ICC) treaty when it deposited its instrument of ratification at the United Nations in New York. The total number of African States Parties to the ICC now outnumbers that of any other continent. The Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC) - an international network of more than 2,000 non-governmental and civil society organizations - which just two months ago conducted a world-wide campaign urging Kenya to join the ICC, welcomes this major step forward for justice in the African continent. The CICC also commends Kenya for its principled resistance to pressure from the United States government to sign a Bilateral Immunity Agreement (BIA). Such an agreement would put Kenya in a position of having to provide immunity to US citizens and personnel (including foreign sub-contractors working for the United States) for alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, which are included in the ICC treaty. At the treaty deposit this afternoon, the Kenyan Attorney General Amos Wako stated, "We have worked hard and are proud of our international reputation as a key peace-builder on the African continent. Becoming party to the ICC will help us continue to pursue this crucial role in the world." "Kenya's ratification of the ICC treaty couldn't come at a more important time. With horrific conflicts raging at the very borders of Kenya - in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Sudan, in Uganda - this ratification offers a great hope to all those desperate for peace and justice in the region.," said Benson Olugbuo, CICC Anglophone Africa Coordinator based in Nigeria. Noting that Kenya's ratification reflects a growing movement for international justice around the world, CICC Convenor William Pace stated, "The UN has mentioned the possibility of holding a special ceremony in 2005 to mark the symbolic 100th ratification of the ICC treaty. We hope that as many states as possible will ratify this crucial international treaty without delay so they can be part of this historic event and join the majority of the world's countries that have invested in the ICC and the rule of law."The website of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court: www.iccnow.org The website of the International Criminal Court: www.icc-cpi.int About the Coalition for the International Criminal Court The Coalition for the International Criminal Court is a network of over 2,000 civil society organizations working to promote a fair, effective and independent International Criminal Court.

P a r l i a m e n t a r i a n s f o r G l o b a l A c t i o n FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: PGA Int'l Law Programme Tel: (212) 687-7755 x108 / (39) 333-166 0309 Fax: (212) 687-8409 E-mail: donat@pgaction.org; s.albulushi@pgaction.org Parliamentary Group Welcomes Kenya's Ratification of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Statute Kenya is 98th ICC State Party, Dominican Republic expected to become 99th NEW YORK; March 15, 2005 - Following the decision by the Government of Kenya to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on February 17, 2005, the Attorney General, Mr. Amos Wako, MP and Member of Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA), deposited today at United Nations Headquarters in New York the instrument of ratification of the Rome Statute, thus bringing to 98 the number of ICC States Parties. The ICC is the first permanent judicial institution aimed at putting an end to the impunity for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The Deputy-Speaker and leading PGA Member in Kenya, Hon. David Musila, MP, expressed deep satisfaction for Kenya's participation in the new system of international criminal justice. "It is very important for all East African countries to be part of the ICC system, especially at a time when the ICC Prosecutor is investigating atrocities committed in the African Great Lakes region," Deputy-Speaker Musila said. Earlier today, a status conference on the investigations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) took place in The Hague before the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber. Recent attacks against civilians in Ituri, Eastern DRC, are a reminder of the importance of the ICC, which can intervene in cases where national authorities are unable or unwilling to investigate and prosecute. Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA) highlights the dedication of its members to the ICC, noting in particular the developments in Kenya and the Dominican Republic. Thanks to the leadership of PGA Board Member Dip. Minou Tavarez Mirabal, the Chamber of Deputies of the Dominican Republic voted unanimously in support of the ICC Ratification Bill on February 17, which was consequently adopted unanimously by the Senate on March 8, 2005. As Dip. Tavarez Mirabal stated, "The Dominican Republic will be the 99th Member State of this new judicial institution, thus paving the way for the historic achievement of 100 ratifications of a treaty that was adopted only six and half years ago, on July 17, 1998." Dip. Tavarez Mirabal, a member of the Special Committee on Criminal Law Reform and a staunch advocate of international human rights, expressed her satisfaction with the adoption of the Dominican ICC Bill and the imminent approval of the new Penal Code of the Dominican Republic, which incorporates the crimes and general principles enshrined in the Rome Statute, including those relating to gender-justice. "We obtained multi-party support for the reform of the Penal Code, which offered a unique opportunity to begin implementing the ICC Statute in domestic law even before the ratification process began," Tavarez Mirabal affirmed. "Implementing the Rome Statute in the domestic legal order will be the next stage on the ICC process in Kenya", Mr. Amos Wako, MP told PGA last Friday in New York. PGA is an association of over 1350 legislators from 110 countries united to promote solutions to global problems. PGA members have supported the establishment of the ICC since 1989 when A.N.R. Robinson, then Prime Minister of Trinidad & Tobago, introduced a UN General Assembly resolution calling for the establishment of an International Criminal Court. Since the adoption of the Rome Statute of the ICC on 17 July 1998, PGA MPs have promoted the ratification and effective implementation of the Statute, which entered into force on July 1, 2002. The PGA Law Programme receives support from the European Commission, European Union.

IRIN 15 Mar 2005 Raiders kill 22 in inter-clan violence [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] © IRIN NAIROBI, 15 Mar 2005 (IRIN) - Armed attackers shot and killed 22 people when they raided a village in the northeastern Kenyan district of Mandera at dawn on Tuesday, a police spokesman said. Three other people were wounded. Police later pursued the group of about 40 raiders and gunned down eight of them, Jaspher Ombati, told IRIN on Tuesday. The attack happened at El Golicha village, near El Wak town, which is situated close to Kenya's border with Somalia. The village where the attacks occured is about 600 km from the capital, Nairobi. "We have sent reinforcements and police are still pursuing the attackers," the police spokesman added. Ombati said the assailants were believed to be members of the Murule clan, while the victims were thought to be from the Garre clan. It was not immediately clear what triggered the latest violence, but the two groups, both Kenyan Somalis, have a history of feuding over pasture and water points. In January, more than 20 people were killed during inter-clan violence between the Murule and the Garre communities in Mandera district, which is situated in Kenya's Northeastern Province. Much of the province is arid and notoriously lawless, with bandits often carrying out attacks.

BBC 15 Mar 2005 Villagers die in Kenya clan raid Some 40 people have been killed in an attack on a village in north-eastern Kenya in a revenge killing between rival Somali clans, say officials. The BBC's Bashkash Jugsodaay said eight militiamen were also killed after clashing with police. Since December some 50 people, mainly women and children, have died in violence in Mandera district. The area's severe drought is causing the Garre and Murule clans to battle for control of water and pastures. Land degraded Officials have said about 80 heavily armed men who had crossed the border from neighbouring Somalia were involved in the attack. Police believe Murule militiamen killed the Garre villagers and Mandera's provincial commissioner said a security operation has been launched. Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, Kenya's deputy environment minister, said in January she was ready to use her influence to reconcile the warring clans. But our correspondent says there has been little evidence so far of efforts by authorities to resolve the dispute. The communities grazing their livestock are scattered over a large area and police find it difficult to monitor, he says. Professor Maathai said frequent clashes in Kenya and Somalia were rooted in land degradation and conflicts between pastoralists and farmers.

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) 15 Mar 2005 Children victims of brutal slaughter - UNICEF appalled by the massacre of at least 16 children in KenyaNAIROBI, KENYA, 15 March 2005 - UNICEF is appalled by the brutal slaughter of at least 16 children in clashes in Mandera District, Kenya, today. Speaking from South Africa, UNICEF Representative for Kenya, Heimo Laakkonen, expressed horror at the viciousness of the attack. "The shocking reality is that children seem to have been the primary target," he said. The attack took place at El Golicha, about 10km from Elwak Town in Mandera District. El Golicha is a watering point for pastoralists, and where members of the Garre clan live. Their assailants apparently came from a rival clan, the Murule. The two clans have feuded over access to water for many years. Last time the Marule were apparently the victims of a Garre attack. During the early hours of March 15, they came to seek revenge. The assailants crept into El Golicha while most of the Garre men were out guarding their livestock. They attacked the manyattas where children and women were sleeping, setting some of the huts ablaze, and using guns and swords to attack those who tried to flee. "In the arid lands of Kenya, water means life," said Laakkonen, "yet too often these days it is an excuse for killing and death." He pointed out that this was just one incident in a series of clashes that have engulfed communities in many parts of Mandera, and elsewhere in Kenya as well. In Mandera alone, over twenty thousand people have been displaced by violence in recent months. "No one wins in these conflicts," said Laakkonen. "Whole livelihoods are destroyed, families are torn apart and it is always the children who suffer the most." He called on the authorities to restore order, to protect children, and also pleaded with civil society to work with communities like the Garre and the Murule to help build peaceful methods of conflict resolution. "So that the children of these clans will have the same rights as most of Kenya's children, to grow up, go to school, and sleep in peace," he said.

AFP 16 March 2005 Militiamen kill 22 in fighting among Kenyan tribal rivals Bogonko Bosire NAIROBI — Up to 5000 terrified villagers fled their homes in northeast Kenya yesterday after militiamen massacred 22 members of a rival clan, many of them women and children, in a pre-dawn raid, officials said. The villagers began to flee shortly after details began to emerge of the ferocity of the attack in which about 40 raiders used firearms as well as garden implements to shoot, hack and slash their victims to death. The Kenyan Red Cross said more than 1 000 families of three to five members each had left their homes along the Kenyan-Somali border where the attack occurred on the village of Elgolisha near to the frontier town of Mandera. They “have started fleeing the area because of fear that they might be the next targets,” spokesman Anthony Mwangi said. “There is a very serious conflict in the region.” Yesterday’s massacre is believed by police to be the deadliest single attack in the restive region where members of the Murule and Garre clans, both pastoralists of Somali origin, have fought often over water and pasture rights. It was also unusual for its brutality, police said. “They came with guns, machetes and clubs and killed mostly women and children,” said a senior police officer in Kenya’s Northeastern Province. Police blamed the attack on the Murule, noting that all the victims were Garre, some of whom had Kenyan nationality, and the Red Cross spokesman said those fleeing belonged to both clans. “The aim of the Murule militiamen was to kill,” Mwangi said. “There are fears of a revenge attack."

AFP 16 Mar 2005 Kenya boosts security after village massacre, loses track of attackers NAIROBI, March 16 (AFP) - Kenya has boosted security along its northeast border with Somalia following a brutal massacre there by Somali gunmen of 22 members of a rival clan that forced thousands of villagers to flee their homes, police said Wednesday. "We have boosted security and patrols along the areas that we think are vulnerable to revenge attacks," said Gabriel Ndolo, the commander of police in Kenya's Northeastern Province where Tuesday's pre-dawn raid took place. "We just want to ensure that normal life resumes," he told AFP by phone from the provincial seat of Garissa south of the attacked village of Elgolisha near the frontier town of Mandera. Eight of the some 40 attackers were killed by Kenyan security forces and officials said the surviving gunmen had escaped into lawless Somalia despite a massive search by paramilitary police assisted by a helicopter. "They fled into Somalia and it is very difficult to pursue them into the country because it has no administration," Ndolo said. "But we shall do everything to ensure that somebody is held responsible. "We cannot allow such attacks to go on," he said. Police believe that Tuesday's raid on Elgolisha -- which targetted members of the Garre clan and has been blamed on the rival Gurule faction -- is the worst single attack in the dustbowl region known for ethnic clashes, mainly over water and pasture rights. In it, the Murule attackers used guns, machetes and clubs to shoot, hack and slash to death their victims, many of them women and children including a six-month-old infant, police said. The marauders also killed nearly a dozen livestock, destroyed a number of rudimentary homes and wounded at least three people in the raid. As the scale and ferocity of the attack became clear, as many as 5,000 terrified villagers fled their homes around Elgolisha which sits only about two kilometers (1.2 miles) from the Somali border, the Kenyan Red Cross said. Ndolo said authorities in the region were working to help the more than 1,000 families -- each with three to five members -- who fled Eloglisha to the relative safety of the nearby town of El Wak. "We are making great effort to ensure that people return to their homes," he said. "We are also meeting with clan elders to discuss the issue of security because this is a long-standing problem."

BBC 29 Mar 2005 Kenyan women take rape case to UN The women and their supporters have been involved in protests Several hundred Kenyan women who say they were raped by British soldiers based in the country are taking their case to the United Nations. Their lawyer Joyce Majiwa has accused the Kenyan and UK governments of not taking adequate action to help them. The women, mostly from the Samburu and Masai tribes, are seeking millions of pounds in compensation. The British High Commission has said all known reports of alleged rape by British Army soldiers were forgeries. The Ministry of Defence said it had no comment to make on the case at present. Many of the women are represented by UK human rights lawyer Martyn Day. Ms Majiwa told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme that investigations into the alleged rapes had not been carried out in Kenya, and that the Kenyan authorities were not pressing the UK government for compensation. "What kind of local remedy is going to be sufficient?" she said. "We want to bring this matter into the international fore because it involves several nations." She said she was sure the case would be covered by UN jurisdiction. Children The women allege they were raped by British soldiers based in the north of Kenya in the 1980s and 1990s. They have accused an investigation by the Royal Military Police of not being independent. The British High Commission said in 2003 all known reports of alleged rape by British soldiers had been forged. But Ms Majiwa says the women have evidence to prove the rapes did take place - including the children which were born as a result. "The children are there. I think they are more than sufficient evidence," Ms Majiwa said. "The women are there. They are able to give oral testimony. "There are eye witnesses who saw what was happening and we believe this will support the case," she added.

Liberia

The NEWS (Monrovia) 23 Mar 2005 Taylor Ex-General Explains Lutheran Massacre Monrovia The dreadful event that occurred in 1990 at the Lutheran Church in Sinkor which left nearly 600 persons dead, has become a history but the untold story has surfaced from one of its survival in person of a former general of exiled former President Charles Taylor, Adolphus Dolo. Making revelation Tuesday at the Edward Wilmot Blyden Lecture forum organized by the Press Union of Liberia (PUL) in Monrovia, Dolo explained that he was a student activist at the time of the Lutheran Church massacre. Explaining what he described as a "terrible"experience at the Lutheran Church, Dolo told the forum of mostly journalists that he and his friends, including Wuo Garpe Tarpeh and Lewis Brown were arrested at the Church during a meeting with the Liberia Council of Churches. "We did not know what war was like or about. As the war intensified, I took several persons for refuge at the UN Compound but unfortunate for us the bandits came over night and killed a lot of us". The Nimba County Senatorial aspirant narrated further that following the incident, the late President Samuel Doe later came the following morning and apologized to us and told us that the act was not sanctioned by him and asked us to go to our various homes. Mr. Dolo at the time of the massacre spearheaded a team to resettle Nimbaians fleeing the war. Mr. Dolo said at the time of Mr. Doe's visit, "I asked the president as to what assurance we had upon our return to our homes. Will we not be killed?" "It was due to this fear that I requested the LCC to transfer the rest of us at the Methodist Compound where we spent a night." Dolo explained. The former general indicated that the next morning he talked to former Lutheran Bishop Ronald Diggs who later resettled us at the Lutheran Church. "I can still remember it was around 6 p.m. when soldiers started looting the Sinkor Shopping Center and by 11:00 p.m., they came over to the Church and forced the door open with shooting. It was only by the grace of God that we survived," Mr. Dolo lamented. Commenting on his involvement with the decade-long civil war, Dolo noted that he got involved because he needed to survive following his narrow escape from the Lutheran Church massacre. He apologized to Liberians for his role in the war saying, "I did whatever I did to survive and I did it for the people of Nimba County because they needed to survive as well."

Rwanda

The New Times (Kigali) 16 Mar 2005 Gacaca: Over 600 Leaders Implicated By Edwin Musoni Kigali Legislators have raised dust over hundreds of leaders, who played a role in the 100-day genocide and now want them tried. The outrage on Monday followed a presentation by the Gacaca National Executive Secretary, Domitila Mukantaganzwa, to members of both Chambers of Parliament. Mukantaganzwa told the legislators that six hundred and sixty eight people who are holding leadership positions in the country have been implicated in the 1994 genocide. She also disclosed that some MPs participated in the genocide, while others are sabotaging the proceedings of Gacaca trials. "There are some legislators who deliberately don't want to contribute anything to the Gacaca courts, while others played an instrumental role in the massive killings and are now sitting in the Parliament" she said. She did not give names. According to statistics, Kibungo province, with 186 people, leads the list of leaders who participated in the genocide, followed by Cyangugu, with119 leaders. Others are seven in Byumba, while Kigali City has thirty seven leaders who have been cited in the heinous crimes. During the open debate, MPs sought to know how first phase of the Gacaca trials were progressing. In response, Mukantaganzwa disclosed that out of the 192 cases that were scheduled to be heard on March 10, only 34 were settled and 116 were pending in the courts. She said that among the punishments handed down the biggest was thirty years in prison in Kigali city and Gitarama, while the lightest punishment meted out on that day was one year, in Byumba. Mukantaganzwa also highlighted the challenges that cropped up during the first day of the Gacaca trials. "In Mutura District of Gisenyi the one who was supposed to be tried did not appear, while in Kacyiru district of Kigali City, the court tried only six cases out of fourteen. She disclosed that in Kigali-Ngali fourteen cases were not tried, while sixteen cases were not tried in Kibuye.

Reuters 18 Mar 2005 Village court genocide trial for Rwandan governor 18 Mar 2005 17:34:29 GMT Source: Reuters By Arthur Asiimwe NYAMUGALI, Rwanda, March 18 (Reuters) - Thousands of Rwandans gathered in a hilltop village on Friday to see their governor defend himself against accusations that he took part in the country's 1994 genocide. Boniface Rucago, a powerful governor from Rwanda's North West Ruhengeri province is the first senior government official to be summoned by Rwanda's village courts or "gacaca" whose trials have been taking place across the central African nation. "I have all the evidence to prove that our governor had a role in the death of a man by the name of Kabaija," said Juliana Mukagakwaya, one of 12 locals accusing Rucago of playing a key role in planning the killing of Tutsis in the small village. "I surely know he had a role in the slaughter of my nephew," a woman veiled in a Muslim cloak told the court which was watched by almost 4,000 people in Nyamugali. But speaking in a shaky voice, the governor said after the hearing, in which he talked about the reason for the war: "Everything the villagers are saying is untrue. They have made it up." Rucago, who has been governor of the province for almost nine years, will be given the chance to defend himself against the accusers' specific allegations and then the court will give its verdict. Gacaca (meaning grass) dispenses with the formalities of the normal court system, using venues such as grassy knolls and relying on villagers' testimonies against those suspected of being involved in the massacre by Hutu extremists of some 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates. The traditional courts were established to deal with a backlog of suspects awaiting trial in conventional courts, with more than 80,000 people still on remand in prisons. So far, the village courts, led by locally elected judges sitting as investigative panels, have concentrated on questioning thousands of low-level suspects. An estimated 700 senior and low-ranked government officials including three members of parliament have been summoned to appear before the courts. The Rwandan government says that up to 1 million of Rwanda's 8 million people, are expected to be tried in the gacaca courts. Focusing on confession and apology, they are also intended to ease the way to national reconciliation. Under gacaca, those who confess and plead guilty before a set date will have their sentences reduced. Analysts say some Rwandans have started fleeing the country for fear of being paraded before the courts. "It is true we have had these reports but the figure of those running away is not that big," the director of legal services for gacaca Augustin Nkusi told Reuters. Gacaca courts were traditionally used by village communities who would gather on a patch of grass to resolve conflicts between two families, employing the heads of each household as judges.

AP 20 Apr 2005 Traditional courts convict 192 people in Rwanda for participation in genocide By EDWARD RWEMA Associated Press Writer Associated Press Newswires KIGALI, Rwanda (AP) - Traditional courts in Rwanda have convicted and sentenced 192 people for crimes related to the 1994 genocide within the first ten days of their operation, a justice official said Saturday. The community courts, known as gacaca, also have an additional 300 trials under way, said Domitila Mukantagazwa, the executive secretary of gacaca jurisdictions. The sentences given to those convicted range from one year to 30 years in prison, he said. Only one person has been acquitted, Mukantagazwa added. The traditional courts allow survivors to try alleged perpetrators of the 1994 genocide, in which a government of extremists from the Hutu majority orchestrated the slaughter of more than 500,000 people, most of them minority Tutsis. But some survivors are concerned about what they say are lenient sentences for those who confess, while human rights groups have said the proceedings do not meet international standards for criminal courts. Rwandan officials, however, say they turned to the community courts to speed up a massive undertaking -- trials for the 761,000 people accused of taking part in the genocide. It could be decades before their cases are heard in conventional courts, which are trying only the leaders of the 100-day slaughter, the officials say. A U.N. tribunal in neighboring Tanzania is trying top genocide suspects. Rwandan officials also say the community courts, by bringing together survivors and perpetrators, will promote reconciliation. Gacaca courts have identified 668 local and senior government officials as possible suspects. The governor of Ruhengari province appeared in front of a gacaca investigative panel on Friday, where angry witnesses accused him of meeting with men who were leading the killing in the province in 1994. Governor Boniface Rucagu, who was a member of parliament at the time, denied he was involved in the massacres. He is the first senior official to appear before a gacaca trial. "He knew everything that was going on, his vehicle was used to carry militias who were killing Tutsis and the roadblock that verified who was a Tutsi was in front of his house and why didn't he use his power as a member of parliament to stop that?" a survivor asked at the hearing. Rucagu said he was doing all that he could at the time to protect Tutsis from the Hutu extremists who were carrying out the massacres. The minister of defense, Gen. Marcel Gatsinzi, is also expected to appear before a gacaca trial in Butare province, Mukantagazwa said.

Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne) 29 Mar 2005 Gacaca: 179 Sentenced, One Acquitted in First Two Weeks Kigali The semi-traditional Gacaca courts, which were given the task of trying the majority of those suspected to have taken part in the 1994 genocide, have sentenced 179 suspects and acquitted one since the trials opened two weeks ago. Official sources in Kigali told Hirondelle News Agency Tuesday that the acquittal and the sentencing of 34 of the accused took place March 10, the first day of trials. "As of March 23, we had managed to wrap up 180 cases", said Anastase Balinda, head of the documentation unit in the National Service of Gacaca Jurisdictions (NSGJ). "So far, the sentences passed range between one and 30 years in jail", he said, adding that the trials of another 126 were still going on. 30 years is the maximum sentence that can be passed by the tribunals. "Five people so far have been given the maximum sentence", revealed Balinda. Most of those who were tried in the first two weeks were those who had confessed to their crimes earlier. "The majority of confessions were considered to be complete and accepted by the judges in most trials", continued the Gacaca official. The Gacaca jurisdictions have since they were set up three years ago, been mostly preoccupied with investigations. The start of the Gacaca pilot trials were delayed on many occasions. The Gacaca judicial system is inspired by the traditional Rwandan courts where the village elders and wise men solved disputes while sitting on a grass mound (called Gacaca in Kinyarwanda) in a public square. This "participatory justice system" has been given a triple mission by the Rwandan government of bringing out the truth, judging and helping in reconciliation. Gacaca judges are not professional jurists, but are elected from within the community based on their moral integrity, although they have all undergone basic legal training.

Sierra Leone

UN News Centre 22 Mar 2005 Sierra Leone court welcomes arrest of Dutch man accused of war crimes 22 March 2005 – The prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone today welcomed the recent arrest of a Dutch businessman on charges of committing war crimes against Liberians and violating a United Nations arms embargo as "a major blow against Western profiteers who enrich themselves on the suffering of Africans." "I have long been aware of Gus Kouwenhoven's criminal activity, his involvement in (former Liberian President) Charles Taylor's inner circle and direct support for Taylor's war machine," Prosecutor David Crane said. The trial in a Netherlands courtroom of Mr. Kouwenhoven, who was arrested on Friday, would spotlight the roles of arms traffickers and international financiers, as well as the abuse of West Africa's resources, he said. Mr. Crane added that he had not collected the evidence to place Mr. Kouwenhoven among those bearing "greatest responsibility" for international crimes during Sierra Leone's civil conflict, but he had instructed his Special Court investigators to cooperate with the Dutch authorities. Former President Taylor remains wanted by the Special Court to face a 17-count indictment for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Special Court is the world's first hybrid international war crimes tribunal, and was established by an agreement in January 2002 between the United Nations and the Republic of Sierra Leone. It is headquartered in the capital Freetown.

Senegal

NYT 20 Mar 2005 African Artists Raise Voices Against Malaria By LYDIA POLGREEN DAKAR, Senegal - As far as causes go, malaria may well be the least trendy. Luckily, when more than a dozen African musical superstars converged on this coastal capital to strut their stuff against the disease, Africa's most persistent scourge, the organizers thought to invite the singer Corneille. "Corneille, I love you," the young women screeched as he took the stage on a recent Saturday evening, his pectoral muscles bulging through a white embroidered shirt, Hugo Boss underwear peeking out of his low-slung blue jeans. When he started to sing a ballad, one young woman swooned and had to be carried away by the police. Another screamed and shook her head hysterically; yet another waved a sign that read, "Welcome back to Africa!" Corneille, a Rwandan who fled the genocide in 1994 and became a pop star in Canada, was the fourth act in Africa Live, a two-day megaconcert billed as an all-African version of Live Aid, the groundbreaking concert held to raise money to fight the deadly famine that gripped Ethiopia in the 1980's. This time, however, the concert was held by Africans and for Africans, to raise money and awareness to fight one of Africa's often forgotten killers, malaria. Despite being relatively easy to prevent and treat, malaria kills well over a million people a year worldwide - estimates vary - most of them children. Youssou N'Dour, the Grammy-winning Senegalese singer, recited these statistics, shaking his head in disbelief, in a backstage interview as he waited to perform to a surging crowd of 20,000 in Dakar's main stadium. "When I learned that malaria kills so many people just because they can't get simple medicine or a net to cover their beds, I said, 'This is not possible, we must do something,' " he recalled, massaging his vocal cords. "It is like a tsunami every day here in Africa, only it happens slowly so no one notices, no one pays attention. So we have to bring the attention ourselves." A plan to hold a concert with a big lineup of stars from across Africa was already under way, so Mr. N'Dour decided to join that effort by Roll Back Malaria, an organization that aims to cut the burden of malaria in half by 2010. Profits will largely come from the broadcast and videos of the concert, which organizers hope will reach a billion people worldwide. Mr. N'Dour, who enjoys a sort of demigod status here, even wrote an antimalaria anthem, urging Africans to take precautions against mosquito bites and to clean up standing water that could act as breeding grounds for the insects. The concert occurred at an auspicious moment in Africa's history, when other nations are turning their attention to this continent's most recalcitrant problems, promising to increase aid to fight poverty. Whether it is the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, which aim, among other things, to halve extreme poverty by 2015, or a British report that called for a huge increase in aid to Africa, the continent that long seemed forgotten is finally being remembered. That may explain why malaria has suddenly become a celebrated cause. The facts about malaria's devastating effects have been well known for a century. That may be why the disease has received much less attention than AIDS, which has devastated Africa but still infects fewer people. Indeed, Malaria affects twice as many people as AIDS, measles, leprosy and tuberculosis combined, according to Roll Back Malaria, and every day 3,000 children die of the disease. It eats up 40 percent of public heath spending, and costs developing countries $12 billion a year in lost productivity. It hurts Africa, particularly African children, the most: 90 percent of malaria deaths occur in Africa. Yet many affordable means to fight the disease exist. "It is the lowest-hanging fruit," said Jeffrey D. Sachs, the economist and antipoverty crusader, who attended the concert. "We are talking about $5 nets and inexpensive pills to save thousands upon thousands of lives." Behind the concert is a new approach, Dr. Sachs said, that emphasizes simply giving away nets rather than trying to sell them at a reduced price, which has been the traditional distribution method. "How can you sell something to someone who has no money?" he said. "It just doesn't make sense." Onstage the entertainers did not bore their audience with lectures about insecticide-treated nets and antifever pills. They stuck to what they knew best. Salif Keita, the Malian singer, strutted on the stage, belting his shrill anthems to a spellbound audience. Baaba Maal, on his home turf, pranced barefoot around his kora player, and Angelique Kidjo, the songbird of Benin, serenaded the crowd with a tender rendition of the classic Swahili love song, "Malaika." Of course there was Corneille, who got perhaps the most rousing response, from a largely female audience. When he left the stage to try to shake hands with the adoring crowd, he nearly set off a riot and had to be carried back onstage. As he prepared for his final performance, which would end the show, Mr. N'Dour said musicians held a special place in the African imagination, making them the best agents of progress and change. "We are guardians of Africa's diamond, its shining jewel, our culture," he said. "It has sustained us for so long, and now it can move us forward."

South Africa

IRIN 15 Mar 2005 SADC prepares for the African Standby Force [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] © Pretoria News The SADC brigade is expected to be ready by the end of this year JOHANNESBURG, 15 Mar 2005 (IRIN) - Military experts from member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are meeting regularly to prepare for the formation of a standby peacekeeping brigade in the region by the end of this year, a senior official told IRIN. "Troops will be volunteered by the member states according to their capacity, as and when the need arises," explained Magang Phologane, political officer in the SADC Organ for Politics, Defence and Security. SADC is one of the five continental regions that are each contributing a brigade to form an African Standby Force as part of an African Union (AU) initiative to develop a common security policy by 2010. According to researchers Vanessa Kent and Mark Malan at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, the force will also include expert police and civilian capacity. African defence chiefs have established long-term deployment targets for the standby force that coincide with UN timelines: to be able to have boots on the ground in a traditional peacekeeping operation within 30 days of the adoption of a resolution, and in complex peacekeeping operations within 90 days, said Kent and Malan. The SADC's Phologane said, "There are no pre-identified troops/weapons/military equipment for the brigade, which will be headquartered within the SADC secretariat, which is currently based in Botswana's capital, Gaborone." South African Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota, chairman of the SADC's interstate defence and security council, called an unscheduled meeting earlier this month to "exchange views on the finalisation of the SADC brigade of the African Standby Forces", among other issues, reported the South African Press Agency (SAPA). He told SAPA that SADC was becoming increasingly involved in "theatres of conflict" and the brigade would ensure that this responsibility was carried as a collective and not left to individual countries. Lekota has often commented that South Africa's peacekeeping capacity was stretched to the limit. Besides deploying troops to UN operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi, South Africa has sent military observers and staff officers to missions in Ethiopia/Eritrea, Liberia, and Sudan. With over 3,000 men and women from the South African Defence Force deployed in these operations last year, South Africa was "a significant, if not the largest, contributor of peacekeeping troops in Africa", noted the ministry's 2003/04 annual report.

Sudan

IRIN 8 Mar 2005 No let up in sexual violence in Darfur - MSF [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] © IRIN/Claire Mc Evoy Displaced women on the outskirts of Al-Junaynah, West Darfur. NAIROBI, 8 Mar 2005 (IRIN) - The incidence of rape and sexual violence against women and girls, often perpetrated by armed men, continues to be high in the war-torn western Sudanese region of Darfur, according to the medical charity, Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF). In a report released on Monday, the eve of International Women's Day, MSF reported that between October 2004 and mid-February 2005, doctors in several locations in North and South Darfur had treated almost 500 women and girls who had been raped. "These women come to us for treatment of sexually-transmitted diseases, physical injuries and psychological trauma," Paul Foreman, MSF Head of mission in Khartoum, told IRIN on Tuesday. "The problem is massive." The report, entitled, "The Crushing Burden of Rape: Sexual Violence in Darfur", said: "MSF believes that these numbers reflect only a fraction of the total number of victims because many women are reluctant to report the crime or seek treatment." It called on local government and other health care providers in Darfur to ensure full and appropriate treatment for victims of sexual violence. MSF quoted rape survivors as saying most attacks occurred when women left the relative safety of their villages and internally displaced persons' camps to search for firewood and water. Eighty-one percent of those treated by the NGO claimed members of militia groups or the military assaulted them. Almost a third (28 percent) of the rape survivors who sought treatment from MSF reported that they had been raped more than once, either by single and multiple assailants, the report said. In Darfur, as in other conflicts, MSF said, rape had been a deliberate and regular tool of war, used to destabilise and threaten a part of the civilian population. It said that survivors of rape in Darfur, rather than being given appropriate medical and psychosocial care, often faced rejection and stigma. In some cases, the report added, victims of rape had been imprisoned while perpetrators of the crime went unpunished. "Despite its devastating consequences, rape in Darfur and in other conflicts has not yet received the attention that the scale of the crime or the gravity of its impact call for," Kenny Gluck, MSF director of operations, said from Amsterdam, the Netherlands. "This has to change," he added. "It is time to end this vicious crime, which is a clear breach of international humanitarian law. Perpetrators should be prosecuted, not tolerated." Speaking in Khartoum on Monday, Jan Egeland, UN emergency relief coordinator, added his voice to the condemnation of continued sexual violence in the war-ravaged region of Darfur. "The government officials said the Sudan had not known this outrageous crime against women before," Egeland told a news conference. "They conceded that it has recently become a rampant phenomenon in the society, where hundreds of cases have been documented." Foreman said MSF had released the damning report despite a request by the Sudanese government that it refrain from doing so. Jan Pronk, special envoy of the UN Secretary-General to Sudan, upon receiving a copy of the report, said in a statement: "I am concerned about the findings of the report. These findings are consistent with the reports from UN human rights observers and UN humanitarian agencies in Darfur." He added: "I will give a very high priority to this issue and will continue to work with UN agencies and other partners, including MSF, in addressing this evil, this phenomenon of rape. This report is an opportunity for the government of Sudan to reaffirm its commitment to end impunity with regard to these severe cases of rape and sexual abuse." There was no immediate comment from the Sudanese government. The conflict in Darfur dates back to February 2003 and pits Sudanese government troops and militias, allegedly allied to the government, against rebels fighting to end what they have called marginalisation and discrimination of the region's inhabitants by the state. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and up to 1.85 million internally displaced or forced to flee to neighbouring Chad. www.msf.org

BBC 14 Mar 2005 UN's Darfur death estimate soars Many refugees have died from preventable causes At least 180,000 people may have died in Sudan's Darfur region over the past 18 months, according to the United Nations' top emergency relief official. Jan Egeland said the figure refers to victims of illness and malnutrition and excludes those who have been killed in the ethnic violence. The UN previously gave an estimate of 70,000 non-conflict deaths. Pro-government militia are accused of killing and raping villagers and driving two million from their homes. The UN has not put a figure on violent deaths in the region. Attacks 'continuing' An average of 10,000 people have died each month over the past year-and-a-half from disease and other preventable causes, the emergency relief chief said. How many have died in Darfur? "It could be just as well more than 200,000 [over 18 months] but I think 10,000 a month... is a reasonable figure," Mr Egeland told AFP news agency. Last year, the World Health Organisation said it believed 10,0000 people had died each month from March to October, mostly from disease and some from random violence in camps. Amnesty International's best estimate for how many may have died from violence since the conflict began - taking into account attacks on hundreds of villages - was 50,000 as of last month. Most of the estimated two million people who fled their villages since the violence began in early 2003 have sought refuge in the camps in Darfur's main towns. As many as 200,000 have also sought safety in neighbouring Chad. A UN report earlier this year concluded that while the killings in Darfur did not amount to genocide, killings, torture, enforced disappearances and sexual violence were carried out on a widespread and systematic basis and could amount to crimes against humanity. The BBC's Susannah Price at the UN says the latest reports from Darfur say lawlessness and attacks by the Janjaweed militia continue to blight the lives of civilians. The Janjaweed attacked villages, targeted an internally displaced peoples camp and burnt abandoned homes to discourage those who wanted to return, she says..

Vatican Denounces Violence in Darfur Catholic Information Service for Africa (Nairobi) NEWS March 14, 2005 Posted to the web March 15, 2005 The Vatican The Holy See has described the situation in Darfur as a disgrace to humanity, and called for a mechanism to protect internally displaced people. Msgr Fortunatus Nwachukwu, the Nunciature Counsellor at the Holy See Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations at Geneva, said this on March 10, 2005, during the 32nd a meeting of the Standing Committee of the United nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) which began March 8. "The refugee situation in Africa remains a deep scar on the human family everywhere," he was quoted by the Vatican Information Service as saying, in a talk focused on the displaced population crisis in Darfur, Sudan. "As international community, we should develop a reliable system which effectively protects those staying in their own country, but displaced from their homes," Msgr Nwachukwu said. "The precarious and tragic condition of these millions of persons forcibly uprooted from their villages and their lands calls for concrete and prompt decisions to alleviate their suffering and to protect their rights," he noted. The envoy said that the African Union military monitors in the region were "insufficient in number and lack the necessary logistical support."

Thousands Join 'Fast for Justice in Sudan'; Nationwide Effort Demands Immediate Action to End Genocide in Darfur Amidst Week of Key Votes 3/15/2005 9:49:00 AM To: National, International and Assignment desks Contact: Ricken Patel of DarfurGenocide.org, 646-229-5416 or ricken@therespublica.org, Web: http://www.darfurgenocide.org NEW YORK, March 15 /U.S. Newswire/ -- On the eve of key votes in the US Congress and United Nations Security Council regarding measures to end the genocide in Sudan, almost 2000 Americans from all 50 states have committed to go without food on Wednesday, March 16th. This rapid, nationwide response answers a call issued by DarfurGenocide.org over the weekend to generate pressure on the US Congress and the UN as they consider support for security measures and humanitarian relief. "We cannot allow governments to hide behind half-measures and diplomatic gridlock while the Sudanese government's genocide-by- starvation steadily continues. With our small sacrifice, we hope to spark the consciences of our leaders to meet the moral urgency of the moment," said DarfurGenocide.org Co-Director Ricken Patel. Over 300,000 people have already been killed in Darfur since the Government of Sudan launched its plan to "change the demography" of its western province two years ago. The government's "janjaweed" militias continue to massacre civilians, and have already forced over 2 million people to flee their homes for camps where they are vulnerable to attacks, disease and starvation. Hundreds of people continue to respond to the recent "call to fast." A map is available that displays the location of every participant and a personal testimonial of their reasons for fasting. Each version includes data on 400 of the fasters nationwide and can be accessed through http://www.darfurgenocide.org. One example of a testimonial from Columbus, Ohio: "I'm striking in solidarity with and to bear witness to what the people of Darfur are enduring, and also to send a message to our governmental leaders that we have a moral imperative to do all we can to stop atrocities like Rwanda and Darfur...so that genocide is never EVER an answer again in the house of our world community." The "Fast for Justice in Sudan" is organized by DarfurGenocide.org, a web-based information and action resource devoted to ending the genocide in Darfur. DarfurGenocide.org is a project of Res Publica, a group of public sector professionals dedicated to promoting good governance and virtuous civic cultures.

washingtonpost.com 20 Mar 2005 In Darfur, My Camera Was Not Nearly Enough By Brian Steidle Sunday, March 20, 2005; Page B02 Our helicopter touched down in a cloud of camel-brown sand, dust and plastic debris. As the cloud gradually settled into new layers on the bone-dry desert landscape, we could make out the faces of terrified villagers. "Welcome to Sudan," I murmured to myself, grabbing my pen and waterproof notebook. A former Marine, I had arrived in Sudan's Darfur region in September 2004 as one of three U.S. military observers for the African Union, armed only with a pen, pad and camera. The mandate for the A.U. force allowed merely for the reporting of violations of a cease-fire that had been declared last April and the protection of observers. The observers sometimes joked morbidly that our mission was to search endlessly for the cease-fire we constantly failed to find. I soon realized that this was no joke. The conflict had begun nearly 1 1/2 years earlier and had escalated into a full-scale government-sponsored military operation that, with the support of Arab militias known as the Janjaweed, was aimed at annihilating the African tribes in the region. And while the cease-fire was supposed to have put a stop to that, on an almost daily basis we would be called to investigate reports of attacks on civilians. We would find men, women and children tortured and killed, and villages burned to the ground. The first photograph I took in Darfur was of a tiny child, Mihad Hamid. She was only a year old when I found her. Her mother had attempted to escape an onslaught from helicopter gunships and Janjaweed marauders that had descended upon her village of Alliet in October 2004. Carrying her daughter in a cloth wrapped around her waist, as is common in Sudan, Mihad's terrified mother had run from her attackers. But a bullet had rung out through the dry air, slicing through Mihad's flesh and puncturing her lungs. When I discovered the child, she was nestled in her mother's lap, wheezing in a valiant effort to breathe. With watery eyes, her mother lifted Mihad for me to examine. Most Sudanese villagers assume that a khawadja -- a foreigner -- must be a doctor. And my frantic efforts to signal to her to lay her struggling daughter back down only convinced her that I had medical advice to dispense. It broke my heart to be able to offer her only a prayer and a glance of compassion, as I captured this casualty with my camera and notepad. I pledged, with the linguistic help of our team's Chadian mediator, that we would alert the aid organizations poised to respond. "This is what they do," the mediator -- a neutral party to the conflict -- screamed at me. "This is what happens here! Now you know! Now you see!" I was unaware at that time that when the aid workers arrived the next day, amid continued fighting, they would never be able to locate Mihad. Mihad now represents to me the countless victims of this vicious war, a war that we documented but given our restricted mandate were unable to stop. Every day we surveyed evidence of killings: men castrated and left to bleed to death, huts set on fire with people locked inside, children with their faces smashed in, men with their ears cut off and eyes plucked out, and the corpses of people who had been executed with gunshots to the head. We spoke with thousands of witnesses -- women who had been gang-raped and families that had lost fathers, people who plainly and soberly gave us their accounts of the slaughter. Often we were the witnesses. Just two days after I had taken Mihad's photo, we returned to Alliet. While talking to a government commander on the outskirts of the town, we heard a buzz that sounded like a high-voltage power line. Upon entering the village, we saw that the noise was coming from flies swarming over dead animals and people. We counted about 20 dead, many burned, and then flew back to our camp to write our report. But the smell of charred flesh was hard to wash away. The conflict in Darfur is not a battle between uniformed combatants, and it knows no rules of war. Women and children bear the greatest burden. The Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps are filled with families that have lost their fathers. Every day, women are sent outside the IDP camps to seek firewood and water, despite the constant risk of rape at the hands of the Janjaweed. Should men be available to venture out of the camps, they risk castration and murder. So families decide that rape is the lesser evil. It is a crime that families even have to make such a choice. Often women are sexually assaulted within the supposed safety of the IDP camps. Nowhere is really safe. If and when the refugees are finally able to return home and rebuild, many women may have to support themselves alone; rape victims are frequently ostracized, and others face unwanted pregnancies and an even greater burden of care. The Janjaweed militias do not act alone. I have seen clear evidence that the atrocities committed in Darfur are the direct result of the Sudanese government's military collaboration with the militias. Attacks are well coordinated by Sudanese government officials and Arab militias, who attack villages together. Before these attacks occur, the cell phone systems are shut down by the government so that villagers cannot warn each other. Whenever we lost our phone service, we would scramble to identify the impending threat. We knew that somewhere, another reign of terror was about to begin. Helicopter gunships belonging to the government routinely support the Arab militias on the ground. The gunships fire anti-personnel rockets that contain flashettes, or small nails, each with stabilizing fins on the back so the point hits the target first. Each gunship contains four rocket pods, each rocket pod contains about 20 rockets and each rocket contains about 500 of these flashettes. Flashette wounds look like shotgun wounds. I saw one small child's back that looked as if it had been shredded by a cheese grater. We got him to a hospital, but we did not expect him to live. On many of the occasions we tried to investigate these attacks, we would find that fuel for our helicopters was mysteriously unavailable. We would receive unconvincing explanations from the Sudanese government's fuel company -- from "we are out of fuel" to "our fuel pumps are broken." At the same time, government helicopters continued to strafe villages unimpeded. Those villagers who were able to escape flocked to existing IDP camps, where they would scrounge for sticks and plastic bags to construct shelter from the sun and wind. In even these desperate situations, however, the Sudanese government would not give up its murderous mission. First it would announce the need to relocate an IDP camp and assess the population of displaced people, often grossly underestimating the numbers. Then after international aid organizations had built a new, smaller camp, the government would forcibly relocate the population, leaving hundreds to thousands without shelter. It would bulldoze or drive over the old camps with trucks, often in the middle of the night in order to escape notice. It would then gather up and burn the remaining debris. The worst thing I saw came last December, when Labado, a village of 20,000 people, was burned to the ground. We rushed there after a rebel group contacted us, and we arrived while the attack was still in progress. At the edge of the village, I found a Sudanese general who explained why he was doing nothing to stop the looting and burning. He said his job was to protect civilians and keep the road open to commercial traffic and denied that his men were participating in the attack. Then a group of uniformed men drove by in a Toyota Land Cruiser. The general said they were just going to get water, but they stopped about 75 yards away, jumped out, looted a hut and burned it. The attacks continued for a week. We have no idea how many people died there but tribal leaders later said close to 100 were missing. Since I left Darfur last month, I have tried, in press conferences, newspaper interviews and congressional testimony, to publicize conditions there in the hope that the international community will intervene more vigorously instead of watching the atrocities run their course. That way we won't look back years from now and ask why we didn't stop another genocide. I believe this conflict can be resolved through international pressure and international support of the African Union. Weapons sanctions and a no-fly zone throughout Darfur are critical. I have seen that the mere presence of A.U. forces can discourage attacks and, with more support, they could stop the conflict. In December, the Sudanese general at Labado had told us that his mission was to continue clearing the route all the way to Khartoum, hundreds of miles away. The next town in line was Muhajeryia, roughly twice the size of Labado. The African Union placed 35 soldiers into Muhajeryia, not to protect the village, but to protect the civilian contractors who were establishing a base camp. Yet this small force alone was able to deter the government of Sudan, with a force of a few thousand soldiers and Janjaweed militiamen, from attacking. Shortly after that, the A.U. was able to deploy 70 more soldiers from the protection force and 10 military observers to the scorched village of Labado. Within one week, approximately 3,000 people returned to rebuild. In addition, the A.U. negotiated the withdrawal of Sudanese government troops from the area. To secure and protect all villages in Darfur, the African Union needs several things: an expanded mandate that would allow it to protect civilians and ensure secure routes for humanitarian aid, advanced logistics and communication support, and an increase in the size of the protection force by tens of thousands. The attention paid to Darfur in Congress and at the United Nations hasn't been enough. For the first time, we might be able to stop genocide in the making. We must not fail the men, women and children of Darfur. During my time in Darfur, as I listened to the victims, I was astounded at their composure. Their unwavering faith provides some rationale to what seems to me an inexplicable horror. By handing over their lives to God, somehow each day is a gift, despite the massacres. "We're going to die," they acknowledge with fear, "but we hope to survive . . . Inshallah [God willing]." Unfortunately, they just don't have a choice. We do. Author's e-mail: steidlebs@globalgrassrootsnetwork.org Brian Steidle, who served four years in the U.S. Marine Corps, recently spent six months working for a State Department contractor as a cease-fire monitor with the African Union force in Sudan's Darfur region. His sister, Gretchen Steidle Wallace, assisted in the writing of this piece.

washingtonpost.com An Opportunity in Darfur Sunday, March 20, 2005; Page B06 DURING A VISIT to The Post on Tuesday, Sudan's U.S. ambassador, Khidir Ahmed, stated that his government wanted more African Union peacekeepers in the territory of Darfur, where some 300,000 civilians have perished. Moreover, he claimed, his government would be happy for this force to have a clearer mandate to protect civilians rather than being limited to monitoring the ostensible cease-fire in the province. These declarations stand in contrast to Sudan's previous policy of opposing a strong mandate, of hampering the African Union's movements by denying fuel for its helicopters and even of shooting at one of its aircraft in December. The United States and its allies should take Sudan's new position at face value and organize an expanded peacekeeping mission quickly. The importance of seizing this opening is clear from listening to Brian Steidle, a former Marine captain who describes his experience as an adviser to the African Union peacekeepers in The Post's Outlook section today. Mr. Steidle's experience shows that African deployment has been at least sporadically effective. In December, for example, the African Union deterred an expected government attack on a town called Muhajeryia by stationing 35 troops there. By deploying 70 troops and 10 observers in the ruins of another town that had been razed by government forces, it emboldened about half the villagers to return home. Mr. Steidle has other good things to say about the African Union deployment. The 300 military officers who make up the observer mission are drawn from all over Africa and are committed to their mission; they hope that their presence in Darfur shows that Africans can address their own problems. But Mr. Steidle's overwhelming message is more somber. Like every other military expert, he begins by saying that the African Union force is too small to cover a territory the size of Texas. The 300 observers are accompanied by a protection force of fewer than 2,000; Mr. Steidle says at least 25,000 are needed. The African Union also needs better equipment. When Mr. Steidle left Darfur in February, the force had the hardware to send satellite e-mail but could not actually use it, since nobody had negotiated service with a satellite company. The awful truth is that Sudan's openness to an expanded African Union mission probably reflects these weaknesses. The government thinks it can score diplomatic points by issuing an invitation that the world will leave on the table, even though acting on it could save lives by the thousand. To get more peacekeepers into Darfur, the African Union would have to negotiate the details with Sudan's government; it would require diplomatic and technical support from the United Nations, more troop contributions from African countries, and more money and logistical backup from the United States and its allies. But recent experience shows that the United States is unwilling to invest the effort to make these disparate actors work together; only two-thirds of the currently mandated African Union deployment is on the ground. So long as Sudan shut the world out as it killed Darfur's civilians, it was the primary culprit for atrocities that amount to genocide. But if Sudan's government is inviting the world into Darfur, the moral burden shifts a bit. The United States and its allies are being challenged to show that they care about genocide enough to shake off their passivity and organize a peacekeeping force. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her new team at the State Department must rise to this challenge, so that stories like the saving of Muhajeryia are no longer the exceptions.

washingtonpost.com 22 Mar 2005 Sudan Leader: World Must Pressure Darfur Rebels Government Blamed Unfairly, Powerful Vice President Says in Interview By Emily Wax Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, March 22, 2005; Page A01 KHARTOUM, Sudan, March 21 -- Sudan's first vice president said foreign nations must put more political pressure on Sudanese rebel groups to lay down their guns before lasting peace can be achieved in the war-shattered western region of Darfur. In a two-hour interview with The Washington Post, Ali Uthman Muhammad Taha said his government had received an unfair share of the blame for the war in Darfur, which has displaced 2 million villagers and killed tens of thousands in the past two years, mostly through hunger and disease. "We need a strong, unequivocal message that the rebels have to honor the cease-fire," said Taha, who heads a government task force aimed at ending the Darfur crisis and who is considered by many to be the most powerful man in Sudan, partly because he helped negotiate a peace deal in a separate conflict in the country's south. The rebels in Darfur "started this war by attacking police stations and the airport. . . . What is needed at the moment is for them to have pressure from Europe and the U.S. to stop," Taha said. In his most extensive remarks yet on Darfur, the vice president reiterated statements by Sudanese authorities denying international allegations of genocide in the region. The Bush administration and the U.S. Congress have said the widespread deaths there amounted to genocide. A U.N. commission stopped short of using the term but found that war crimes and crimes against humanity had been committed. "We do understand and appreciate people having sympathy with the victims of Darfur," said Taha, 57, who called the situation a "sad chapter" in Sudan's history. But he added: "This was not genocide, but an unfortunate internal conflict . . . that has nothing to do with ethnic cleansing. We urge people to see the difference between the innocents caught in the middle and the rebels who are escalating their claims to gain sympathy." Taha's comments came two months after a peace accord was signed in the conflict between the Khartoum government, represented by Taha, and the Sudan People's Liberation Army, a rebel group in southern Sudan led by John Garang. That agreement gave religious and political autonomy to the southern region. Taha said he was optimistic about peace lasting in the south. He called the pact "a real landmark" in Sudan's recent history and said it "paves the way for a new horizon for the Sudanese people." The two-decade civil war, which pitted the Islamic government against rebels based in the mostly animist and Christian south, left 2 million people dead, primarily from famine and disease. Under the accord, which was backed by the Bush administration, the south will have a six-year period of self-rule, then vote on whether to remain part of Sudan. The agreement also calls for Garang to replace Taha as first vice president. The conflict in Darfur broke out in early 2003 when two largely black African rebel groups attacked police stations and military outposts to protest what they called discrimination by the mostly Arab governing elite. The United Nations and human rights groups accuse the government of arming and supporting militiamen, called the Janjaweed, to crush the rebellion, and of bombing villages where rebel supporters were said to be hiding. Taha, interviewed in the national palace, called the Janjaweed bandits and said they were beyond the government's immediate control. He said that those who broke the law or committed atrocities would be punished, but that the rebels had to stop fighting and turn in their arms before the government could pursue the Janjaweed. "In Darfur, there has been a huge influx of weapons from the Chad conflict, from instability in the Central African Republic and from the south of Sudan," Taha said. "This phenomenon of lawlessness and the habit of looting and attacking have made conditions very tough." He said the report issued earlier this year by the U.N. commission of inquiry, which found that war crimes and crimes against humanity had been committed in Darfur, was based on "weak evidence" and "political judgments, rather than legal findings." The Security Council is considering whether to impose economic sanctions on Sudan because of the Darfur conflict. Taha said that such sanctions could exacerbate the crisis, adding that the government did not have enough money to develop the region. He said the Darfur conflict had historical roots and had not been planned by the government. There had been tensions and periodic violence among regional tribes for decades over access to water and grazing areas, he said. Taha said he planned to establish panels to address the basic causes of the conflict. Taha said he wanted to see the Darfur issue resolved quickly. The government was willing to be patient in seeking peace with the rebels, he said, and has been practicing a policy of "self-restraint" in fighting them. However, he said, Sudan would not agree to U.N. appeals for a "no-fly" zone over Darfur. Taha visited Darfur in late 2002 to discuss the needs of the local populace. He said the visitors were told that "there was need of fresh water, health care and primary schooling. . . . We agreed with that." But just a few months later, Taha added, "the response was shooting by the rebels" and "other tribes felt insecure as well." The government had "no intent to go on a military track," he said, "but to a certain degree we had to combat rebel attacks." He said there had been a misunderstanding by critics who accused the government of arming the Janjaweed. He said officials had called up the Popular Defense Forces, a government-backed paramilitary group, and that volunteers who responded "were individuals from different parts, not only the Arabs."

Sudan Times 23 Mar 2005 Less talk, more action By BEN KIERNAN, the Scotland on Sunday March 20, 2005 -- IN TWO years of mass killings and forced population displacements, Sudan and its Arab Janjaweed militias have caused the deaths of more than 200,000 Africans in the country's Darfur provinces. Though existing international law already provides both a relevant statutory definition of genocide and a court to judge these crimes, needless semantic disputes are hampering effective punishment and deterrence. Failure to promptly bring those responsible before the International Criminal Court (ICC) could render the international community helpless onlookers - and would further encourage such crimes. Despite persistent reports of attacks on Africans in Darfur, military intervention has been slow. The African Union peacekeeping force is small. Guarding their own sovereignty, few African or Arab governments will intervene in a regional Islamic state, or prosecute its crimes. US intervention, with American forces extended in Iraq and elsewhere, seems unlikely. Washington favours a genocide tribunal, in a special court restricted to hearing the Darfur case. It opposes the new permanent ICC, which one day might try US war crimes. Differing definitions of genocide plague the legal response. A United Nations commission, urging referral of the case to ICC prosecutors, recently found that crimes against humanity and war crimes are occurring in Darfur. The commission avoided charging Sudanese government officials with genocide stating that "only a competent court" can determine if they have committed "acts with genocidal intent". Meanwhile, the US government, the German government and the parliament of the European Union all accuse Khartoum of "genocide". Why this debate over the definition of genocide? Although the concept preceded the invention of the term, the jurist Raphael Lemkin coined the word in his 1944 classic Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. Warning of what we now call the Holocaust, he cited previous cases, particularly the 1915 Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Young Turk regime. Lemkin thought the term should denote the attempted destruction not only of ethnic and religious groups but also of political ones, and that it encompassed systematic cultural destruction as well. The 1941-45 Nazi genocide of Jews and Gypsies constitutes not only the most extreme case of genocide, it differs from previous cases - the conquistadors' brutality in the New World or Ottoman massacres - in an important respect: the Holocaust was one of the first examples of attempted physical racial extermination. On a smaller scale, this fate had already befallen a number of indigenous peoples in the Americas, Africa and Australia - and, later, the Vietnamese minority in Cambodia and Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994. By then, planned near-complete annihilation of a people had become the colloquial meaning of "genocide". Yet the postwar UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide adopted Lemkin's broader concept, which encompasses the crimes in Darfur. Ratified by most UN member states, the 1948 convention defines genocide as acts committed "with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such". It includes even non-violent destruction of such a group. While excluding cultural destruction and political extermination, the convention specifically covers removal of children, imposing living conditions that make it difficult to sustain a group's existence, or inflicting physical or mental harm, with the intent to destroy a group "as such". Australia's Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission found in 1997 that the UN definition of genocide applied to the removals of Aboriginal children from their parents to "breed out the colour" - as one Australian official put it in 1933. The law thus expands the popular understanding of genocide. As in the case of Darfur, genocide may fall well short of total physical extermination. The legal recourse now available to victims under international law is a good reason to accept the 1948 UN definition. In 2003, Sudan acceded to the Genocide Convention. It is statutory international law, binding on 136 states. In the past decade, UN tribunals for Bosnia and Rwanda have convicted genocide perpetrators from both countries. The convention's definition is enshrined in the statute of the ICC, created in 2002 and ratified by 94 states. The legal definition is broad in another sense. In criminal law, the term "intent" does not equal "motive". One of Hitler's motives for the construction of Auschwitz was to destroy the Jews directly, but other genocide perpetrators have pursued different goals - conquest (Indonesia in East Timor), "ethnic cleansing" (in Bosnia and Darfur) - which resulted in more indirect cases. If those perpetrators did not set out to commit genocide, it was a predictable result of their actions. The regimes pursued their objectives, knowing that at least partial genocide would result from their violence: driving Africans from Darfur, crushing all national resistance in East Timor, imposing totalitarian racism in Cambodia. When such policies knowingly bring genocidal results, their perpetrators may be legally judged to have possessed the "intent" to destroy a group, whatever their motive. Such crimes are not the same as the Holocaust, but international law has made them another form of genocide. The 1948 Convention also outlaws complicity, incitement, conspiracy and attempt to commit genocide. A government could commit those crimes by facilitating an ongoing genocide against indigenous people. Darfur may include such cases of official complicity with the Janjaweed militia attacks. In colonial Australia, British authorities did not set out to exterminate Aborigines but some police and settlers did. Nor did US federal officials adopt such a goal in California and the West, though some state governments and bounty-hunting posses did. Yet courts in both countries prohibited testimony by native people. Such official policies and their deliberate, sustained enforcement facilitated or resulted in the predictable genocide of a number of Aboriginal and Native American peoples. Complicity, discrimination and refusal of legal responsibility to protect threatened groups continued in the 20th century. Even after World War II, the UN Security Council failed to enforce the 1948 Genocide Convention until the crime recurred in Europe. By then genocide had proliferated elsewhere. A few independent scholars, inspired by Lemkin, had long been working to broaden understanding of the phenomenon beyond the Holocaust. Most scholars now include the Armenian, Bangladeshi, Cambodian, East Timorese, Guatemalan, Sudanese, and other cases, along with those of Bosnia and Rwanda. Attention has also turned to indigenous peoples. A German official recently apologised to the Herero people of Namibia for Berlin's genocidal conquest of South-West Africa in 1904-05. The US and Australia have yet to acknowledge genocides against their indigenous inhabitants but now the Muslim Africans of Darfur have a legal remedy. After a century of genocide, resistance and research on the phenomenon, the world community has a legal definition, an international statute outlawing the crime and a court asserting jurisdiction over it. The task now requires less definitional disputation, more investigation, rigorous enforcement and compensation for the victims. Unless either the Sudanese government invites the ICC, or the UN decides to send the case before the ICC, the Darfur crimes may go unpunished. Lest international efforts to prevent genocide disintegrate into empty talk, the ICC should be allowed to take up the case of Darfur. Ben Kiernan is the A.Whitney Griswold Professor of History and director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University

Reuters 23 Mar 2005 UN Council may act in S. Sudan but not in Darfur Wed March 23, 2005 8:29 AM GMT+02:00 By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council may adopt a resolution this week sending peacekeepers to relatively calm southern Sudan but take no action against perpetrators of atrocities in Darfur. The United States decided on Tuesday to split its draft resolution on Sudan into three parts, with only the peacekeeping force for southern Sudan fairly certain of approval. The two main measures on the Darfur region -- sanctions and a venue to try war crimes suspects -- face opposition. "We were literally running out of time on Sudan and we felt strongly that we had to move ahead," Anne Patterson, the acting U.S. ambassador, told reporters. "So what we have done is circulate three draft resolutions, one on peacekeeping, one on sanctions, and one that would provide for measures to end impunity," she said. The United States hopes to have at least the peacekeeping resolution adopted this week. Council members are consulting their governments before consultations on Wednesday. "It is clear there is very broad support for the peacekeeping resolution and that is very very critical because it will strengthen the new government in Sudan and get more boots on the ground," Patterson said. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the 2-year-old rebellion against the government in Darfur over power and resources. Thousands are dying every month in miserable camps that house the almost 2 million people who have fled their homes after attacks from Arab militia, at times backed by the Khartoum government. The peacekeeping resolution would authorize a 10,000-strong peacekeeping force in southern Sudan to monitor an agreement that ended a 21-year civil war between Khartoum and southern rebels. That accord calls for power-sharing in both the army and government. The second resolution would impose a stiffer arms embargo on Darfur and initiate sanctions against human rights violators and those who jeopardize a cease-fire in the region. Russia and China, which have veto power, as well as Algeria and possibly other nations object to some of those measures. Patterson said the third resolution, on making war criminals accountable, kept all options open and "makes no judgment as to which would be preferable, but simply enables