Vanguard (Lagos) 4 June 2001 200 African govts ousted by coup in 27 years - About 200 regimes in Africa were removed between 1963 and 2000 by coup d’etat, wars or other unconstitutional means, a report has shown. The report, compiled by the African Development Bank (ADB http://www.afdb.org/) and contained in its "African Development Report 2001," shows that 14 current leaders in Africa have been in office for between 10 years and 20 years, while nine of them have served for more than 20 years. The mean tenure for all former African leaders according to the report is 7.2 years and about twice that number for leaders who died in office or retired. It also says between 1960 and 1989, only one African head of state lost an election, while 12 lost elections between 1990 and 1999. In contrast, European leaders have each served an average of 3.2 years over the past four decades with Finland having the shortest average and Luxembourg the longest. The document also shows that three recently independent countries in Africa have had no leadership transitions since independence while 11 have had just one transition, just as Nigeria has had 11 transitions and Benin Republic 12. The report states that of the 101 past leaders in Africa who left office because of coups or similar unauthorised means, about two-thirds were killed, imprisoned or banished to foreign countries.

Algeria

WP 15 June 2001 Broad-Based Revolt Gains Momentum in Algeria Sustained Protests Fed by Economic, Political Frustration of Young By Keith B. Richburg. As a sweltering Mediterranean summer takes hold, social unrest is exploding in many parts of Algeria, fueled by high unemployment, a critical housing shortage, a stalled economy and a creaky, outdated political system that people see as both repressive and opaque. In the Kabylie region east of here, security forces have shot dead as many as 80 people and wounded hundreds in a drive to quell seven weeks of anti-government protests by members of the Berber minority. Elsewhere, Algerian journalists have rallied for press freedom and women have marched for an end to repression. Family members of the thousands of people who disappeared during Algeria's decade-long civil war gather for weekly vigils. Here in the capital, demonstrations have been the largest in a decade, demanding civil liberties and an end to corruption. [Hundreds of thousands of people paraded through the city yesterday, with riot police charging the protesters as they neared the presidential palace, the Associated Press reported. Two Algerian journalists were killed in the violence when they were run over by a bus.] "It is the reaction of young people revolted at the economic situation, and they have political demands and they want more liberty," said a human rights activist in Tizi Ouzou, a major town in the Kabylie region. For the last decade, Algeria has been known for one of the world's bloodiest wars, between government forces and Muslim insurgents. But now, with the world hardly taking notice, that war has been largely isolated to remote mountain areas. And the government finds itself facing a more broad-based street revolt, led by discontented youths who have no religious agenda but worry instead about the oppressive quality of daily life. What some young people term their "intifada" -- modeled after the Palestinian uprising and adopting the Arabic word to describe it -- has become the most pressing challenge faced by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and his backers, a shadowy clique of generals and power brokers who are collectively known as Le Pouvoir, or The Power. For now, they are hanging on. "The terrorist threat they've learned to live with," said one European diplomat. "It's been marginalized and is only affecting people mainly in the countryside. I believe the social-economic problem is their greatest threat." Bouteflika came to power two years ago with a promise of peace and amnesty for Islamic insurgents whose rebellion had claimed about 100,000 lives. He has succeeded in dampening the violence: Deaths are down to about 150 a month from a peak of 2,000, although many Algerians say the violence began waning in 1997, before Bouteflika took office. With the winding down of the war, this once-gracious seaside capital, like the other main cities, has restored some semblance of normality. .. Algeria is actually rich in resources, with one of the world's largest deposits of natural gas and a large supply of oil to sell. But as one Algerian journalist here put it, "The petrol receipts are better -- but at the same time, the misery has increased." Despite Bouteflika's lofty promise that "everything will change," an effort to reform the country's socialist-modeled economy through privatization and banking deregulation has largely stalled, either because of a lack of political will or opposition from vested interests among the ruling clique. Foreign capital is still coming to the oil and gas industries; U.S. interests have $4 billion invested in Algeria and more than 500 Americans reside here. Oil and gas now provide 85 percent of the government's revenue. But otherwise foreign investment is stagnant, no longer because of worries about terrorism but because of a sense of general economic malaise. ... The biggest problem, and the one apparently stoking the widespread unrest, is unemployment. The unemployment rate is officially estimated at about 30 percent, but among people under 25 it is thought to be closer to 80 percent, according to Algerian journalists, businessmen and diplomats. The teeming streets of Algiers and its ancient Casbah quarter are filled with idle young men, many of whom say the only hope of escape is flight to France, Canada or the United States as a refugee. It is that simmering frustration that has fueled the often violent protests in the Berber-speaking Kabylie region, east of the capital. The trigger for the unrest was the death April 18 of a teenager who was taken into custody by the gendarmes, the national police based in the region. Protests turned to violence, with near daily reports in surprisingly robust newspapers of new clashes and new deaths. The demands of the protesters at first were limited and included a withdrawal of the gendarme unit responsible for the violence and such cultural initiatives as official recognition of the Berber language and culture. But as protests and violent crackdowns became a deadly cycle, the demands soon escalated to calls for a complete removal of Le Pouvoir, and for democracy and an end to corruption -- not just in the Berber region, but in all of Algeria. The young protesters were joined in separate marches by women, journalists and lawyers. .... What has struck analysts most about the protests is that they have been sustained over many weeks and have been relatively spontaneous, without orchestration by any of the traditional opposition political parties. And perhaps most important, this time there is no Muslim religious component, unlike during the country's last period of widespread unrest, in 1989-90. The government has tried to portray the uprising as an isolated case of Berber cultural demands from a region with a long history of restiveness. But many people in Tizi Ouzou and Algiers reject that characterization. "Before, people were afraid to speak out," said one professional woman who joined a march. "But the young people understand well now. The shortages, the unemployment -- they are fed up." She added, "I didn't go out because of Berber language demands. I went because of the crisis. People are fed up." In a massive Berber rally in Algiers on May 31, which drew hundreds of thousands to the largest march in more than a decade, the crowd at one point chanted to onlookers: "Please understand, this is a national problem!" Are the demands from the street reaching Le Pouvoir? Bouteflika responded first with a call for a commission of inquiry, then a withdrawal of some of the police units from the Kabylie region. Later, he reshuffled his cabinet. But these moves have been criticized by the increasingly strident opposition as too little, too late from a man who, at 64, is widely seen as out of touch with a young and angry nation. Bouteflika was foreign minister in the 1960s and 1970s, when he helped make Algeria a leading voice for Third World causes. But he spent most of the 1980s and 1990s abroad. Since returning from self-imposed exile to win the presidency in 1999 under a cloud -- the six other candidates withdrew, claiming the vote was rigged -- he has spent much of his time traveling out of the country. He helped negotiate a cease-fire between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and has toured world capitals promoting Algeria as recovering from its civil war. But critics say he is mired in Cold War rhetoric and spends more time jet-setting than addressing his own country's difficulties. "The president goes off to America, to England, everywhere, but he doesn't sort out his problems at home," said a taxi driver, offering an unsolicited comment on Bouteflika. "The problem here is, we are a state of generals." One newspaper cartoon here showed Bouteflika leaving his presidential jet and stepping onto a red carpet, which led directly to another jet. A joke making the rounds is that Bouteflika is planning an official visit -- to Algeria. A lingering and unanswered question here is: How independent is Bouteflika? Some see him as a mere figurehead of the shadowy Pouvoir. Others assert he is a real reformer who finds himself circumscribed as he tries to pull Algeria's crusty political and economic system into the 21st century. "He has no power, because he was never really elected," said a well-connected Algerian journalist. "He does not have a free hand, because he is blocked. The majority of generals want to fire him, but the question is how. They are worried about the international reaction." "I think there's a divergence of interests," said a Western diplomat. "I think he would like to do more, but he cannot, because of Le Pouvoir. The situation is so hot for the president, he has two options: leave everything as it is, or hope these young people go on making pressure, so he will be able to change things. This might help him implement his reforms. "We are at a crossroads now."

BBC 8 June, 2001 The authorities in Algeria say that five people have been killed in the town of Bani Wanif, near the border with Morocco. Security officials gave no details of the attack, apart from blaming it on a group of 'terrorists' - the term used when describing Islamic militants. The town was the scene of a massacre in 1999 in which 19 people were killed. That attack led to a serious rift between Algeria and Morocco, with Algeria alleging that the Moroccans were harbouring militants who would cross back in to Algeria and kill innocent victims.

WP 13 June 2001 By Nora Boustany Algerian Solicits U.S. Intervention Hocine Ait-Ahmed, president of Algeria's Socialist Forces Front, came to Washington with a group of young advisers to meet with State Department officials and human rights groups and to signal his society's distress in the face ofU.S. indifference toward the bloodletting that continues in his homeland. Ait-Ahmed has been a prisoner in French and Algerian jails for his activism, but despite the secular politics of his group, his appeal has been inclusive and the group has gained support among a citizenry drained by the grotesque and unabated violence. Traditionally, his party has represented the cultural aspirations of Berbers in western Algeria. When as many as 80 rioters were killed by Algerian security forces in April, some shot in the head and back withdumdum bullets, according to Salima Ghezali, an Algerian journalist, Washington barely reacted. More than 100,000 people have been killed and 10,000 have disappeared since turbulence gripped Algeria in the early 1990s when a feared Islamist victory led to the cancellation of election results. Close to 1 million Algerians are internally displaced, Ghezali added. Ait-Ahmed claimed that sudden outbursts of brutality are not linked to an Islamic threat but to the stranglehold the Algerian army has on the country as the only alternative to chaos -- or any other political process. The theory that certain power centers in Algeria's armed forces and ruling party are perpetuating the crisis is not new. Two defecting military officers have mentioned such claims in recent books. "What we need is political pressure on issues of human rights because the government is weak," Ghezali argued. Ait-Ahmed and his advisers were due to meet with U.N. officials in New York to press for the dispatch of a U.N. human rights rapporteur to Algeria.

BBC 25 June 2001By North African correspondent David Bamford About 20,000 Berber-speaking people from the troubled region of Kabyliain north-eastern Algeria came together on Monday for a protest march to mark the third anniversary of the murder of Berber musician Lounes Matoub. The march is taking place under the political backdrop of two months of violent clashes led by the Berber speaking community, which is angry about police brutality and government suppression. In death Lounes Matoub, one of Algeria's best known Berber singers, has become even more of an icon for the Berber cultural movement than he was in life. Both sides made efforts to ensure this rally did not go the way of other recent demonstrations in Tizi Ouzou and break out into violence. Organisers appealed on loudspeakers for the march to remain peaceful, and for their part, the paramilitary gendarmes kept a low profile despite taunts by hundreds of youths wearing headbands and black Berber crosses. Some of the marchers have painted their faces with black Berber crosses, while others hold aloft large photographs of Lounes Matoub, The authorities are nervous the march to commemorate his death will spark a new wave of unrest in the Kabylia region, in which at least 80 people are reported to have been killed since April. Throughout Sunday, one day ahead of the march, loudspeakers in the main Berber town of Tizi Ouzou played Mr Matoub's songs at full volume. In them he lampooned both the military-backed government and the Islamist movement. Mr Matoub was assassinated at a mountain roadblock near Tizi Ouzou in June 1998. His killers have never been bought to justice, but his friends think it no coincidence that the murder took place a few days before the government passed a new law, making Arabic the country's only legal language. A move which Mr Matoub and other Berber speakers vehemently opposed. The authorities are alarmed at the current anti-government protests, which have now spread beyond the Berbers into the wider Arab community. But so far they are showing no sign of being able to quell the general popular resentment. Besides making vague reference to holding discussions over social grievances, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika appears to have done very little to tackle the continuing unrest but observers say it threatens the very existence of his civilian government.

Angola

Angola Peace Monitor 7 June 2001 The number of kidnappings and murders by Jonas Savimbi's UNITA movement increased sharply in May, drawing widespread condemnation both inside Angola and internationally. The recent attacks have indicated that the remnant of UNITA is shifting away from classic guerrilla tactics towards unashamedly terrorist warfare. The most publicised atrocity took place on 5 May, when two hundred UNITA soldiers attacked the city of Caxito, 60km north of Luanda. It is not clear how many civilians were murdered during the attack. Some reports put the number at 79, whilst the African Church Information Service puts the number at around 200. The Information Service quoted Carl von Seth, from the Lutheran World Federation Department for World Service as stating that the first civilians were "silently knifed to death in the dark by UNITA men dressed up in army uniforms". The murders in Caxito have led human rights campaigners to ask whether civilian casualties are only a "side-effect" of the war or whether they are a targeted genocidal act. The Angola Peace Monitor is produced every month by ACTSA - Action for Southern Africa. ACTSA, e-mail actsa@actsa.org,

Reuters 5 June 2001 By Lucy Jones The Central African Republic denied on Tuesday that troops fighting to regain full control of the capital after last week's failed coup against President Ange Felix Patasse were engaged in ethnic cleansing. Dissidents were still holding out in parts of Bangui after more than a week of bloodshed which has left streets strewn with dead and forced thousands to flee amid reports of summary executions. . .The putsch triggered the worst wave of bloodletting in the impoverished former French colony since a series of mutinies in the 1990s, with the heaviest fighting in the same southern quarters that were hotbeds of disaffection then... The government say the dissidents were joined in their attack by a 300-strong force comprising Rwandan refugees and African mercenaries and led by two Rwandan generals. But France indicated it would not intervene to back Patasse as it had done in the past and suggested others follow suit. ``We believe that the time for interference in Africa is over,'' French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine said on Monday.

Burundi

WP Burundi on the Brink Wednesday, June 13, 2001; Page A28 THE GOOD news out of Central Africa these days is that Congo is at last making real progress toward ending a devastating civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands and drawn in troops from a half-dozen neighboring countries. Yet, sadly, Congo's incipient success may be contributing to the undoing of one of those neighbors, Burundi -- a country where up to 200,000 people in a population of 6 million have already been slaughtered in ethnic warfare during the past eight years. A fragile peace accord to end Burundi's conflict has been coming unraveled over the past few months, and government officials, international agencies and a special United Nations delegation are all warning that militia forces returning to the country from Congo may tip the country into a new explosion of violence. The question now is whether the United Nations and African or Western governments can summon the will to intervene before it is too late. Like its neighbor Rwanda, Burundi is plagued by tensions between the majority Hutu ethnic group and minority Tutsi who control the government and army. Fighting between the two groups broke out after the country's first Hutu president was assassinated by a Tutsi-led army coup in 1993; the next year, after a plane carrying the presidents of both Burundi and Rwanda was shot down, Hutu militias massacred hundreds of thousands of Tutsis in Rwanda. Tutsi-led forces eventually took power in both countries, and the Hutu militias were driven into Congo, where they became one of the many armed sides in that country's war. Now, as Congo moves toward a settlement, Hutu fighters are streaming back toward Burundi from both Congo and Tanzania, seriously threatening the government of Pierre Buyoya, who warned a delegation from the U.N. Security Council that "a new regional conflict, centered on Burundi," might soon begin. There already have been concerted international efforts to stabilize Burundi; last year President Clinton stopped in Arusha, Tanzania, to help former South African president Nelson Mandela broker a peace accord. The plan called for Mr. Buyoya to step down and for Tutsi and Hutu presidents to alternate during a three-year transition period while reforms of the army and other institutions were carried out. But the peace process is falling apart: The two sides have been unable to settle on the choices for interim president, Mr. Buyoya has been dragging his feet, and the two major Hutu rebel groups who never signed the accord have refused to stop fighting. The Security Council group noted in its recent report that it was struck by the "complexity and intractability" of Burundi's crisis. And yet the council and key governments such as South Africa, France and the United States still can work with Mr. Mandela to head off a large-scale outbreak of violence. They can do so by pressuring Mr. Buyoya to step down quickly in favor of a transition government in which Tutsis and Hutus share power, and by getting the governments of Congo and Tanzania to cooperate in dismantling or cracking down on the Hutu militias. A security force drawn from African nations and backed by the United Nations could ensure that mass bloodshed does not break out. After the Rwandan genocide, the United Nations, the United States and France all shared blame for failing to stop the killing before it was too late. In Burundi, they must avoid repeating that mistake.

ICRC 21 June 2001 Burundi: End of food aid operation Some 100,000 families, both local and displaced, received more than 5,300 tonnes of food aid during an emergency operation conducted by the ICRC in two provinces in northern Burundi in mid-April. The operation was intended to supplement the assistance provided by the World Food Programme (WFP) elsewhere in the north. The emergency rations – consisting of beans, maize, oil and salt – enabled vulnerable communities to survive until the harvest began in June. The distributions, carried out in Ngozi and Kayanza provinces, have now ended. Set up in record time, the emergency operation was designed to mitigate the consequences of a severe food shortage in these provinces and the areas receiving WFP assistance. Considerable manpower and logistic resources were required to carry out the operation, which was generally effective, although some distributions had to be cancelled in Kayanza province owing to poor security conditions. The successful harvest, the decrease in theft in the fields, the phasing out by several non-governmental organizations of emergency therapeutic nutrition programmes and the fact that food aid did not turn up for resale at local markets all point to an improved food situation in the two provinces. To help farmers achieve basic self-sufficiency and increase their crop yields, the ICRC is considering the launch of another programme in the near future aimed at providing food aid and agricultural assistance. The idea is currently being discussed with the Burundi authorities and the specialized international agencies concerned.

Central African Republic

BBC 12 June, 2001 The United Nations has begun its efforts to rebuild peace in the Central African Republic, two weeks after a foiled coup attempt led to heavy fighting in the capital Bangui. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's special envoy to CAR arrived in Bangui on Tuesday, and went straight from the airport to meet President Ange-Felix Patasse at his downtown residence, where he presented him with a letter from Mr Annan. "General Toure will meet with leading figures in an attempt to secure the fragile peace which has held in the capital since last week," said a UN source. But General Toure will have to contend with heightened ethnic tensions in the country. Patasse: Does not have total control of the army Following the attack on President Patasse's residence by renegade soldiers led by former military ruler General Andre Kolingba, southerners loyal to the general have been pitted against northerners loyal to the president. Mr Patasse is from the Kaba subdivision of the Sara ethnic group, located in the north. Ethnic promotion Mr Kolingba, who ruled the CAR from 1981 until 1993, is from the Yakoma group, which is part of the Ngbandi ethnic group found on the banks of the Obangui river in the south. Mr Patasse and Mr Kolingba have been long time foes. The demoted general was behind the series of army-led mutinies in 1996 and 1997. General Andre Kolingba: Backed by the Yakoma people from the south At a 40th anniversary rally of the CAR army in March, President Patasse accused General Kolingba of plotting a coup. In December, Mr Kolingba's supporters staged a rally in which they accused President Patasse of corruption and mismanagement of the country. "Is the Patasse-Kolingba duel definitively over?" asked "Le Citoyen", a private newspaper published in Bangui on Monday. Mr Patasse and Mr Kolingba head political parties. The president leads the Mouvement pour la libération du peuple centrafricain (MLPC), which is the largest party in the parliament, while the former army leader heads the prominent Rassemblement démocratique centrafricain (RDC) faction. "However, there is also a tribal dimension to the rivalry between Patasse and Kolingba," said one Bangui-based diplomat. Mr Kolingba's Yakoma people, traditionally traders, had the first contact with French colonisers. Bangui has seen a series of demonstrations in recent months As a result they were the first to gain an education, use money and have positions in government. Their language, Sango, was adopted as the national language. "This gave them a superiority complex. Even to this day few Yakoma marry outside their tribe," said an academic at Bangui University. During General Kolingba's 12-year rule, the Yakoma who number 100,000, were given government positions. They were also appointed to posts requiring technical training, which made them difficult to replace when Patasse came to power. The 72,000-strong Sara-Kaba people are predominantly farmers. Those who sowed the seeds of the division would like it to be an ethnic or tribal affair President Patasse The army is one key area still dominated by the people from the southern tribes. As a result, President Patasse's position has never been fully secure. Amid widespread reports of reprisal killings of Yakoma people by government soldiers, many Yakoma civilians fled to the forests where they slept on makeshift beds woven from palm tree leaves and lived off bananas. "The soldiers were going from house to house searching for rebels. If they found a man they killed him, whether he was from the Yakoma [Mr Kolingba's tribe] or not," said Robert Garba, a guard. Many of Bangui's displaced residents, whom the government say number 80,000, are returning home. Across the city, men can be seen repairing bullet-riddled kiosks, bars and houses. Food shortage "The soldiers took everything There's no food on sale here at the moment. People are hungry. "They're too scared to go into the centre of town to buy food. The soldiers are still stopping Yakoma people," said Mathias Kwachi, a Yakoma kiosk owner. "Just because Kolingba wanted to be president again, the Yakoma people suffered," he added. The government rejects reports of revenge attacks on members of Mr Kolingba's southern Yakoma tribe. "I affirm that what has happened is not a conflict between the northerners, the southerners, the people of the savannah, the forest people or river people. "Those who sowed the seeds of the division would like it to be an ethnic or tribal affair," said the president in a television address. Nine ethnic groups - the Mbum, Sara, Banda, Gbaya, Bantu, Pygmies, Oubanguiens, Ngbandi, Nzakara Zande - inhabit this country of 2.3 million people. The Gbaya in the east and Banda in the west control the largest land mass, although since independence in 1960 until Patasse gained power, the country been controlled by the southern Oubanguiens and Ngbandi. The capital is also divided according to ethnicity. The Ngbandi's Yakoma group live in the south of this city of 700,000, where as the Sara live in the north. Tribal identity continues to play a far more important part in the central Africans than ideas of nationhood.

DR Congo

Reuters 11 June 2001 Congo allied forces accuse Rwanda of Hutu genocide The commander of the international forces backing the government in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday accused Rwanda of stage-managing recent rebel attacks and committing genocide against Rwandan ethnic Hutus. Major-General Amoth Chingombe said Rwanda threatened to undermine the Congo's peace process by accusing the Kinshasa government of being behind recent attacks on its tiny neighbor. Chingombe, who heads the troops sent by Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola to support the Kinshasa government against a foreign-backed rebellion, said Rwanda had used the attacks as a pretext to kill Hutu prisoners. Rwanda invaded the vast, mineral-rich country in 1998, backed by Uganda and Burundi, to counter a security threat from Hutu militia who fled there after butchering 800,000 minority Tutsis and Hutu moderates in Rwanda's 1994 genocide. Rwanda and Uganda later turned guns against each other and now support rival Congolese rebel groups. Chingombe said accusations that Hutu rebels, known as Interahamwe, had recently crossed into Rwanda to attack the Rwandan army were a "cheap ploy" to justify Kigali's continued involvement in the Congo. "I have good reason to believe that the people who are being killed...are in fact Hutu prisoners," he said. "As the situation stands it would appear that Rwanda has embarked on a fresh round of genocide under the guise of killing so-called aggressors in the Congo." Rwanda says Congolese President Joseph Kabila is arming and supplying Rwandan Hutu rebels as a proxy force to hit his opponents -- a charge the Kinshasa government denies. "The...allies view these statements with concern because of their potential to undermine peace initiatives in the Congo," the statement said. Peace prospects in Congo have looked brighter since the January's assassination of President Laurent Kabila and his replacement by his son Joseph, who has helped revive a 1999 peace agreement by allowing U.N. peacekeepers to deploy. However, recent fighting in Rwanda and Burundi has raised fears that as peace takes root in the Congo the conflict is simply shifting back to the countries where it began. The Rwandan army says it has killed more than 400 Hutu rebels since the Congo-based insurgents stepped up their raids in mid-May, with 150 rebels were killed last Wednesday alone in the worst outbreak of fighting for years. "There may be attacks by the Interahamwe into Rwanda but these particular ones are stage-managed," Ben Ncube, a spokesman for the allied forces, told reporters in Kinshasa.

AP30 June 2001Belgium Ends Two-Decade Rift With Congo By ARNAUD ZAJTMAN Congo and its old colonial ruler, Belgium, mended a more than two-decade rift in top-level relations Saturday, with Congolese feting Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt in the first visit by a Belgian leader since 1988. Verhofstadt immediately ended a moratorium on aid that had lasted as long as the rift, signing accords Saturday that are expected to bring badly needed millions of dollars to Congo. Ravaged by war and plundered by decades of corrupt dictatorships, Congo was eager to regain its old partnership with Belgium. ... Belgium had frozen aid and broken off high-level relations under Congo's Cold War dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko. The move was in rebuke for the 1990 massacre of university students at Congo's southern city of Lubumbashi. Mobutu was overthrown in 1997, after plundering what were thought to be billions of dollars in foreign aid and proceeds from Congo's many natural riches. Laurent Kabila, the rebel who ousted him, quickly embroiled Congo in a war that has left the richest 60 percent of the country in control of opposition groups backed by Uganda and Rwanda. The government defends the rest, including the capital, Kinshasa, only with the armed help of Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola. Kabila was assassinated in January. His son Joseph succeeded him, getting wary support from international leaders who look to him to end the war..... Verhofstadt's visit was timed to the 41st anniversary of Congo's independence from Belgium. A Western Europe-sized country, Congo was one of the most prosperous and peaceful in Africa at the time that countries started wresting loose from their colonial rulers after World War II. But Belgium did little to prepare Congo for independence, blocking higher education and high-level jobs for all but a privileged few dozens among millions. In 1960, it angrily pulled out with only a few months' warning, and violence followed. Congo today is a nation with decrepit roads and railroads and almost no running water or electricity outside of the capital.

Egypt

American Jewish Committee 3 June 2001 The American Jewish Committee is decrying the awarding of a prestigious honor to an Egyptian journalist who recently published two columns glorifying the Nazi extermination of Jews in the Holocaust. The columns, “Thanks to Hitler,” appeared in Al Akhbar, an Egyptian government-owned newspaper, on April 18 and 25. “Denying, trivializing or even lauding the Nazi extermination of 6 million Jews, including 1.5 million children, is very much alive today in the Middle East,” said the American Jewish Committee. “Now, the Egyptian Press Syndicate has saluted this outrageous pattern in the media across the Arab world by giving Ahmad Ragab its highest honor.” ... In previous ads, in testimony before the U.S. Senate, and in published op-ed articles, the American Jewish Committee has repeatedly pointed out the prevalence and destructive consequences of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial in the media and in school text books in the Arab world.

Jerusalem Post 25 June 2001 By Gil Hoffman An Egyptian court is due to decide Thursday whether to indict Shas mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef for his comments against Arabs. The court has been deliberating for several months on a suit brought by the Egyptian Defense for Arabs organization following Rabbi Yosef's comparison of Arabs to snakes. An attorney for the organization said that Egyptian law and international human rights charters permit punishing Yosef for the statements that he made in a Jerusalem rally in January. Shas spokesman Yitzhak Sudri said in response that the rabbi made clear he was referring to terrorists and not all Arabs in his comparison.

Ethiopia

IRIN 13 June 2001 A court in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa has acquitted 27 former officers charged with genocide, Ethiopian radio, monitored by the BBC, reported on Monday. The 27 were charged with genocide and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Eritrea during the previous military government, the radio said. The ranks of the officers ranged from brigadier to sub-lieutenant. Fifteen of those acquitted were tried in absentia. The court ordered the central prison administration to release the officers with immediate effect, said the radio.

BBC 23 June, 2001 By Nita Bhalla The position of the Ethiopian president, Dr Negaso Gidada, is under serious threat after he was dismissed from the executive committee of his party. In a surprise announcement on Friday by the Oromo Peoples Democratic Organisation (OPDO), one of the five parties making up the ruling EPRDF coalition, Mr Gidada was accused of refusing to accept the party's reforms. Dr Gidada doesn't see the tackling of corruption within his own party... as an issue that needs to be addressed OPDO member The statement, headed, "The renewal process cannot be obstructed by the ill wishes of the opportunists", also said the president had been supporting dissidents of a breakaway faction opposed to the Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi. The president, who was participating in the EPRDF Council meeting, said that he was withdrawing himself from the council's membership, because he "had come under increasing pressure from the chair of the council". It is still unclear what pressure the president was referring to, but sources say that over the past five days, the EPRDF meetings reviewing both policy reforms and the last 10 years in power have been increasingly strained. 'No to reforms' "Dr Gidada doesn't see the tackling of corruption within his own party, which has been one of the main priorities of the government, as an issue that needs to be addressed," an OPDO member said. He has also been accused of unwillingness to accept the more capitalist economic reforms that the EPRDF wishes to advance. Associates of the prime minister say he is more in line with the Marxist-Leninist policies that brought the EPRDF to power in 1991 than with the party today. 'Supports dissidents' The ODPO's most serious point of contention with the president, however, is his apparent support for a splinter group of dissidents who were expelled in March from main party in the ruling coalition, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). The dissidents vehemently oppose the Prime Minister Mr Zenawi. Political analysts also say the president has been demanding more rights for the Oromo people, which make up almost 50% of the population, and is an ardent supporter of Oromo nationalism. This has not gone down well with the Mr Zenawi's Tigrean minority-led government, analysts say. They add, however, that Mr Gidada, who is mainly seen as a ceremonial figure, has been demanding more power. Speculation in Addis Ababa is rife, and political analysts predict it is only a matter of days or weeks before he is removed as president. Official sources have speculated that in the coming days, Mr Gidada is likely to lose a number of no-confidence votes within the party and parliament, which will result in his dismissal as president. He has held the post for six years and is due to end his term this September. The dismissal comes as Ethiopia undergoes major political turmoil. In the past few months, the prime minister has faced challenges not only from within his own party, but also from a rising student movement and opposition parties. Mr Zenawi's chief of security and close ally was assassinated in May and the prime minister has been re-shuffling his cabinet with senior generals from within his army, with the aim of securing his position.

Addis Tribune 29 June 2001 Negaso Accuses OPDO, EPRDF of "False and Negative Propaganda" Against Him (WIC)- President Negaso Gidada has accused the Oromo People's Democratic Organization (OPDO) and the Ethiopian People Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) of perpetrating what he called "false and negative propaganda" against him. In an open letter addressed to the OPDO, Dr. Negaso defended his decision to walk-out of the EPRDF's Council meeting recently saying that it was solely based on the Ethiopian Constitution. He said he had decided against publicizing the circumstances surrounding his wak-out from the meeting through the media in order to avoid confusion. Dr. Negaso noted he resolved to continue with his membership in the OPDO and to continue as Head of the State, even though there he had enough reasons to renounce his membership in the party and resign from his presidency. He indicated that he might reconsider his resolve if the alleged false and negative propaganda, continues targeting him, and if other factors force aim to do so. The President also noted that the Ethiopian Television has refrained from broadcasting the entire dialogue that took place prior to his decision to walk out of the EPRDF's Council meeting on the 22nd of June, and called on the station to broad cast the whole story. Dr. Negaso also demanded that the entire discussion that took place during the council's meeting between 18 to 22 June be broadcast so that the public will be able to get the complete picture. (WIC)

Guinea

ICRC 7 June 2001 Over 600 members of the military receive instruction in humanitarian law The international humanitarian law office of the Ministry of Defence of Guinea, the Red Cross Society of Guinea and the ICRC jointly held four seminars on the law of war for 170 officers of the country's armed forces during the second half of May in Faranah, Kissidougou and Guékédou. The ICRC also helped the office organize four one-day workshops on the basic rules of humanitarian law for 450 soldiers and other bearers of weapons. A total of nine seminars and nine workshops on the topic are to be held throughout Guinea in 2001. In accordance with the statutes of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the ICRC has a mandate to "work for the understanding and dissemination of knowledge of international humanitarian law applicable in armed conflicts and to prepare any development thereof". To promote humanitarian law, the ICRC not only puts its expertise at the disposal of States but also actively spreads knowledge of the basic rules of this law among all the parties to armed conflicts.

Kenya

BBC 14 June 2001 Kenya's 'most important man' Professor Ghai: The country's future in his hands By East Africa correspodent Andrew Harding The most important man in Kenya ambles into a Nairobi restaurant, looking like a mildly eccentric academic hunting for a library book. A small, grey-haired, comfortable figure, in a tweed jacket and thick glasses - he seems oblivious to the stares and the nudges that follow him across the room. We are at a critical stage in our history Professor Ghai And it's no wonder they stare. Depending on who you ask, Professor Yash Ghai is either Kenya's saviour, a doomed optimist, or a dangerous figure who could help to tear this country apart. He may not be the most powerful man in town - far from it - but he may well hold this country's future in his hands. Professor Ghai's official title is "Chairperson of the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission." Bouncer A more accurate description would be "referee" or perhaps "bouncer" in a chaotic, frenzied and sometimes sinister struggle to determine the fate of the Kenyan state. President Moi dominates the political scene It was last year that the 63 year old constitutional lawyer was finally persuaded to leave a well-paid job in Hong Kong and return to his native Kenya to take charge of a floundering and deeply controversial constitutional review process. Ghai was not short of relevant experience, having been involved in drafting constitutions for Papua New Guinea, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Cambodia and others. Ghai immediately set about trying to broker a truce between two rival constitutional reform groups - one made up of Kenyan MPs, the other of church and civic leaders. After months of bitter wrangling, and escalating violence, the two groups reluctantly merged. "We are at a critical stage in our history," says Ghai, whose grandparents migrated to East Africa from India. "We now have a joint commission, representing all elements in society. I would be heartbroken (if we fail)." But to succeed, Ghai will have to steer his commission through a minefield of traps and obstacles set by some of the most powerful forces in Kenya. Thorny issues In drafting a new constitution, he will have to tackle such thorny issues as whether to reduce the enormous power of the presidency, how much authority should be transfered to Kenya's tribes and regions, and even whether outgoing President Daniel arap Moi should be offered an amnesty from prosecution. The forces lined up against Ghai are much more powerful than him Transparency International's John Githongo "The forces lined up against Ghai are much more powerful than him," says John Githongo of the anti-corruption organisation Transparency International. "Hardliners in the cabinet and people around the president don't want constitutional reform... because it will weaken them. "The key issue is fear. These people have been behaving like kids in a cookie shop for 20 years. Ghai might end the era of impunity in Kenya. That makes him a frightening figure." The international community is watching closely. Kenya has been branded one of the world's most corrupt countries. Its economy is struggling. IMF loans have been suspended. The review is widely seen as an opportunity for Kenya to show it is serious about improving its record. "We're not so bothered about what sort of constitution Kenya chooses for itself," says one senior western diplomat. "In fact the current constitution could be made workable. What's important is the process itself - will it be a genuine public debate, or another inside job?" Another observer adds (again anonymously - this is an extremely sensitive issue): "The real problem in Kenya is not the constitution - it's the long tradition of an imperial presidency where people listen to what the president says, and not what the law says." Process Professor Ghai says he is keen to make the review process as inclusive as possible. He plans to spend three months touring the countryside, organising public debates about what Kenyans want from a new constitution. "The nature of my job requires me to meet and listen to all kinds of people, ranging from the diplomatic community, politicians and religious leaders to win the confidence of everybody," he told a local newspaper recently. "He's a very careful man," says John Githongo. "Most Kenyans shoot from the hip, but not him. You never know what he's thinking - which is perhaps his greatest strength... everybody thinks he's on their side, which makes him quite effective." But time is not on the Professor's side. Ghai wants the new constitution in place before the next presidential election in December 2002. "Between 14 to 15 months is sufficient, in my experience," he says. But he acknowledges that he has a mountain to climb before then, and that his own fellow constitutional commissioners may not always be on his side. Resigning issue "It would be unfortunate," he said pointedly, "if some parties decide to deliberately obstruct the process, especially those who feel that they are better served by the current constitition. It would also be unfortunate if... some commissioners try to seek favours from politicians by reporting to them on our deliberations." All sides have now committed themselves to using only peaceful methods. I'm going to keep on reminding everyone of that Professor Ghai There have already been some awkward moments. Only last week Ghai was fighting to prevent his commissioners from ordering a fleet of luxury cars, which would have taken a huge chunk out of the commission's budget. He later threatened to resign "rather than head a corrupt commission". The fact that the review process is taking place in the run up to what may well be the most important election in Kenya's history is another source of concern. President Moi is due to stand down next year after 24 years at the helm. Some of his supporters have publically suggested that a newly drafted constitution might enable him to stand for what, at present, would be an unconstitutional third term in office. Tribal divisions President Moi has distanced himself from such remarks, but there are other dangers looming - the most worrying being the possibility of another wave of tribal violence of the sort that has marred previous elections. Kenya is made up of perhaps five main tribes and many smaller ones. Rivalries are often fierce. A key aspect of the constitutional review will be to determine how much power should be devolved from the centre towards regional, and potentially, tribal assemblies. (A process of federalism known by the Swahili term "majimboism.") President Moi, who comes from the small Kalenjin tribe, has repeatedly urged politicians to turn their backs on tribalism. A close aide even warned privately that if the situation got out of hand, "Kenya's bloodbath would dwarf the Rwandan genocide." That seems highly unlikely; but Kenya is facing an uncertain future. It's widely hoped that the constitutional review process will help to bind Kenyan society more closely together, perhaps by reducing the power of the presidency and the frantic struggle between rival tribes for control of that office, and instead encouraging more coalition-building both in government and at a local level. But there is a danger that the review process, hijacked by hardliners, could actually deepen the country's tribal divisions. "I hope we will have a peaceful process," says Professor Ghai with a patient smile. "All sides have now committed themselves to using only peaceful methods. I'm going to keep on reminding everyone of that."

Liberia

BBC 6 June, 2001 The United Nations has imposed severe travel restrictions on Liberian President Charles Taylor as part of sanctions meant to punish his government for backing rebels in neighbouring Sierra Leone. Also on a list of more than 130 people affected by the travel ban are Mr Taylor's wife, his ex-wives, his son and close aides. The move was ordered by the committee monitoring sanctions against Liberia. The travel embargo is part of a sanctions package that includes an arms ban as well as an embargo on diamonds exported from Liberia. It stipulates that all states should refuse entry to those named, unless they are going to the UN headquarters in New York, or attending meetings with regional African organisations. List The list also include government and military officials, businessmen and a number of foreigners based in Liberia. Some are known to be arms dealers and involved in the diamond and timber trades. Also on the list is a senior Sierra Leonean Revolutionary United Front rebel leader Sam Bockarie, although the Liberian Government denies he is still in the country. A long running and brutal civil war in Sierra Leone has been largely a conflict about who controls the country's diamond mines. Rebels have exported these "blood diamonds" from the east of the country, through Liberia The UN began imposing sanctions against Liberia last month after it judged that all contacts with the RUF had not stopped. President Taylor said the punishment was unjust, promised to stop backing the RUF and said he would abide by the sanctions.

Nigeria

P.M. News (Lagos) 14 June 14 2001, by Orinya Lafia Thousands of Tiv people are now fleeing Nassarawa State for fear of being attacked over the alleged killing of Alhaji Ibrahim Musa, Special Adviser to Governor Abdullahi Adamu, by Tiv people in Awe Local Government on Tuesday. The special adviser, who was also the paramount ruler of Azara, was killed along with six other people, including three policemen, with his head cut off by the unidentified killers. Yesterday, a group of Azara people went on a manhunt for Tiv people in Lafia, Nassarawa State capital, killing a Tiv lawyer and burning down a vehicle belonging to the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Works, Mr. Ihuman. The lawyer said to be managing the private firm of the Special Adviser on Political and Assembly Matters, Mr. Gabriel Akaka, also a Tiv man, was killed near his chambers in Lafia yesterday. Mr. Akaka is now being kept in Government House, Lafia by the state governor for fear of attack on him. When P.M. News visited the state police Headquarters in Lafia yesterday evening, thousands of Tiv people were seen taking refuge in the place while others were being evacuated in police lorries to Makurdi, the Benue State capital. A young lady told P.M. News that they had to run away for fear of attack from the Azara people who believe that their traditional ruler was killed by the Tiv people The state Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Audu Peter, confirmed the attack but said he did not know the name of the person killed. Governor, Abdulahi Adamu of Nasarawa State rushed to Makurdi yesterday to brief Governor George Akume of the mounting tension in the boundary area between the two states. Sources told P.M. News that Alhaji Adamu was apparently scared by the restive disposition of the youths in Azara who accuse him of empowering the Tiv people by giving them appointments in the state.

BBC 23 June, 2001 The governor of the Nigerian commercial capital, Lagos, has suggested using an outlawed ethnic militia group to deal with the dramatic increase in armed crime. Governor Bola Tinubu said he would call in the controversial Odua People's Congress, unless police numbers in the city were doubled. The BBC Lagos correspondent says the governor is under pressure to act and the militia group is popular in Lagos for its role in fighting crime. But our correspondent says the militia is detested by northerners because of its role in bloody ethnic clashes in Lagos over the past two years. The governor's suggestion has put him at odds with the police and federal government.

This Day (Lagos) June 21, 2001 State governments planning to engage the services of ethnic militia to contain escalating crime wave have been told to jettison the idea or face the wrath of the Federal Government. The Information and National Orientation Minister, Professor Jerry Gana, who yesterday in Abuja handed down the warning while briefing State House corespondents on the outcome of the meeting of the Federal Executive Council said Federal Government views on militia had not changed. .... On the issue of ethnic militias, particularly recent moves by governor Bola Tunibu of Lagos State to draft OPC to contain criminal upsurge in Lagos, Gana said "the federal government position is that we must do everything possible to discourage ethic militia. It is dangerous and not the right thing, what we said the last time is what the Federal Government will stand by. Gana continued "although this kind of ethnic militia may sometimes help in combating crime but because they are not under any authority or have any formal training, they go out of control and create problems for the very people who authorised them to do whatever on their behalf. So, you can become captive to such an organisation:. According to Gana, government would prefer to adequately equip the regular law enforcement agencies with intensified community cooperation, rather that becoming captives to militia group" .... Last week, Tinubu hinted his intention to invite and employ the services of the O'odua People Congress (OPC) to check the increasing spate of armed robbery in Lagos state. Anambra and Abia states have been making use of the Bakasi Boys for more than one years now to check rising crime rates. In a bid to legalise the militia Governor Chinwoke Mbadinuju, through the Anambra state House of Assembly, enacted an edict to bring the Bakassi Boys- Anambra Vigilante Service (AVS) into existence. Recently Abia state Governor Oji Uzor Kalu told journalist that the Bakassi Boys which originated in Aba in 1999 was not his reaction, but a body formed by Aba traders to protect themselves from robbery molestation. He attributed the formation to the failure of the police to live up to its duties. Tinubu in his indication to work the OPC stated at "crime rate is getting to a state that we have to hold another meeting with the president on national security and to step up various efforts. He further noted that "if OPC is one of the options I won't throw away any option away, any means necessary to step down the crime wave and control it". He explained that " as long as people will not use the OPC f or setting personal ..." it will not be a wrong solution to the problem.

IRIN 23 June 2001 Several people have been killed and hundreds displaced in a fresh outbreak of fighting in central Nigeria between members of Tivs and neighbouring Hausa speakers, AFP reported on Thursday. The French news agency said the clashes affected a number of towns and villages in Nasarawa State, to the east of the capital, Abuja. They were sparked by the killing last week of a Hausa traditional ruler, which his people blamed on Tivs. The report said hundreds of Tivs, who are a minority in Nasarawa State, have fled Nasarawa for neighbouring Benue State, where they are the majority. Local newspapers had been reporting growing tension in the area since the traditional ruler, Musa Ibrahim - also a leading landowner in Nasarawa - was ambushed and killed by unknown gunmen while driving along a highway. In April violence had broken out between the two groups over allegations by Tivs that Ibrahim was encroaching on their land.

BBC 23 June 2001 More details are emerging of the scale of continuing ethnic violence in central Nigeria. Journalists who have travelled to Nasarawa state report that gangs of young men from the Azara community armed with home-made guns and machetes are systematically hunting down people from the Tiv ethnic group. Some Tivs are fighting back, but dozens are reported killed and thousands have fled. A police spokesman described the situation as very complicated and fragile. Police reinforcements have been sent, but the Nigerian Government has so far resisted deploying the army. A long-running feud between the two groups escalated last week when the Azara accused the Tivs of killing a prominent Azara chief.

BBC 28 June 2001 Villagers in central Nigeria say more than 50 people were killed two days ago in an attack by youths from a rival ethnic group. The news comes amid worsening ethnic clashes in Nasawara state which have forced tens of thousands of people from their homes. Residents of Tudun Adabu, who belong to the Egon ethnic group, told the BBC's Barnaby Phillips they were woken in the early hours of Tuesday morning when Tiv warriors launched a surprise attack. There are many casualties in the hospitals... They were killing us everywhere Simon Maku, community leader Fighting between the Tiv ethnic group and several other groups erupted two weeks ago, reportedly triggered by the murder of a prominent chief from a rival Hausa-speaking community. Our correspondent says witnesses in Tudun Adabu reported that young children, old women and local chiefs had been killed with machetes in an orgy of violence. "There are many casualties in the hospitals... they were killing us everywhere," community leader Simon Maku speaking told the French news agency AFP. Rioting The arrival of some of the bodies from the village in the local state capital, Lafia, reportedly provoked rioting there on Tuesday. In Lafia, bands of militia men belonging to various Hausa-speaking groups are patrolling the roads, armed with bows and arrows and spears and on the lookout for Tivs. The police are nowhere to be seen. Further south, Tiv militias carrying homemade guns are protecting small towns from where all the women and children have fled. They say it is the Tivs who have come under indiscriminate attack. Our correspondent says that on both sides of this war there is fear and hatred. At least 35,000 Tiv people are reported to have fled the state, and some are now living in squalid refugee camps to the south. Reinforcements The government has pledged to send police reinforcements into the region following an emergency meeting with local officials. The governor of Nasarawa told the BBC that with a greater police presence, the situation could be brought under control. However, the conflict is as complicated as the ethnic composition of central Nigeria. Several Hausa-speaking ethnic groups in Nasarawa regard the Tivs as settlers and feel their control of land, chieftaincy titles and commerce is being threatened.

The Guardian (Lagos) June 28, 2001 200 Feared Dead in Nasarawa, As Communal Clashes Escalate, by Isa Abdusalami Jos FOLLOWING escalation of the communal clashes in Nasarawa State, which claimed the lives of scores of children on Tuesday, among whom were two sets of newly born twins, the police have sent reinforcement from Abuja and Lagos to Lafia, the state capital. The state Commissioner of Police, Umar Suleiman, told The Guardian yesterday that the move was to beef up security, adding that more ammunition were also being expected from the police headquarters. He said that he personally led his men to the bush to recover the bodies of those killed in reprisal attacks at Tudun Adabu, Daddare, and Agaza, minor settlements in the bush around Lafia. At least 40 bodies were reportedly seen at the Specialist Hospital, Lafia, on Tuesday. Sources said they were the victims of the lingering communal clashes that started on June 12, 2001 at Azara following the gruesome murder of the paramount ruler of Azara Chiefdom, Alhaji Musa Ibrahim and six others. The victims were attacked at about 4 a.m. on Tuesday by unidentified persons during which they were killed, wounded and their houses and property destroyed. Children were reportedly either smashed against the walls, matcheted or shot dead during the attack. Seventeen children who were seriously injured were seen on their sick beds, while about 20 adults with gun-shot wounds were being attended to by medical personnel at the Lafia Specialist Hospital. The gory sight of the large number of the injured people in the hospital led to immediate reprisal attacks within Lafia, the state capital, where several houses were set ablaze including the Lubuna Hotel while tyres were burnt on major highways. Governor Abdullahi Adamu's large bill board canvassary his continuation in office as governor beyond 2003 was also torched by the angry youths for the second time. The youth, who looked wild during the operation, then marched to the state Ministry of Works where they were threw stones indiscriminately even as they protested what they called the undue recognition given the Tiv people whom they said were not indigenes of the state, by the governor. They vowed that they would not support any move by the governor to 'Tazarce' (meaning to succeed himself). Meanwhile, many people were seen leaving the city in droves, heading for unknown destinations for fear of being lynched by attackers. One of the surviving victims, Mr. Eligah Thomas, said he escaped being killed throng the "special grace of God". Thomas, who said two of his relative were still missing, described the attackers as "ferocious and deadly who unleashed terrible terror on their inspecting victims." The Federal government had already sent a delegation to the state, to ascertain the extent of damage to both lives and property.

Rwanda

Independent (South Africa) 21 May 2001 Of the dozens of books published about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, a comic book in French about a Hutu who kills those he loves is one of the most wrenching - and eerily beautiful. For Jean-Philippe Stassen, doing the book Deogratias was his way of explaining to fellow Europeans that what happened in the far-off country in the heart of Africa "was in no way exotic, and that what happened there does concern the reader because what happened there is about human beings". Stassen, a 35-year-old Belgian, was already a well-established author of the French and Belgian genre called "bandes dessinees" or "BDs" - hardcover comic books generally aimed at teenagers or adults - when he became aware of the slaughter of a half million minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus orchestrated by an extremist Hutu government in the former Belgian colony of Rwanda. He had never been there, but he knew other places in Africa and had written about them. After two long stays in Rwanda and in refugee camps in neighbouring Burundi and Tanzania in 1997, he returned to Europe with sketches and notes, and the 80-page volume began to take shape. Deogratias is sucked into the killing frenzy Deogratias, the central character, is a young Hutu who works as a driver at a Roman Catholic mission in southern Rwanda. .. "The idea was to have an 'average' person as the main character, not an extremist whose hate blinded him, nor a 'just', in the sense used to designate those who saved Jews from the Holocaust, precisely because both those categories are extremes," Stassen said in Paris, where he now lives. "To a large degree, the genocide was carried out by ordinary people who didn't feel any particular hatred towards their Tutsi neighbours and who simply obeyed orders, either through cowardice or fear." The comic book can be an effective vehicle to deal with powerful subjects, using striking images and stark dialogue to convey emotion and humanity. Stassen's style follows what is known in the trade as the "clear line," strong, precise images with a subtle use of colour to create atmosphere - in the case of Deogratias, both the evil of the genocide and the contrasting natural beauty of Rwanda. Art Speigelman used comic book cats and mice in Maus to tell his story of the Holocaust, and Joe Sacco's relentlessly bleak drawings and monotone balloonspeak bring the war in Bosnia to terrible life in Safe Area Gorazde. Evelyne Colas of Stassen's publishers, Editions Dupuis, said sales of "serious" comic books usually run between 8 000 and 10 000 copies. In five months Deogratias has sold 17 500 copies and is now in its fourth printing. It has been awarded several prizes for best story by a young author and best BD on current affairs. .. Ten Francophone African writers involved in a literary project called "Rwanda: Our Duty to Remember" have published novels and poetry on the subject. Fictional works in English dealing with the Rwandan genocide include Speak, Rwanda by Julian R Pierce and Elmore Leonard's Pagan Babies. - Sapa-AP

Internews (Arusha) 28 May 2001 Four suspects who had been detained in Gitarama prison for more than four years on genocide charges were last Thursday released by their community in a preliminary session of a justice system known as Gacaca. Under the preliminary Gacaca sessions, a genocide suspect is brought before members of the community where the crimes were allegedly committed and the charges read out. If no one in the community has evidence against the suspect, then he or she is freed. If there is testimony that the suspect participated in the genocide, the case is deferred and the suspect goes back to detention, pending the convening of a proper Gacaca session. The Gitarama four were from the first seven cases heard in a preliminary Gacaca session at Nogwe commune in Gitarama province. Some 30 more cases were heard before the day's session was concluded. The suspects whose cases were heard during preliminary Gacaca sessions are detainees without case files or those whose case files are incomplete. Similar preliminary trials have been conducted countrywide. The preliminary sessions are being used as a test of the process' viability. In time, suspects with complete case files will be brought before the communal courts. The commune court in Gitarama sat in a grass patch on a small hill next to a road. There was no formal arrangement, just a few seats for visitors who included Belgian and French embassy officials. Each detainee stood before approximately 2000 local residents while Jean Barushinana, the region's prosecutor, read out their names, age and asked the community if anyone knew of any reason why the person should be detained.

BBC 7 June 2001, The United Nations court looking into the Rwandan genocide handed down a not guilty verdict for the first time on Thursday. Ignace Bagilishema, formerly mayor of Mabanza commune in western Rwanda, was accused of being instrumental in the murder of 45,000 Tutsis. The judges said that the prosecution failed to provide enough convincing evidence. The Rwandan Government said it is shocked by the acquittal of Mr Bagilishema, who it described as one of the most "notorious" criminals from the genocide. Reading the judgement, Norwegian Judge Erik Mose spoke of the "paucity" of the evidence against Mr Bagilishema, and said that the testimonies of many of the witnesses presented against him were contradictory and unreliable. By a majority of two to one, the panel of three judges found that there was insufficient evidence to support any of the seven charges against Mr Bagilishema. 'Tutsi defender' Throughout the trial, Mr Bagilishema had always maintained that he had tried to protect Tutsis, but had not been able to prevent all the attacks. The slaughter in Rwanda shocked the world He was presented by his defence team as a good mayor dedicated to peaceful co-existence of Hutus and Tutsis. The prosecutor has already said that he intends to appeal against the acquittal, and has also requested that the tribunal keep Mr Bagilishema in custody for another 30 days, in case he flees or poses a threat to witnesses. The tribunal's normal procedure is for acquitted suspects to be released immediately. The tribunal has been sitting in Arusha, Tanzania since November 1994 to look into the genocide that left about 800,000 people dead. There is frustration in Rwanda at how slow the Arusha process has been. The tribunal has found only eight people guilty so far.

BBC 15 June 2001 By Helen Vespirini in Gisenyi Rwandan militias, who have been operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo since fleeing their home country in 1994, are continuing their attempt to infiltrate north-western Rwanda. Their movements seem to be inspired by the talk of disarming militias involved in the DR Congo conflict within the framework of the Lusaka peace agreement. The Rwandan military has been staging an operation in the north-west of the country to try to flush out infiltrators from the foothills of the Virunga volcanoes. And troops have been using anti-aircraft guns to dislodge the rebels from the area around Karisimbi volcano. Flushing out rebels They say the logic is to flush out the rebels before they can attack or come into contact with the local population. Rwandan soldiers have launched a major counter-insurgency operation The army says that since the start of the latest round of attacks in early May, it has killed more than 700 infiltrators. A further 250 have either given themselves up or been taken captive. The Rwandan military say they have suffered no casualties. But if the rebels staging the current cross-border raids are not heavily armed, the military are bracing for attacks by others who are better equipped. On the Congolese side of the border, a brigade operating under the name of Horizon is making its way northwards from the province of Katanga and is expected to cross into Rwanda. Horizon is made up of Interahamwe, the militia men who carried out the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and more recent recruits. The commanders are members of the former Rwandan army and the commander in chief was head of the presidential guard of the former Rwandan president, Juvenal Habyarimana. Rwanda says it is ready to repulse attacks, both in the north-west and in the south-west, where it also has a border with the DR Congo.

BBC 16 June 2001 Nine people have been sentenced to death in Rwanda for their part in the 1994 genocide, in which Hutu extremists killed at least 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The victims were cut into pieces they were tortured to death with clubs, machetes, swords, iron bars. The sentences came at the end of a trial of 126 suspects. Thirty other accused were sentenced to life imprisonment, 25 were acquitted and the remaining suspects were given sentences of between four and 20 years. "The victims were cut into pieces," the judges are quoted by Reuters as saying, "they were tortured to death with clubs, machetes, swords, iron bars." Some of the suspects avoided the death penalty by owning up to their crimes during the trial, which lasted for seven months. It was Rwanda's biggest ever trial of suspects accused of involvement in the genocide.

Reuters 27 June 2001 Rwanda Plans Strict Media Bill to Avert Genocide By Jean Baptiste Kayigamba KIGALI (Reuters) - Rwanda, where a macabre propaganda campaign helped instigate genocide in 1994, plans to introduce the death penalty for journalists whose work incites similar mass killings, government officials said on Wednesday. A Media Bill being examined by parliament's political committee stipulates life in jail for journalists who stir ethnic hatred even if they fail to provoke killings, they said. ``These articles were purposefully inserted to counter any attempt by journalists to incite the acts of genocide we witnessed in recent years,'' said local government minister Desire Nyandwi, whose ministry also handles information matters. The ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front government has ugly memories of the power of the media to change people's beliefs. The Hutu extremists who butchered 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994 used radio and newspapers to incite hatred of Tutsis among ordinary members of the Hutu majority. The extremists later fled into exile after Tutsi-led guerrillas advancing on the capital Kigali toppled the Hutu-led government and set up their own administration. But their victory was too late to prevent the genocide, and some in the current government blame the speed of the 100-day slaughter partly on radios and newspapers which whipped up Hutus into a frenzy of fear and prejudice using insults and cartoons. Article 88 of the Media Bill says that ``whoever, through the press, attempts to incite part of the Rwandan population to commit genocide, without any resulting effect, shall be punished by a prison sentence of 20 years to life imprisonment.'' Article 89 stipulates anyone who successfully uses the media to incite Rwandans to genocide will receive the death penalty. Article 90 says anyone ``who attempts to use the foreign press to incite the carrying out of genocide, shall be punished by a ban on entering and staying in Rwanda.'' Nyandwi said Rwanda would not allow a repetition of calls for ethnic hate such as those on Radio-Television des Milles Collines and in publications like Kangura (Wake Up) magazine in 1994. These media outlets collapsed shortly after the genocide. ``Rwanda ... does not want to restrict the freedom of press,'' Nyandwi said. Senior journalists said they understood the motivation behind the bill, which has yet to go to the full parliament. ``This media law should give journalists enough room for freedom of expression, but should serve as a barrier for extremist views that can plunge Rwanda into another tragedy,'' said Flavia Busingye, a journalist on a bi-monthly publication.

Sierra Leone

IRIN 4 June 2001 Disarmament of Sierra Leone's rival irregular forces will continue in the eastern district of Kono and in Bonthe (in the south) following the successful completion of a similar process in the northwest of the country, UNAMSIL announced on Saturday. The decision to go ahead with disbanding the pro-government Civil Defence Forces (CDF) militia and the rival Revolutionary United Front (RUF) was taken on Saturday at a meeting in Magburaka, some 145 km east of Freetown, of the Joint Committee on Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration. The committee comprises UNAMSIL (UN Mission in Sierra Leone), the government and the RUF. The CDF and RUF also agreed to disclose the number of their combatants in Bonthe and diamond-rich Kono by Monday. Between 18 and 31 May, 3,502 CDF and RUF fighters disarmed in the northwestern districts of Kambia and Port Loko

Somolia

IRIN 5 June 2001 Unidentified gunmen attacked a passenger bus, killing six people and wounding 19 others, near Jowhar, 90 km north of Mogadishu, on Sunday night, humanitarian sources in Jowhar, the capital of the Middle Shabelle Region, in south-central Somalia, told IRIN. According to sources, the heavily armed gunmen fired indiscriminately at the bus in the Mahadday area, some 20 km north of Jowhar. The wounded were taken to Jowhar hospital, and the more serious cases were sent to Mogadishu, sources said. The motive for the attack is unclear. According to one of the sources, the attackers did not rob the passengers. "So it does not look like a banditry attack," he told IRIN. Although it was believed that the attack was clan-based, no-one had claimed responsibility for it so far, the source said. The bus was on its way to Hiran Region, in central Somalia, and belonged to the Hawadle sub-clan of the main Hawiye clan. The attack took place in an area occupied by the Abgal, another Hawiye sub-clan.

South Africa

Washington Times EDITORIAL • June 29, 2001 Africa's 'crimes against humanity' African governments are preparing to demand reparations for slavery from Western nations, while doing little to assist the current victims of the slave trade within their very borders. The African Group, which consists of 53 members, recently submitted a proposal to a U.N. committee, referring to slavery as "a crime against humanity" and demanding compensation from former colonial powers. Advocates of reparations insist that the West acquired its prosperity in part by stealing resources from the African continent. These proponents maintain that slavery resulted in lasting damage to African nations, including their large burden of foreign debt. Supporters of reparations also believe that such debts should be forgiven to make amends for previous injustices. The proposal was submitted in U.N. preparatory meetings for the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, which is scheduled to be held in Durban, South Africa, from Aug. 31 to Sept. 8. In light of this increasing movement for compensation, Western governments are threatening to downgrade their presence at the upcoming conference. Western nations fear that to accept the principle of reparations for a practice which ended over 135 years ago will lead to an endless stream of lawsuits. However, instead of trying to evade the issue, the West should embrace it. That is, if African states want to open a dialogue on slavery, this should be encouraged. The West can use this opportunity to cast an international spotlight on the current practice of slavery which still rears its ugly head in West and Central Africa, and in Sudan. In late March and early April, as a result of the disappearance and recovery of the Nigerian-registered ship, the Etireno, news reports abounded with information on the horrifying traffic in child slaves which still plagues Africa. Children are taken from poor nations such as Benin, Togo, Mauritania and Mali, and are used and abused as domestic servants or plantation workers in wealthier nations such as Ghana, Ivory Coast and Gabon. UNICEF estimates that approximately 200,000 children are sold into slavery every year. Furthermore, slavery and genocide are regular features of the war in Sudan. All the shocking facts regarding the current practices of slavery in Africa ought to be at the forefront of any debate on reparations. Instead of pointing an accusatory finger at the West for past crimes, African leaders must demonstrate their horror of slavery by doing all they can to stop the vicious "crimes against humanity" which are daily features of the lives of some of their citizens.

Sudan

AFP 28 May 2001 Sudanese government forces have burnt down 14 villages in the Nuba mountain region destroying 5,000 homes, the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) claimed Monday in a statement faxed to AFP in Cairo. SPLA spokesman Yasser Arman said that Khartoum had resorted to a "burnt land policy" after failing to rout rebels from fortified positions in the mountainous region in central Sudan during a week of fighting. The SPLA, based in the mainly animist and Christian south, has been fighting a civil war against Khartoum governments since 1983 when Islamic law was first imposed on the whole country. The Sudanese army claimed Saturday that it had retaken nine localities from the SPLA in the Nuba Moutains after inflicting heavy casualties on the rebels. The army added it had freed civilians whom, it claimed, the rebels had used as "human shields." Arman, who accused the government of carrying out "ethnic cleansing" against the Nuba people, did not mention any SPLA casualties in his statement. The SPLA said its forces had also wiped out a government army unit in the Blue Nile region in eastern Sudan during a day-long battle on Friday, after having earlier announced that it had killed 300 government troops and downed a helicopter there. Arman did not specify how many people had been killed in the new battle, but said the government had suffered "heavy material and human losses." For its part, the government said Thursday it had inflicted heavy losses on rebel forces in the area and denied one of its helicopters had been shot down by rebel forces.

IRIN 7 June 2001 The last fortnight had seen the biggest government offensive in the Nubah Mountains since 1992, when the Islamist regime in Khartoum declared a jihad, or holy war, the British 'Guardian' newspaper reported from Kawdah (11.06N 30.31E) in the Nubah Mountains on Monday. More than 7,500 government and allied militia troops launched the offensive on 17 May, closing all the airstrips that had been used to bring food and medical supplies into the blockaded mountains, it said. Thousands of Nubah were forced to flee the army advance, as soldiers destroyed almost 2,500 homes and systematically burned food stores in an apparent effort to force the Nubah people into government "peace villages", the report stated. On 26 May, the day after Khartoum announced it was halting aerial attacks on rebel bases in the Nubah Mountains, it dropped eight bombs on the Limon Hills, west of Kawdah, it added. The Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) had halted the government attack on 27 May, but expected another offensive, the 'Guardian' reported. It quoted the NGO Justice Africa as saying that the government was trying to seal off the area by taking all the airstrips, and that dozens of Nubah civilians had been abducted during the offensive.

Al-Ahram Weekly Online 7 - 13 June 2001, Hopes are again dashed for a comprehensive peace settlement between the Sudanese government and the main armed opposition group, the SPLA. But Washington stands poised to step in, writes Gamal Nkrumah. It has been a kind of Mission Impossible. Behind the hype, wise heads have always realised that getting Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir and the leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the country's main armed opposition group, to meet face-to-face would be extremely difficult. But at last Saturday's seven-nation Inter-governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) summit meeting in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, five African leaders felt they should try again to bring Al-Bashir and Garang together for a fruitful tête-à-tête. Their efforts achieved precious little. There is no love lost between the two Sudanese bitter ideological rivals and political opponents. Bashir insists on upholding the Islamist character of the Sudanese state. Garang has taken up arms in order to create a secular Sudanese state. Even when they were in close physical proximity within the confines of the same conference venue, Al-Bashir and Garang pointedly failed to acknowledge each other's presence. But their Kenyan hosts say something was salvaged out of this failure. The Sudanese protagonists agreed in principle to work towards a comprehensive cease-fire, even though they could not agree on an actual cease-fire to end the 18-year-old conflict which has claimed the lives of two million Sudanese and rendered five million homeless. They also pledged to form permanent respective negotiating teams in order to revive the peace talks that failed last year. Libyan leader Gaddafi brings together former foes Presidents Al-Bashir of Sudan and Museveni of Uganda, but can he reconcile Bashir and the SPLA's Garang. IN AN UNPRECEDENTED development, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) announced on Tuesday that it has captured the entire oil-rich province of Bahr Al-Ghazzal, south Sudan. The Sudanese government vehemently denies the SPLA claim. The Sudanese ambassador to Egypt, Ahmed Abdel-Halim, told Al-Ahram Weekly that, "heavy fighting is still going on in Bahr Al-Ghazzal around the regional capital Wau and the garrison towns of Aweil and Raja." Abdel-Halim also said that the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) summit that convened last Saturday in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, failed to reach an agreement because the SPLA insisted that the Sudanese government cease oil production. He explained that the Sudanese government objected to the "rebel movement's" insistence that Sudan be declared a secular state or that it be divided into two separate states in a confederation. "We are for equal citizenship for all Sudanese people. We are for a fair allocation and distribution of resources, including oil. We welcome multi-party democracy, but no sovereign nation would accept the conditions set by the rebel movement, which will effectively mean the division of the country into two separate states, one secular and the other Islamic," he said. SPLA leader John Garang sees the matter differently. He describes the Sudanese government as a "terrorist state," and insists that "We are not going to accept the Shari'a as the supreme law of the land." It appears that on this contentious issue there is no point of convergence. On the question of United States intervention in Sudanese political affairs, Abdel-Halim said that the new administration of US President George W Bush "needs time to formulate its own policy." But he added that, so far, the Bush administration has sent "conflicting signals" to Sudan. "We want good relations with Washington, but not at any price," he stressed. But the host, Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi, said a greater degree of sustained commitment was required if peace were to reign in Sudan. He stressed that only by the "separation of religion and state within an appropriate federal constitutional framework," and a "referendum on self-determination" for southern Sudan would peace be won. These are precisely the demands set by the SPLA. Moi also spoke of the "sharing of resources" between government and opposition. He meant, of course, oil -- the most contentious commodity in Sudanese politics today. Sudan, which became an oil exporter in September 1999, has proven reserves of over one billion barrels of oil and crude output is expected to double to 400,000 barrels per day by the end of the year from the current 200,000. The SPLA accuses the government of deliberately depopulating oil-producing regions. In the past six months alone, the Sudanese authorities forcibly removed 100,000 people from the oil-producing area of Bentui in Bahr Al-Ghazal Province, southern Sudan. "The government has to stop evicting the civilian population to make room for oil companies. The cease-fire is not only about stopping the fighting," Garang told Al-Ahram Weekly. More than 50 international humanitarian organisations and emergency relief agencies have launched a global campaign to freeze the activities of oil companies in Sudan. On the eve of the IGAD summit, the SPLA announced that it had captured the strategic garrison town of Raja in Bahr Al-Ghazal Province. Some 2,000 Sudanese government troops were stationed in and around the town of 35,000 inhabitants, which commands access to oil-producing areas. The SPLA makes no bones of its aim to disrupt the flow of oil by destroying pipelines and oil installations. Garang insists that the Sudanese government be denied the opportunity to replenish its war chest with oil revenues extracted from southern Sudanese fields. However, these are not the best of times for the SPLA. More to the point, the United States has tempered its traditional hostility to the Islamist Sudanese government. The SPLA's over-confidence concerning tacit US support could be tested by a variety of US policy surprises. On the one hand, oil firms are keen to explore in Sudan, and they have the full backing of a Texan president with international oil interests. However, Christian groups and African American civil rights leaders are vociferously demanding international sanctions against Sudan because of persistent reports of slavery and human rights abuses. Dramatic changes are afoot in Washington's policy towards Sudan. Everyone is agreed that Washington has put Sudan near the top of its African agenda. What is still unclear is how Washington will make its presence felt more tangibly in Sudanese affairs. The burning question is whether Washington's new Sudan policy is going to be reconciliatory and working towards a political settlement of the Sudanese crisis, or will Washington assist the SPLA and other armed opposition forces to forcibly topple the Sudanese government? There are some clues to an answer. Significantly, US Secretary of State Colin Powell declined to meet Garang during his visit to Kenya and Uganda last week. Ominously, Powell declared there was "no greater tragedy on the face of the Earth today" than the Sudanese crisis. Moreover, Powell recently asked Chester Crocker, assistant secretary of state for African affairs under former US President Ronald Reagan, and author of Reagan's "constructive engagement" policy with apartheid South Africa, to devise a new Sudan policy. Another of Reagan's hangers-on, Eliott Abrams, the former president's assistant secretary of state for human rights, is shortly to join the powerful and influential US National Security Council. Abrams is known for his vehement opposition to lifting unilateral US trade sanctions against Sudan. He wants to ban foreign oil companies with investments in Sudan from raising money in US capital markets. It is unclear which interest group, the oil men or the anti-Islamists, will carry the day in Washington. There is a good deal of confusion in both Sudanese government and opposition circles about what course Washington will ultimately take. The Sudanese Ambassador to Egypt, Ahmed Abdel-Halim, told the Weekly: "The US can't talk about peace in Sudan and support the SPLA simultaneously." Abdel-Halim stressed that Khartoum was keen on an "objective dialogue" with Washington. He also noted that a concerted campaign to impose comprehensive sanctions on Sudan was under way, but that it was having no tangible impact. "Despite these rabid attempts, especially from some lobby groups in the US, Canada and other Western countries, the flow of companies interested in oil, mining and agriculture in Sudan is continually rising," he said. Not to be outdone, former Sudanese Prime Minister Sadig Al-Mahdi, leader of the Umma Party, Sudan's largest, flew to Washington this week. Al-Mahdi pulled out of the National Democratic Alliance -- the opposition umbrella group which includes the SPLA -- a couple of years ago, but his party still has a discernible popular following in northern and western Sudan. He hopes to garner support in the US for a stronger mediating role for Washington in ending the longest-running war in Africa. Sudan lies at the heart of a human tragedy which is spreading out of control and threatens to embroil the entire East African region. The Sudanese political impasse does not sit well with other IGAD member states. But IGAD has neither the clout nor the credibility to clinch a Sudanese peace deal. Washington holds all the key cards.

Tanzania

Internews (Arusha) 28 May 2001 The woman looked at the screen in amazement: "So that is Jean Kambanda [former Rwandan prime minister]! I have never seen him before," she said. The woman, named Mukavukesi Savala, is one of the more than 3,000 genocide suspects held at the Kibuye prison in western Rwanda. Like many others, Savala claims she does not know why she is in jail. She knows that Rwanda was plunged into chaos in the months of April to June 1994, the 101 days that the slaughter of thousands of Rwandans occurred in one of the most important tragedies in the African continent, if not the world over. Savala was arrested after the genocide and is still awaiting trial, almost seven years after the event. Thanks to US-based Internews Network, the Kibuye prisoners got a rare opportunity on 21 May to see a documentary on the justice process at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) that is based in Arusha, Tanzania. The ICTR is charged with trying those said to have masterminded the genocide. So far, the ICTR has in its custody 46 of such suspects. Kibuye prison was the first stop in a series of visits to Rwandan prisons by Internews Network, where the organization showed the documentary film directed by award-winning filmmaker, Mandy Jacobson of South Africa. The two-hour documentary in Kinyarwanda, entitled The Arusha Tapes, features six trials that have taken place before the ICTR. All the 3,000-plus prisoners followed scene after scene on a huge screen in the prison courtyard. ... As the Kibuye prisoners watched the documentary, they often broke into excited chatter when a face they recognized appeared. Some were simply amazed at the whole process. Many of the inmates had never set eyes on some of the government leaders on trial for genocide and crimes against humanity. When Kambanda's photograph appeared on the screen, gasps and chatter followed. "So this is him eh, let me see him..." Savala said. " I have never seen him before, now I know what he looks like," she exclaimed. Moreover, many of the prisoners were shocked that Kambanda had confessed to the charges brought against him. Many had always thought their leaders believed in the cause of the genocide, but they were even more perplexed to learn that he would not face the death penalty. "Why is it that the tribunal gives them more lenient sentences than us, they are the ones who told us to kill on radio ... how come we are paying the higher price," another inmate asked. For most of the prisoners, the highlight of the documentary seems to be the part showing the living conditions in the United Nations Detention Facility (UNDF) where the suspects are held in Arusha. A collective murmur breaks out at the sight of the neat cubicles, and the tone rises when the Kibuye prisoners see the beds, towels and mosquito nets. However, it is the food that gets at them, the sight of a clean kitchen and hired professional cooks preparing dinner for the Arusha detainees is a bit too much! "These people have no problem! You call that a prison? That is not a prison, it is paradise!" one woman exclaimed.

AP 1 June 2001 By Sukhdev Chhatbar A U.N. appeals court on Friday upheld the sentences of three men convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The three judges on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda panel unanimously rejected appeals by former Taba Commune Mayor Jean Paul Akayesu, former Kibuye provincial Governor Clement Kayishema and businessman Obed Ruzindana. .. Akayesu said that he felt Friday's ruling was unjust. "It's a political tribunal," he said.

Internews (Arusha) June 12, 2001 Genocide Was Planned Long Before 1994, Says Prosecutor By Sukhdev Chhatbar Arusha The genocide in Rwanda, which claimed more than 800,000 lives, was planned long before its implementation, Sylvia Arbia of Italy, lead prosecutor in the so-called "Butare Trial," claimed today. Butare prefecture, located in the southern region of the country, was one of the last areas to succumb to the violence in Rwanda between April and June 1994. In her opening statement during the start of the trial of six genocide suspects, all from Butare, Arbia told the International Criminal Tribunal Criminal for Rwanda (ICTR) that the large- scale killings in 1994 were motivated by ethnic hatred. Among the Butare suspects is Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, a former minister of family and women affairs. Nyiramasuhuko is the only woman indicted by the ICTR for genocide and rape. The other defendants are: Nyiramasuhuko's son Arsene Ntahobali, a store manager and former militia leader; Alphonse Nteziryayo, a former commanding officer of the military police in Butare; Sylvain Nsabimana, a former governor of Butare; Joseph Kanyabashi, a mayor of Ngoma commune and Elie Ndayambaje, a former mayor of Muganza commune. Arbia told the court that a planned massacre was "tested" in Murambi, northeast Rwanda, in November 1991. Here, she said, several members of the Tutsi community were killed, houses burnt and about 300 persons displaced. "In the Bugesera attack (south of Kigali) in March 1992, more than 300 persons [the Tutsi] were killed, thousands displaced and houses burnt," she added. Another example, Arbia said, is the August 1992 attack in Kibuye, western Rwanda, which she described as "a prepared plan and tested on the field." However, she did not say how many Tutsi were killed in this attack. Ethnic hatred, she said, was further aggravated by propaganda contained in public speeches made by extremist Hutu leaders. "The speeches were intended to cause fear and urge the Hutu to kill the Tutsi." Arbia said Theodore Sindikubwabo, who took over as interim president after the death of Juvenal Habyarimana on 6 April 1994, openly incited the Hutu to kill the Tutsi in his public speeches. The media, such as 'Kangura' newspaper and the Radio Television Libre Des Mille Collines (RTLM) broadcast messages that incited hatred and violence, Arbia told the court. "It [the media] concentrated its energy in urging the hunting down of the Tutsi wherever they might be." 'Kangura' means 'Awakening' in Kinyarwanda, the language common to both the Tutsi and the Hutu. The prosecutor said ahead of the genocide, Hutu extremists referred to the Tutsi as animals, snakes and cockroaches. This, she said, was to show that the Tutsi were bad people who deserved death. Organized plan As part of an organized plan, Arbia said, was the distribution of weapons and the intensive training of Interahamwe militiamen. The Interahamwe was the militia wing of the Movement of the Republic for National Development and Democracy (MRND). "This was a well-prepared project. The object of the plan was the extermination of the Tutsi," she said adding lists of names of the Tutsi who were to be killed were carefully drawn up. "This strategy was concretely executed. It did not remain on paper or in the minds of the extremists," she told the court. The prosecution, Arbia said, would in the course of trial prove that the six defendants were part of this scheme and actively supported Tutsi extermination by taking part in the killings. She cited Nyiramasuhuko, Kanyabashi and Nsabimana who, she alleged, were present during the swearing-in of interim president Sindikubwabo. Sindikubwabo encouraged them to do what other prefectures had already completed [extermination of the Tutsi], Arbia said. She added that immediately after the meeting, the extermination of the Tutsi began. An estimated 26,000 Tutsi were killed in Butare during the genocide, Arbia told the court. Arbia started her opening statement with a lengthy historical background of Rwanda's political development. She narrated the reasons for Belgium and Germany's colonization of Rwanda and how this development caused a major division between the Tutsi and the Hutu. She said the colonialists described the Tutsi as physically handsome, a people who look like "whites" (Europeans) and considered the Hutu farmers and subordinates. Before Arbia's address, Judge William Sekule of Tanzania (presiding) granted a motion by the prosecution to modify a list of witnesses scheduled to testify during the trial. Sekule allowed the prosecution to postpone the appearance of witnesses "FAM," who is currently detained, and "TK," who the prosecution said was unable to travel to Arusha because of family problems. The trial continues tomorrow with the appearance of first prosecution witness, Gandhi Shukri, an investigator. The trial adjourned in the early afternoon to allow the defense attorneys to view videotapes that will be used as exhibits in the trial. The Butare Trial is before Trial Chamber II of the ICTR, comprising Judges Sekule (presiding), Winston Matanzima Maqutu of Lesotho and Arlette Ramaroson of Madagascar.

Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne) ANALYSIS June 20, 2001 Julia Crawford Arusha On June 7th, former Rwandan mayor Ignace Bagilishema became the first person to be acquitted on all charges by the UN's genocide tribunal for Rwanda. But he is also in the process of setting another precedent. Two weeks after being officially declared a free man, he still has nowhere to go. Informed sources say it is likely to take weeks, if not months, before this stateless ex-genocide suspect can start to resume a normal life in some foreign country. And the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) was obviously not prepared for what it would do with an acquitted person. Bagilishema is forcing it to decide. "The UN is obviously trying to do the right thing," says one source. But clearly, the situation is not simple. Bagilishema is technically free and has expressed a desire to go to a European country. But, because the Prosecutor wants to appeal his acquittal, the court ordered that Bagilishema must have two referees to vouch that he will turn up in court, and an address in his country of destination, before the UN will release him. Easier said than done. And which country is likely to grant him asylum? Some observers feel that Bagilishema deserved to be acquitted if only because the prosecution presented its case badly, as chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte herself admitted. All the court said, and all it needs to say for an acquittal, is that the prosecution did not prove its case "beyond reasonable doubt". That is not enough to remove all doubt about his role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. And one judge found that there was enough evidence to convict on crimes against humanity and complicity in genocide. "We are confident of the evidence we have," the Prosecutor's spokeswoman Florence Hartmann told the press after the judgement, "but we know it was presented badly in court. Mrs Del Ponte is aware that the evidence was not presented by the trial teams as well as it could have been. And as you know, the contract of the senior Trial Attorney (in charge of the case) was not renewed." Bagilishema's defence, on the other hand, presented their arguments with force. The team was one of the first to go to Rwanda in search of evidence. Defence lawyers Francois Roux of France and Maroufa Diabira of Mauritania argued that their client was "alone in the torment", that he tried to save Tutsi refugees from massacre but lacked the means to do so. Bagilishema himself testified along the same lines. "I regret not having had the means to save the whole population of my commune," the defendant told the court. "I never committed any crime, neither genocide nor crime against humanity, against anybody. I am not a criminal. I did what I could. I would have liked to do more, if I had had the means." Rwanda accepts verdict? The Prosecutor looks unlikely to win any appeal, and Rwanda does not look set to create a political row as it did with another ICTR genocide suspect, Jean- Bosco Barayagwiza. When the ICTR Appeals Court ordered Barayagwiza's release on technical grounds, there was a genuine outcry in Rwanda. People do not seem to feel that passionately against Bagilishema. Rwanda is not happy with his acquittal, and it is another stick to beat the ICTR Prosecutor with, but Kigali says it accepts the verdict. Bagilishema is seen as relatively small fry at a court for "big fish". So now the ICTR has to decide what to do with him. Any state that takes Bagilishema is nevertheless likely to attract Kigali's disapproval. European countries such as France and Belgium, already seen as "tainted" by their role in Rwanda, may well be unwilling. "There is no guarantee that he will end up in Europe," says one informed source. According to Bagilishema's lead defence counsel Francois Roux, the acquittal should be hailed as a good thing for the ICTR and for reconciliation in Rwanda. "I think this is a great day, obviously for Ignace Bagilishema himself, but more than that for Rwanda, for the work of reconciliation that is laid down in the Statute of this international criminal tribunal," Roux told journalists after the judgement. He pointed out that Rwandan courts have also acquitted genocide suspects. "We have always thought that the Tribunal must be able to make a distinction, to see that some people who are still being prosecuted are really innocent," he continued. "And we think that it is the interest of all the Rwandan population to understand that all Hutus are not genocidal killers." It remains to be seen where Bagilishema will go and how long it will take. What is certain is that, even if the UN is "trying to do the right thing", it has a problem on its hands. And for the moment, UN member states are not jumping at the chance to help out.

Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne) 21 June 2001 Two former Rwandan mayors suspected of genocide were on Wednesday arrested at a refugee camp in Tanzania, at the request of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). One of them, Sylvestre Gacumbitsi, has already been transferred to the UN detention facility (UNDF) in Arusha. Gacumbitsi was mayor of Rusumo commune in the eastern Rwandan region of Kibungo at the time of the genocide. Informed sources say he was arrested in Mukugwa refugee camp in the northern Tanzanian region of Kigoma, along with former mayor of Rukara commune (also in Kibungo region) Jean Mpambara At the time of the arrest, the ICTR Prosecutor did not have an indictment for Mpambara ready, and therefore requested Tanzanian police to hold him in Kigoma pending an order for provisional detention from the ICTR. The ICTR Statute provides for provisional detention of suspects under investigation, provided a judge is satisfied that this is warranted. The period of provisional detention is 30 days, but can be extended on request to a maximum of two more thirty-day periods. Gacumbitsi and Mpambara allegedly authorized and presided over killings of Tutsis in their communes during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Gacumbitsi is alleged to have been responsible for the killing of an estimated 20,000 Tutsis who had taken refuge in Nyarubuye Catholic church in Rusumo. The church has been turned into a genocide memorial.

Internews (Arusha) 29 June 2001 Former Investigator Pleads Not Guilty to Genocide by Sukhdev Chhatbar. Simeon Nshamihigo, former defense investigator at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), today pleaded not guilty to three counts of genocide and crimes against humanity. Nshamihigo, 42, pleaded not guilty to all the counts before Judge Erik Mose of Norway. He allegedly committed the crimes between April and July 1994 during the genocide in Rwanda. The former investigator, who for three years went under the assumed name of Sammy Bahati Weza, worked in the defense team of genocide suspect Samuel Imanishimwe, whose trial is currently in progress before the ICTR. Imanishimwe, former commander of Cyangugu barracks, is jointly tried with Andre Ntagerura, former transport minister; and Emmanuel Bagambiki, former governor of Cyangugu, in the "Cyangugu Trial." During today's proceedings, Holo Makwaia of Tanzania, prosecution representative, alleged that Nshamihigo was responsible for killing or causing serious bodily or mental harm to hundreds of ethnic Tutsi between 6 April and 17 July 1994. Nshamihigo was deputy prosecutor in Cyangugu Prefecture during the genocide. The prosecution has alleged that he organized and participated in a campaign to exterminate the Tutsi in his prefecture. "The campaign consisted of compiling lists of influential Tutsi and members of the political opposition and identifying persons to be killed on the basis of such lists," the prosecution alleged. Nshamihigo is accused of collaborating with and escorting Bagambiki and Imanishimwe to killing sites in Kamarampaka Stadium in the prefecture. He allegedly supervised the forced transfer of refugees from Cyangugu Cathedral to the stadium, where they were killed by militiamen, the prosecution claims. According to the prosecution, Nshamihigo supervised roadblocks in Cyangugu town, delivered weapons to kill the Tutsi and, at times, provided names of persons to be killed. "Sometime between 28 and 30 April 1994, Nshamihigo ordered the killing of the accountant of the prefecture [Cyangugu], a Tutsi who had managed to obtain a Hutu identification card," the indictment reads. Nshamihigo was arrested on 19 May in Arusha over immigration irregularities. Tanzanian police held him for being in the country illegally and for holding two fake Congolese passports. The passports were in the Nshamihigo's assumed name, Weza. On 25 May, the Tanzanian authorities dropped the charges against Nshamihigo and handed him over to the tribunal, following a request from Carla Del Ponte, ICTR Chief Prosecutor.

Zimbabwe

BBC 15 June 2001 The United States has criticised new restrictions announced by Zimbabwe on foreign journalists as troubling. Reporters from abroad wishing to work in Zimbabwe will now have to seek government approval one month in advance, where previously they could apply for permission on arrival. A US State Department spokesman said the new rules accused the Zimbabwean Government of attacking the independent media and trying to limit reporting of events. State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said: "We find this new development particularly troubling in view of the presidential election slated to occur in the first quarter of next year, 2002." The BBC's Joseph Winter and another foreign reporter had to leave in February after officials accusing them of biased reporting against the government. Media war Earlier this year the printing presses of the Daily News, the country's leading independent newspaper, were blown up. Information Minister Jonathan Moyo accuses opposition groups, independent and foreign journalists of working together to fuel violence. The government's new conditions came a day after it announced the price of fuel was increasing by 70%.

BBC 30 June, 2001 Mugabe targets 1,000 new farms Law now supposedly protects occupiers from eviction The government of Zimbabwe has released a new list of farms to be nationalised under its controversial resettlement programme. With about 1,000 new white-owned farms targeted, more than 4,000 of the country's roughly 5,500 farms have been marked for seizure. One has to wonder if they want any commercial farming at all Renson Gasela, opposition MDC The government says it is trying to redress inequalities in land ownership that resulted from colonialism. But the vice-president of the predominantly white Commercial Farmers' Union, Colin Cloete, said the policy "makes a mockery of the entire resettlement scheme". Last December, the Supreme Court sharply criticised the government's resettlement scheme as illegal under Zimbabwean law. It gave the government until 1 July of this year to restore law and order on the farms occupied since February 2000 by militants who support President Robert Mugabe. Redistribution President Mugabe announced last year that the government would seize about half of the country's commercial farms. Mr Mugabe has been criticised by Zimbabwe's Supreme Court He said that 4,500 white farmers own about 70% of the country's best farmland, and that the nationalised properties would be turned over to black Zimbabweans. But farmers' union official Colin Cloete said he thought the government actually intended to seize every white-owned farm. "It's all part of politics," he said. The Supreme Court has ordered the government to come up with "a workable programme of land reform". But last month the government passed a law outlawing the use of force to remove occupiers from farms. Criticism Critics, including the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, charge that the seizure policy has been a disaster for Zimbabwean agriculture. "One has to wonder if they want any commercial farming at all," shadow land minister Renson Gasela of the MDC said. At least 34 people died in the run-up to elections last year The MDC supports land reform but opposes the violence that has accompanied the Mugabe-inspired seizures - which has been directed against opposition supporters as well as white farmers. Mr Gasela said the government has done nothing to support farming on the lands seized from white farmers. Agricultural experts say the country may face shortages of critical food crops such as maize and wheat this year due to the upheaval on commercial farms. Correspondents say that having to import food would be humiliating for Zimbabwe, which has been producing enough food to feed itself for many years.

Americas

Argentina

BBC 30 June, 2001 A judge in Argentina has issued an arrest warrant for the former naval officer Alfredo Astiz, one of the key figures in the military regime of the 1970s and 80s. The judge, Maria Servini de Cubria, said the warrant had been issued at the request of the Italian authorities, who want Mr Astiz extradited to stand trial in Italy in connection with the kidnapping and torture of three Italians. She said she had also issued an arrest order for another former naval officer, Jorge Vildoza, who is wanted by Italian prosecutors on the same charges. Mr Astiz, known as the "blond angel" during the 1976-83 military dictatorship, has been blamed for the torture and disappearance of thousands of people. In 1990, he was tried and convicted in absentia by a French court for the killing of two French nuns. National outrage He has publicly admitted to human rights violations but has been immune from prosecution in Argentina under the country's amnesty laws, introduced after the return of