AFP 1 May 2001 [full text] Some 330 skeletons, including those of women and children, have been recovered from a mass grave dating from Algeria's bloody independence war 40 years ago, eyewitnesses said. War veterans minister Mohamed Cherif Abbes last week confirmed discovery of the grave, which was uncovered last month. The find was at the village of Cheria, some 430 kms east of the capital Algiers. Local independence war veterans say the victims and their families were not resistance fighters, but had probably belonged to local support networks backing the Algerian anti-French resistance movement. Local officials and investigators examining the scene say the grave, covering 1,000 square metres, could contain as many as 600 bodies. Partial and complete skeleton remains have been laid out in two rooms at the local town hall. They were said to have been shot by special units of the French specialised administration section (SAS) during the 1954-62 Algerian war of independence. The first skeletons were found by labourers last month digging at the former SAS headquarters. A specialist pointed out the skeleton of a woman and an infant only a few months old. Locals say the victims are not from Cheria, a village 50 kms from the town of Tebessa. Members of an Algerian war veterans' group said the victims had been brought in from surrounding districts for interrogation, then tortured and executed.

Liberte [Algerian newspaper, in French] 30 Apr 2001 [full text] Algeria's president last night promised an independent inquiry after days of rioting by the Berber minority left about 80 people dead. Abdelaziz Bouteflika said in a television address that the investigation would be "totally free and transparent". He said: "There are people instigating divisions and separatism. They will be unmasked." He added that democracy in Algeria was "irreversible". The riots, in Kabyle, east of Algiers, have seen bloody confrontations between large numbers of stone-throwing youths and police firing live rounds. Demonstrators took to the streets after a student was killed while in police custody in the town of Beni Douala. Police said the student died after an officer's gun went off unintentionally, but many in the region say it was an execution. Throughout the weekend, thousands of protesters rampaged in the streets of Kabyle, destroying government buildings, blocking traffic and hurling Molotov cocktails.

Independent (UK) 3 May 2001, by Robert Fisk. The Berbers wrecked the Byzantine rule of north Africa. Justinian the Second's prefect was defeated by the Berber Garmul. The Berbers ­ the men of Kabyle ­ fought the Romans, the Arabs, the Turks and finally the French, who took 29 years to subdue the mountains around Tizi Ouzou. In the independence war of 1954-62, the Berber names of Amirouche and Ramdane were synonymous with the National Liberation Army's "Wilaya 3" resistance to colonial rule. Little wonder, then, that Algeria's President, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, has announced a "commission of investigation" into the killing of up to 62 Berbers by the police in just four days last week. In the hill towns south-east of Algiers, they are talking about an "intifada", a rebellion against government rule, a Palestinian-style stones-against-bullets insurrection which ­ after the death in police custody at Beni Doula of Guermah Massinissa, a teenage student ­ threatens to open all the carefully concealed divisions in Algerian society. The Berbers, with their own distinctive culture and language ­ tamazight ­ hoped their participation in the war against France would give them recognition; but President Ben Bella destroyed their aspirations in 1962. "We are all Arabs," he said. And that was supposed to be that. This week, they are recalling the "Berber Spring" of 1980 when the government refused to permit the writer Mouloud Mammeri to give a lecture on 16th-century Berber poetry; but the thousands of arrests that followed this revolt are insignificant compared with the deaths last week. Whole areas of the Kabyle capital of Tizi Ouzou were taken over by demonstrators while police stations in outlying towns were assaulted by hundreds of youths. The provincial gendarmerie, having run out of tear-gas grenades, began shooting down the protesters with live rounds. Needless to say, Europe ­ so swift to condemn Israel's killing of Palestinian stone-throwers ­ remained silent. Algeria's "Islamist" war ­ with its own toll of perhaps 150,000 lives ­ has frightened the French so much that only a massacre of Sabra-and-Chatila proportions will provoke a squeak from the Quai d'Orsay. With its own massive Algerian population, France does not want another immigration of refugees from the Maghreb. Better to let the Algerian government ­ the pouvoir ­ handle the problem. But is it capable of doing so? On Saturday alone, 30 Berbers were killed around Tizi Ouzou as youths attacked police stations, set up barricades of burning tyres on the main roads from Algiers and demanded an end to the "injustice" in their lives. Many claimed that the murder of the famous Berber singer Lounes Matoub, shot dead by Algeria's familiar "unknown" gunmen in 1988, was the work of the government. Equally familiar was the televised statement of President Bouteflika on Monday night. "These events did not happen by chance," he announced. "There are people who are deliberately fomenting divisions and separatism ­ we know who they are and they will be unmasked." But Algeria's "commissions" of inquiry ­ whether investigating the most grotesque massacres or the murder of a former president ­ traditionally fail to unmask anyone; which is why so many Algerians suspect that the government and its all-powerful army have a hand in the violence that has torn Algeria apart. Recent claims by former army officers that soldiers were themselves to blame for extrajudicial killings and torture have only increased these suspicions. On the campus of one Algiers university on Monday, students shouted "pouvoir assassin"; the Interior Minister, Yazid Noureddine Zerhouni, insisted the police had "kept their nerve" and "only used firearms as a last resort". Which means there were a lot of "last resorts" around Tizi Ouzou last week. Indeed, the towns of Maa

Al-Ahram Weekly, 3 - 9 May 2001, Issue No.532 by Nasr El-Kaffas [full text] After more than a week of deadly street fighting in Algeria, President Abdel-Aziz Bouteflika said on Monday that an investigation would be opened into the bloody clashes between security forces and ethnic Berbers that have left at least 60 dead. In his first remarks since the outbreak of violence, a solemn-faced Bouteflika appeared on television, appealing for calm and pledging that a "free and open investigation" would be conducted. "A national commission of inquiry will be created to investigate the events of the last few days," Bouteflika said during his 15-minute speech, without specifying when the inquiry would begin. Civilians will be appointed to the commission, he promised. The Berbers of the Kabyle region, east of Algiers, had demanded an investigation of the rioting that started after an 18-year-old student was shot dead on 18 April. The young student tried to escape from a policeman following his arrest. Police said the officer's gun went off accidentally but news of the death triggered riots across the mountainous region. The dead young man was among hundreds marking the anniversary of the 1980 "Berber spring", when authorities cracked down on demonstrations in the Kabyle region demanding formal recognition of the Berber language and culture. The situation deteriorated further as riots spread to other Algerian cities, including the capital, Algiers. Hundreds of university students protested at the downtown University of Algiers, chanting slogans including "the army -- the murderers." A tight police cordon prevented them from leaving campus. In an attempt to calm the tension, Interior Minister Noureddine Zerhouni immediately travelled to the troubled region. He praised the security forces' "restraint" in suppressing the riots and said live ammunition had been used only "as a last resort." An uneasy calm returned to the Berber region on Monday, though there are reports of sporadic clashes between protesters and police. Witnesses said Tizi Ouzou, a city of 600,000 people, remained paralysed. Businesses were closed as stone-throwing rioters fought running battles with police firing tear gas. A semblance of calm was eventually established, leaving the city's streets strewn with debris, burned tyres and felled trees. In Bejaia, further east, tension eased somewhat, allowing shops to reopen, but the town appears ravaged by war. Many government buildings there have been ransacked or torched. Observers note that the protests have become a vehicle for the region's youth to condemn crippling poverty, unemployment and government policies in the Berber region. "I understand their worries and their concerns, faced with a tomorrow without hope," Bouteflika said, referring to Berber youth. "We are going to work toward a future that takes into account their aspirations." He stressed, however, that demands for greater recognition of the Berber language (Tamazighi) and culture required a revision of the constitution, hinting at the possibility of a long-demanded referendum on the matter. As the rioting spread and the death toll mounted, anger was directed at Bouteflika, criticised for failing to rein in security forces. Many in Kabyle have accused authorities of fuelling the violence to serve their own ends. Interior Minister Zerhouni, speaking at a news conference in Tizi Ouzou late on Sunday, said the young rioters were "manipulated by terrorist infiltrators." The claim is tenuous, however, especially in light of the well-known animosity between Berbers and Islamists. Residents of the Kabyle region accuse Islamists of seeking to impose an Arab identity on them, while they insist on maintaining their own culture and language. The Front for Socialist Forces (FFS), a leading pro-Berber party, called on Monday for the European Union to send a team to Algeria to investigate the rioting. The party also asked UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to send a special envoy to pressure authorities into moving towards democracy. The riots have increased pressure on the president, with Said Saadi, head of the Rally for Culture and Democracy, another pro-Berber party, threatening to pull his party's two ministers from the government. "Personally, I would say that it is impossible to remain in a government that fires real bullets at its own people," Saadi said. Algerian newspapers have recently described the president as increasingly fragile and at odds with the military establishment -- the real power in Algeria since it gained independence from France in 1962. Elected in 1999, Bouteflika put forward a peace plan to end the ongoing Islamist insurgency that claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people since it began nearly 10 years ago. Yet the violence continues and the conflict in the Berber region could only add to Bouteflika's troubles.

BBC 10 May 2001 [full text] Gunmen kill eight Algerian policemen Kabylie has been rocked by violence in the past two weeks Gunmen have killed eight policemen in an ambush in the Kabylie region of northeastern Algeria. State television said Islamist militants opened fire on the policemen on Wednesday in the coastal town of Tigzirt, about 120 kilometres (70 miles) east of Algiers, and close to the regional capital Tizi Ouzou. Tizi Ouzou was the scene of extensive rioting last week in which 80 ethnic Berbers were killed. The authorities blamed the latest attack, in which two policeman were also injured, on the Salafist Group or GSPC - a radical Islamic group which is known to be active in this area. It comes two days after the same faction was blamed for a bomb that killed two soldiers. Different aims The BBC's North Africa correspondent David Bamford says liberal-minded Berbers and radical Islamists are at opposite ends of the political spectrum. The GSPC would have been expected to carry out an act of counter-propaganda after the recent publicity for the Berber cause, he says. The Berbers were the original inhabitants of Algeria until the Arabs conquered North Africa in the 7th century. Living mainly in the mountainous regions, the Berbers call for official recognition of their own language and culture. They make up some 30% of the total population. Insurgency Radical Islamists have waged a savage insurgency since 1992, when the government suspended elections which the now-outlawed Islamic Salvation Front seemed set to win. President Bouteflika is under fire from the Berbers and the Islamists Although Kabylie is predominantly hostile to the Islamists, there are outlying villages where local people have always refused to accept the liberal trends of Berber nationalism. Some of these communities have since been recruited into the Islamist cause. The Kabylie region has seen 10 days of fierce rioting by Berbers, sparked by the death of a teenager in police custody. A week ago Algerian riot police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of young Berbers in Bejaia demonstrating against perceived brutality in the police's response to the nation-wide riots. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has promised a "free and open investigation" into the clashes.

BBC 13 May 2001 [full text] Algerian parliament opens Berber riots inquiry An Algerian parliamentary commission is due to question the Minister of the Interior and other authorities today Sunday about the way officials dealt with recent protests in the mainly Berber area of Kabylie, in which at least 60 people are believed to have died. The commission has called on citizens to come forward with their testimonies to establish what happened. Thousands of people - mostly Berbers - have demonstrated in Algiers against what they called the government repression of the protests, that were sparked last month by the killing of a Berber youth in police custody.

BBC 21 May, 2001 [full text] By Peter Hiett Fresh unrest has broken out in the north-east of Algeria, home to the ethnic Berber group who are furious about the police's aggressive response to pro-Berber demonstrations earlier this month and last. Although more than 20,000 people demonstrated peacefully on Sunday in the main town, Tizi Ouzou, elsewhere the protests turned violent. A young Berber, shot in earlier riots with an explosive bullet One town, Seddouk, was paralysed as youths pelted police with stones and set trees and tyres on fire. Police replied with teargas. Similar though smaller clashes took place elsewhere, as protesters demanded the withdrawal of the paramilitary police from the area. Berbers in Algeria have long campaigned for linguistic and cultural equality with the Arab population - demands which Algerian governments have historically resisted, sometimes violently. List of demands Thousands of people rallied outside local government offices in Tizi Ouzou, and then marched on a local court building. They will be drawing up a list of demands. The protesters are still furious at the way the police fired into the crowd at the earlier pro-Berber demonstrations, which were sparked by the killing of a teenage student in police custody. The government says 40 people were killed then. Local people say twice that number died. And though the government has set up an inquiry into the latest outbreak, this weekend's trouble suggests that local people do not think it is enough. More protests are planned for Monday.

ICRC 23 May 2001 The Algerian Red Crescent, with the support of the ICRC, held a colloquium on international humanitarian law in the Palais de la culture, Algiers, on 19 and 20 May. This was the first humanitarian law event to be held in Algeria since violence there started over 10 years ago. The colloquium's aim was twofold: to pool the efforts of organizations concerned by humanitarian law and humanitarian endeavour, and to emphasize the importance of humanitarian rules that set limits on violence. Most Algerian speakers stressed the close links between the country's history and humanitarian values. The colloquium was chaired by the President of Algeria and attended by representatives of the authorities, NGOs and nationally and internationally renowned Algerian humanitarian law experts, such as Mohamed Bedjaoui, former Minister of Justice and member of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, of which he is also a past President. The ICRC sent a large delegation, led by Ms Anne Petitpierre, one of its Vice-Presidents.

BBC 26 May 2001 New unrest hits Berber region A young man walks in a riot-torn street of Akbou, near Bejaia By North Africa correspondent David Bamford There has been a day of clashes in the Algerian region of Kabylie between paramilitary police and ethnic Berber demonstrators as renewed unrest spread across the region affecting many towns and villages. Reports from the biggest regional towns of Tizi Ouzou and Bejaia spoke of youths armed with stones attacking government buildings. Tizi Ouzou has been overwhelmed by massive demonstrations Police have been responding with tear gas. Several demonstrators and at least one policeman have been killed in nearly a week of unrest after a lull following a wave of Berber protests in April in which 80 people were killed. Algerian radio said that paramilitary police confronted hundreds of youths who were attacking government buildings and bringing down electricity pylons. The Berber protestors reportedly set up barricades across main roads and attacked vehicles in an effort to close down the province. Snowplough Defence news agencies said that a police snowplough being used to break down the barricades was commandeered by the protestors and over-turned. Rioting has spread to many towns and villages Eyewitnesses in Tizi Ouzou described a scene of thick clouds of tear gas as police and stone-throwing demonstrators battle it out in the city centre. Several people, including a policeman, have been reported killed in the last five days of clashes, though details of casualties are sketchy. On Monday an estimated 500,000 people demonstrated in Tizi Ouzou, demanding the withdrawal of the paramilitary police and an end to what they describe as government discrimination in the region in its housing and employment policies.

Burundi

IRIN 2 May 2001 The CNDD-FDD [Conseil National pour la Defense de la Democratie-Forces pour la Defense de la Democratie] has asked the UN to "officially" state that the killings which took place in Burundi in 1965 and 1972 amounted to genocide. In a statement issued on the 29th anniversary of the 1972 Burundi massacre, the group's spokesman, Gerome Ndiho, called on the citizens and the UN to remember Burundians who died then. "We based ourselves on the fact that observers said that more than 580,000 Hutus were killed. We mainly based ourselves on the fact that the UN carried out investigations and made a report in 1985," he told the BBC Kirundi service. In that report, the UN had said that genocide had taken place in 1965 and 1972 in Burundi.

AFP 14 May 2001 Burundi heading for widespread civil war, warns think-tank ICG NAIROBI, May 14 (AFP) - Some 4,000 Hutu rebels have in recent months returned from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to Burundi, where "widespread civil war" is looming, the International Crisis Group (ICG) warned here Monday. The returning rebels are members of the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), which had been fighting in DRC alongside forces loyal to the Kinshasa regime, according to a report released by the ICG, a respected international think-tank. Their return home follows the coming to power in DRC of Joseph Kabila in January on the assassination of his father and predecessor as president, Laurent Kabila. "Joseph Kabila seems to want to see the Burundians leave Congolese territory" to convince the international community of his commitment to the peace process in his own country, according to the report. "The rebels have accumulated weapons and resources" in DRC, ICG analyst Francois Grignon told a news conference in Nairobi. "Joseph Kabila is not going to resupply the FDD to destabilise Burundi," as his father had done, added Grignon. According to the report, no progress towards peace has been made since Tutsi minority and Hutu majority political groups -- but, crucially, not the rebels -- signed a power-sharing deal in the northern town of Arusha in August 2000. "There is no ceasefire in sight between the army and the rebel groups" and violence is escalating, the report noted. The escalation in clashes has allowed FDD leader Jean-Bosco Ndayikengurukiye to "boost his profile (during negotiations with the government) and regain support of its troops". The other main Hutu rebel group, the National Liberation Forces (FNL), managed to recruit about 1,000 young Hutus into its ranks in February, when it briefly occupied Kinama, on the outskirts of the capital, Bujumbura. The FNL has begun to coordinate with the FDD, "exchanging information about intelligence, about the army's movements," noted Grignon. The army, meanwhile, has "considerably strengthened its heavy artillery in anticipation of imminent joint attacks by the FDD and FNL," according to the report. In the light of all this, the ICG called on South African former president Nelson Mandela, the chief mediator in Burundi's peace process, to harmonise what is currently a two-track negotiation process, with the FNL talking with South African mediators in Pretoria and the FDD meeting in Libreville, Gabon, on identical issues. Instead, the South Africans should focus on renewed, scaled-down power sharing talks, while discussions in Gabon should be restricted to ceasefire negotiations, the ICG urged. The peace processes in DRC and Burundi should no longer be treated as separate issues, the ICG also recommended. The ICG describes itself as a private, multinational research organisation producing regular analytical reports aimed at key international decision takers. Its board is presided by Finnish former president Martti Ahtisaari and also includes former NATO supreme allied commander (Europe) Wesley Clarke, former European Commission president Jacques Delors and former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres. http://www.intl-crisis-group.org/projects/showreport.cfm?reportid=288

Congo

BBC 17 May, 2001 [full text] Congo political ban lifted Joseph Kabila's announcement is timely By Mark Dummett in Kinshasa Restrictions on the activities of political parties in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been lifted. DR Congo President Joseph Kabila said all those parties that were in operation under former President Mobuto Sese Seko, would be able to resume their work without interference. He announced the move at a church mass in memory of his assassinated father Laurent Kabila, saying the new law would come into effect immediately, following the advice of the political parties. It came on the fourth anniversary of the toppling of Mobutu Since the rebel army of his father entered Kinshasa exactly four years ago, political parties - of which they are as many as 450 - have been able to exist, but meetings and campaigns have been banned. UN talks The announcement came only hours before the arrival in Kinshasa of ambassadors of the United Nations Security Council, on the second leg of their tour of the countries involved in the war in Congo. The UN expects to deploy 3,000 troops They will be meeting the government as well as opposition parties, to evaluate the state of the peace process in the country. They will also encourage the full withdrawal of all foreign troops and a setting up of a national dialogue and eventual elections. A senior member of the biggest political party in the capital, the UDPF, said the two events were linked. Jean Joseph Mukendi, said that Joseph Kabila had make such changes before, but that nothing much had changed. He said that each time a senior international delegation arrived in Kinshasa an announcement is made but that he is still waiting for concrete change.

Reuters 19 May 2001 U.N. Security Council Mission Hits Snag in Congo By Buchizya Mseteka KINSHASA (Reuters) - A U.N. Security Council mission to breathe new life into the Democratic Republic of Congo's peace process hit a snag when President Joseph Kabila's African allies took an unexpectedly hardline stance. Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia on Saturday accused countries backing rebels in Africa's third largest country of killing 2.5 million people in genocide since 1998 and urged sanctions to push Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi to withdraw their troops. ``These were unusually tough remarks. It was a clear message that the allies are prepared to stand with Congo to the end, and that implementation of any peace deal would be on their terms,'' an African ambassador in Kinshasa told Reuters. The aim of the mission, which includes 12 of the 15 Security Council members, was to build momentum for a peace process that was revitalized in January with the assassination of Congolese President Laurent Kabila and his replacement by his son Joseph. What the mission heard from Congo's allies in the war for the mineral-rich former Zaire were similar arguments to those the elder Kabila often used to justify his defiant stand. ``Two-point-five million have been massacred. The genocide continues to take place, carried out by Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda. Such genocide cannot be allowed in the 21st century,'' Namibian President Sam Nujoma said after a summit of allied leaders. U.N. officials said Nujoma complained that the United Nations was not doing enough to force the countries backing rebels fighting the Congolese government to withdraw unconditionally. U.N. Security Council spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters: ``There is a recognition of a need for a comprehensive solution to the problem that finger-pointing won't solve.''

BBC 20 May 2001, [full text] UN warned of DR Congo 'genocide' Life in the east of Congo means hunger, disease and terror The Democratic Republic of Congo and its allies have accused the UN of ignoring a "genocide" of 2.5 million people in the rebel-held east of the country. "We call upon the international community, especially the United Nations, to condemn this genocide being committed," said Namibian President Sam Nujoma. Africa's Biggest War The conflict was sparked in August 1998 when Rwanda and Uganda invaded DR Congo, backing rebels trying to topple the late President Laurent Kabila. Zimbabwe, Uganda and Angola stepped in to support Kabila's troops. Laurent Kabila was mysteriously assassinated in January. His son and successor Joseph has restored relations with the international community, allowed UN troops in, and revived the peace process. He was speaking at a meeting with the president of DR Congo, Joseph Kabila, and the leaders of Zimbabwe and Angola. Namibia, Zimbabwe and Angola are providing military support to the DR Congo Government in its fight against the rebels. An American aid organisation, the International Rescue Committee, has published the mortality figure cited by the Namibian president but has not said whether they had all died as a direct result of the fighting. Mr Nujoma called on the UN to: Impose sanctions on Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, the countries backing the rebels Force the Ugandan-backed MLC to comply with a 1999 ceasefire, the only rebel group not to do so Deploy more peacekeepers in the country Rwanda's Tutsi-led government says its troops are in the Congo to track Hutu militiamen who massacred more than 500,000 people, mainly Tutsis, during Rwanda's 1994 genocide. The five-hour summit coincided with a visit by 12 ambassadors of the UN who are in Kinshasa for talks with the four allied presidents. They are there to discuss the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Congo - the supposed next step of the peace process - but Mr Nujoma said their forces would only leave once the other side had done so first.

WP 27 May 2001;By Karl Vick -- Ugandan soldiers have arrested a man they say has confessed to taking part in the killings of six Red Cross workers in eastern Congo last month, the Ugandan military said today. Dongo Chuga was identified as a warrior from the Lendu ethnic group, one of two tribes whose brutal local conflict has killed thousands in addition to the more than 2 million estimated to have died as a result of the Congolese civil war, which began in 1998. Uganda, one of five foreign countries involved in the conflict, nominally controls the area where the attack occurred, a hilly, forested zone near the Ugandan-Congolese border. In that zone, the Ugandan occupiers have been widely accused of favoring the economically dominant Hema tribe, which is fighting the Lendu. A Ugandan army spokesman, Phinehas Katirima, said Chuga confessed to being among 14 attackers who stopped two clearly marked Red Cross vehicles on a remote road April 26, shooting and hacking to death the six relief workers -- one Swiss, one Colombian and four Congolese -- inside. The spokesman said further details were not available, "but they will emerge because he is in our custody." Katirima said the accused man described the incident as a crime of opportunity rather than politics: The attackers stole money, clothes and two satellite telephones, he said.

Egypt

BBC 5 February, 2001, By Caroline Hawley in Cairo A court in southern Egypt has acquitted all but four of nearly 100 people charged with involvement in the country's worst religious violence for decades. Thirty-eight Muslims had faced the death penalty for their role in the clashes, which swept the village of Kosheh, about 440km (275 miles) south of Cairo, just over a year ago. Too many people became involved. It was difficult to know who were the perpetrators and who were the victims Defence lawyer, Abul-Qassim el-Sherif Twenty Christians and one Muslim died after a dispute between a Muslim and Christian over a piece of cloth degenerated into several days of killings and looting. Security forces ringed the court as the judge delivered his verdict in what has been an extremely sensitive case. In the end, however, the harshest sentence was 10 years in jail for just one man, convicted of accidental homicide and illegal possession of a weapon. Many had expected lenient verdicts on the grounds that the police had not prepared a proper case against the suspects. 'Justice not done' But the ruling will leave many in the Christian community angry. Although 20 Christians died, no-one has been found guilty of their murder. A local priest told the BBC that justice had not been done. He said that security forces who had stood by while Christians were being killed had then protected the killers from punishment. A Western diplomat who has been following the case closely also expressed surprise at the outcome. He said it was not clear whether incompetence or a cover-up was to blame.

Ethiopia

Independent (South Africa) 11 May 2001 [full text] Mass murder trial to go on for 3 more years The trial of leaders and civilians charged with crimes against humanity during a 17-year military regime is set to continue for at least another three years, a government newspaper said on Friday. Addis Zemen said special prosecutor Ghirma Wakjira told parliament on Thursday in a progress report on the six- and-half-year trial that so far, 11 defendants have been convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity and sentenced to death, 453 others were convicted on other charges and sentenced to between one year and life in prison and 274 have been acquitted. The trial of the remaining 443 defendants continues. Ghirma said his office has completed 98 percent of its investigations. Completed 98% of its investigations The crimes were allegedy committed during a two-year period in the late 1970s called the "red terror" when the military regime of Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam was consolidating its power after ousting Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974. Mengistu was ousted in May 1991 when rebels led by the Tigray People's Liberation Front captured Addis Ababa. Mengistu fled to exile in Zimbabwe where he remains. When the trial opened in December 1994, the first to be tried were the 46 members of the ruling military council known as the "derg." Seventeen of them, including Mengistu, were tried in absentia, and 11 of them were sentenced to death. Six of those charged died in prison. The three-judge tribunal has so far heard testimony from more than 700 witnesses. The prosecution charges that the defendants were involved in the torture and execution of scores of members of Haile Selassie's government as well as of student activists who opposed the military government. Testimony from more than 700 witnesses On Thursday, Topia, a private Amharic-language weekly, reported that 10 senior officials in the Mengistu government had been released from prison where they had been held for 10 years without charge. The officials, who include Major-General Alemayehu Agonafir, former Air Force chief, were arrested shortly after Mengistu was ousted, but no charges were ever filed against them. - Sapa-AP

Independent (South Africa) 8 May 2001 [full text] An Ethiopian court trying thousands of people for widespread terror and murder under the regime of ousted dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam has sentenced 222 to prison in the past six months, the official press reported. The sixth criminal chamber of Ethiopia's federal high court also acquitted 122 defendants from the so-called "Red Terror" period of the late 1970s, the reports said late on Monday, quoting judicial sources. The trials were part of a series that began in 1994 of high-ranking officials in Mengistu's Marxist regime, in particular between late 1976 and 1978, when tens of thousands of Ethiopians were killed or abducted. The verdicts were passed between early November and the end of April, with the 222 prison sentences ranging from two years to life. The 122 acquittals were awarded for lack of evidence, the court said. Early this month a human rights group called for stiffer sentences against the defendants, who were tried on torture and murder charges. The trials have been stepped up in recent months in response to criticism over the court's slow rate of progress. The court has a caseload of 5 198 former soldiers and officials of the Mengistu regime, of whom 2 200 are in detention. Colonel Mexhangistu, for his part, has been living in exile in Zimbabwe since May 1991. He is being tried in absentia. - Sapa-AFP

Addis Tribune 11 May 2001 [full text] Arrested Opposition Party Members Reach 140 Opposition parities say government security forces have continued arresting their members and their whereabouts are not yet known. Foreign Affairs Head with the Ethiopians' Democratic Party (EDP), Ato Isaac Kifle told Addis Tribune that the number of EDP members rounded up until Tuesday (May 8, 2001) has reached 110. He said all of them were held incommunicado, and the effort by the International Committee for Red Cross (ICRC) to provide medicine and other essential materials has not been supported by the government. Issac said families and relatives are now in a serious problem as most of those detained were bread winners of their families. Only one member of EDP was released after he had been obliged to admit guilt as he could not resist the trauma at the prison camp, Isaac said, and expressed his concern on the condition of the prisoners. He said many feared those arrested were being tortured. The All Amhara People's Organization (AAPO) meanwhile said in a statement that 30 of its members had been rounded up until last Friday (May 4, 2001). Most of those arrested were contenders in the council and kebele elections, according to AAPO, and called on the unconditional release of its members and university students. Government security forces have rounded up opposition party members following the riot and looting on April 18, 2001. The Government alleged that opposition party members took part in the riot while the parties denied the allegation saying that it was simply a pretext to suppress the opposition.

IRIN 30 May 2001 Two prominent human rights activists have been charged with attempting to change the "constitutional order" of Ethiopia by force, the pro-government Walta Information Centre has reported. Professor Mesfin Woldemariam, former head of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO), and Dr Berhanu Nega, head of the non-governmental Ethiopian Economic Association, were also charged with being members of an unlawful clandestine organisation, Walta said. The two academics have been detained since 8 May in connection with April's student unrest in Addis Ababa. They are accused of making "inflammatory remarks", aimed at dividing students along ethnic lines during a lecture at Addis Ababa University, and inciting them to riot. Both men pleaded "not guilty" to the charges. The Federal High Court has been adjourned until 1 June to consider the defendants' applications for bail.

Kenya

The Nation (Nairobi) May 3, 2001 by Njeri Rugene Cabinet Minister Nicholas Biwott said yesterday that he wanted to know exactly who killed former Foreign Minister Robert Ouko. Speaking in Parliament yesterday, Mr Biwott said he had been "the most harmed" in the unsolved murder of Dr Ouko - and had been subjected to injustice by being associated with the minister's death. The Tourism, Trade and Industry Minister challenged anybody with evidence of his involvement to speak out now. "I personally would want to know who killed Dr Ouko. I have been more harmed by this injustice. Anybody who knows that Biwott killed Ouko should come out and say so," the minister said amidst shouts from the Opposition. His brief speech gave Government MPs the cue to reject a motion calling for a Kenya Truth and Reconciliation Commission. "If there is anything that is against Biwott, it should come out in the open," the minister said, as Opposition MPs shouted, "Then support the motion! Support reconciliation!" The motion by Mr Oloo Aringo (Alego Usonga-NDP) sought the permission of Parliament to introduce The Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Bill to establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The commission, he proposed, should investigate the causes and effects of political and ethnic violence, and the gross violation of human rights in Kenya since 1966. The MP also wanted the commission to recommend just and permanent solutions that would promote and enhance peace, national unity and reconciliation. Seconding the motion, Mr Wanyiri Kihoro (Nyeri Town DP) said ethnic clashes had been turned on and off by merchants of violence and domination. Mr Kihoro, a former detainee, said reconciliation and healing would be achieved only once those who had committed political and economic crimes against Kenyans voluntarily sought forgiveness. However, Kanu - led by ministers Biwott, Bonaya Godana, Julius Sunkuli and Vice President George Saitoti - the only Government MPs who contributed to the debate Ð rejected the motion. Assistant local government minister Jembe Mwakalu abstained. The motion was lost 34-64. Kanu MP Jimmy Angwenyi (Kitutu Chache) protested that the temporary Deputy Speaker, Mr Gitobu Imanyara, had ignored Kanu back-benchers in favour of ministers. Mr Imanyara replied that he was following Standing Orders. In his speech against the commission, Mr Biwott said he valued and advocated justice for all: "because I would not want to see anyone arrested and put in even for one night because that is one of the worst experiences." Mr Biwott dismissed the idea of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission as irrelevant, however, saying it was borrowed from South Africa where the situation was different to Kenya. Although he agreed with the spirit of the motion, its context was misplaced, he said. Kenya, he argued, had well-placed institutions and mechanisms to effect justice... Responding to the motion on behalf of the Government, Mr Sunkuli said the findings of the Akiwumi Commission that looked into the causes of ethnic clashes would soon be released. Without giving the release date, the minister said the Government was still studying the report. He caused an uproar when he described the National Council of Churches of Kenya as "a fully owned subsidiary of the Opposition, whose 80 per cent shares belong to the Opposition and 20 per cent to foreigners". "That is why efforts to bring peace and reconciliation will not succeed because the Church and media institutions which are aligned to the Opposition already have a ready-made list of wrong-doers." He said committees instituted by Parliament had never succeeded because they were biased against certain individuals and were used to attack political rivals and witch hunt. He gave the example of the 1992 Kiliku select committee that looked into tribal clashes and the Select Committee on Anti-Corruption, chaired by Ford Kenyan's Musikari Kombo. The Kilgoris MP dismissed the suggestion of a commission and amnesty as very simplistic. According to the minister, it did not pay to dwell on the past. He asked Mr Aringo, whom he described as "an original thinker", to revert to his original thinking and stop copying other countries. Mr Sunkuli accused some Opposition MPs of making political capital out of the ethnic clashes which, he said, should be approached with much sensitivity and caution. Leaders should look for the root causes of the clashes and find solutions, instead of laying blame on each other. He commended Kisii MPs for seeking a solution to the clashes on the Kisii-Trans Mara border. Mr Sunkuli got into trouble with some MPs from Central when he dismissed their recent meeting in Meru as "tribal, that aimed at Balkanising the country". ... Mr James Orengo (Ugenya, Ford Kenya) told the Kanu MPs to examine their consciences before rejecting the motion, and think about where the nation was headed. Mr Orengo said some people in the Government and what he called the Rift Valley Mafia, were afraid of a truth commission because they thought they would be exposed for the crimes they had committed against Kenyans. He said efforts for such a tribunal would not succeed because the same mafia that rejected the Kiliku Report was still in Parliament. "We also cannot have reconciliation when a Government which was involved in the killing of its minister is still in power. But we shall catch up with you soon, because Kenyans are for reconciliation," Mr Orengo said. Prof Saitoti said although the motion contained some fundamental issues like the intent to have national reconciliation and unity, it was not appropriate for Kenya which has been able to forge national unity. Prof Saitoti, the Leader of Government Business, also traced the animosity to the emergence of the multi-party state, saying it created "tension and formation of tribal parties". Mr Joseph Munyao (nominated, DP) told MPs to vote with their consciences for the motion cautioning them that they were doing it for posterity. Foreign Minister Bonaya Godana dismissed the motion saying there was "a growing tendency among Opposition politicians in sub-Saharan Africa" to ape institutions and mechanisms in foreign countries". He described Mr Aringo's motion as "an affront to the dignity of Parliament." Mr Odongo Omamo (Muhoroni, NDP) said the motion was about the leaders' conscience. However, Mr Omamo cautioned that the process could be counter-productive "since it may generate hatred because Kenyans are inward looking."

AP 7 May 2001 [full text] Senegalese judge Laity Kama, the first president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, has died. He was 62. Kama died Sunday at the Aga Khan Hospital in Nairobi where he was undergoing treatment for heart problems, U.N. officials said Monday. The U.N. flag flying outside the court in Arusha, Tanzania was lowered to half-staff Monday at the court – charged by the U.N. Security Council with prosecuting those responsible for 1994 Rwandan genocide in which more than 500,000 people perished. Kama was born in Dakar, Senegal, in 1939, and began his career as a magistrate in 1969. For 15 years he was assistant public prosecutor at the Court of Appeal in Dakar and in 1992 was appointed first assistant public prosecutor at the Supreme Court of Appeal. As an expert, he represented Africa in the working group on arbitrary detention established by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. He was a member of the Senegalese delegation to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva from 1983 to 1990 and a member of the advisory board to the International Human Rights Education and Monitoring Training Program at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota since 1999. Kama, the father of four children, presided over the trial of Jean Paul Akayesu, the first person to be found guilty by the tribunal of the crime of genocide. He also presided over the guilty plea to genocide by former Rwanda Prime Minister, Jean Kambanda. The current president of the tribunal, Navinathem Pillay, said she had visited Kama on Friday and Saturday and that he appeared to be recovering, but that his condition worsened Saturday night. "He was a great man of quality," said Pillay, who took over the presidency from the Kama in 1999. Kama served four years as the tribunal's president and continued to conduct trials until he fell ill in April. Kama's body will be flown to Dakar for burial on Wednesday after a memorial service Tuesday in Arusha, U.N. officials said.

The Nation (Nairobi) EDITORIAL May 13, 2001 [full text] The climate of political intolerance, intransigence and violence that threatened the country's peace and stability in the early to mid-1990s is fast clouding the environment. Already, parts of Rift Valley, North Eastern, Nyanza, Eastern and Coast provinces are embroiled in some form of ethnic skirmish that has left a number of people dead, families displaced and property destroyed. Rather than respond to these incidents in a sober and mature manner, leaders of the affected ethnic communities have resorted to sabre-rattling. They behave as if they are unaware of the blood-letting that was visited on thousands of innocent Kenyans as a result of incitement by self-seeking leaders. For its part, the Government's security machinery has, as was the case in the days of ethnic clashes, failed to respond to these incidents with alacrity. Policemen have visisted the scene only days after the attacks, giving the impression of partiality. Rarely are those arrested and prosecuted. As if that is not bad enough, the political hierarchy is again warning of draconian measures to curtail free speech - moves reminiscent of the single-party dictatorship of the pre-1991 era. True, stakes are high, especially given the confluence of the Constitution reform process, the 2002 General Election and President Moi's departure from State House. And, as usually happens, leaders, including MPs, tend to heighten their level of campaigning to fever pitch. Some will so push the boundaries of the law as to risk prosecution. Nothing strange about all this. It has happened in the run-up to previous general elections. What disturb are the extra-legal measures the Government taking to curtail what it deems offensive utterances. We see no need for such panic measures. Rather than throw a blanket of fear onto whole communities and groups, the Government would be well advised to apply the law in a manner in keeping with with a multi-party system. The sobriety and maturity demanded of political leaders must transcend all levels -right from village elders to the cabinet. Kenyans must never again allow the country to backslide to the deadly cocktail of dictatorial practices and ethnic strife of yesteryear.

IRIN 28 May 2001 US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Saturday urged Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi to step aside next year, when his term of office finishes under the constitution, and to let a new president be elected, the 'New York Times' reported. President Moi sidestepped direct questions as to whether he would stand again, saying that the destiny of Kenya was in the hands of the people themselves. While Moi was constitutionally barred from standing again, some of his supporters have been urging him to change the system and run again and Powell suggested he could leave s positive legacy by stepping aside to leave a new generation to guide the country, the 'Times' added. Powell also called on the Kenyan government to reform the economy and act firmly on corruption in order to re-establish ties with the World Bank and the IMF.

Liberia

IRIN 1 May 2001 [full text] The Liberian government has launched a week-long media campaign entitled "Say No To Sanctions," in a bid to pressure the UN not to impose sanctions against it next week. The campaign intends to "sensitise and mobilise local and international public opinion against the negative impact of UN sanctions, arms embargo and dissident attacks on Lofa County," a ministry of information news release said on Sunday. It aims to produce a petition, signed by one million people, raising objections to the pending sanctions, which will be delivered to the UN Security Council (UNSC) on Monday 7 May. The UNSC voted unanimously on 7 March to impose sanctions on Liberia in response to evidence of its involvement in arms and diamond trafficking with Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels in Sierra Leone. The UNSC also reconfirmed an arms embargo imposed on Liberia since 1992, during the civil war. Sanctions, which will take effect on Monday unless the Liberian government has proved it has stopped supporting the RUF, include a travel ban by government and military officials and a 12-month ban on diamond imports from Liberia.

AFP 4 May 2001 [full text] Some 10,000 people have fled to Sierra Leone in the last two weeks following fighting in northern Liberia, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said Friday. Of these, about 400, all Liberian nationals, have officially sought asylum, the UNHCR said in a statement. The refugees fled after clashes between government troops and forces opposed to the regime of President Charles Taylor in Liberia's northern Lofa County. They have poured into the eastern town of Daru, about 270 kilometres (165 miles) from the Sierra Leone capital Freetown, the UNHCR statement said. About 9,000 of the refugees are Liberians and the rest Sierra Leonean nationals, it added. According to the UN agency, some of the refugees said they would like to be transferred to safer areas within Sierra Leone. The UNHCR and humanitarian bodies were planning to shift them further south. The UNHCR forecast "an unprecedented upsurge of Liberian refugees into Sierra Leone if fighting in Liberia continues." Charles Taylor's government recently accused a Sierra Leonean civilian militia of fighting alongside rebels in Lofa County. Freetown accuses Taylor of arming and aiding Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel group in return for so-called "blood diamonds." The RUF is control of much of Sierra Leone's diamond-rich north and east.

Libya

The Guardian (Lagos) 1 May 2001 by Oghogho Obayuwana [full text] The United States warned yesterday that the remarks of Libyan Leader Muamma Gaddafi at the close of the just ended AIDS summit in Abuja could distract the international community from undertaking "the many measures needed to contain the crisis". Gadaffi had, during his vote of thanks, alleged that the dreaded disease was manufactured by the Americans to destroy Africans. But the Public Affairs Section (PAS) of the U.S. embassy in Abuja said yesterday that Gadaffi "misused" the opportunity to make "spurious claim" about the origin of AIDS. This development, the PAS explanatory note said, was capable of diverting focus from what it called the "real needs" of African nations -- prevention, treatment and care. The U.S. also maintained that it wasn't true that U.S. Pharmaceutical industry was withholding new drugs on AIDS from the market. President Olusegun Obasanjo, in his summary, noted that the summit produced a "very useful dialogue", saying that "we have reached the end of uncertainty and we are clear on the way to go forward". P.A.S. stressed yesterday that the summit was a success as it brought together African leaders and their international partners. It further said the first gathering by continental leadership represented a milestone in coming to terms with the phenomenon since corporate and non-governmental organisations, faith-based and youth representatives all participated in a manner indicating that concerted efforts to fight the scourge has hit an all time high.

Nigeria

BBC 3 May 2001 [full text] The oil company Royal Dutch Shell says that 14 of its abandoned oil wells in Nigeria could blow up without warning. The company made the announcement after investigations into an oil spill in Ogoniland in southern Nigeria showed that one of the wells was leaking. We withdrew from Ogoni without being allowed to carry out proper evacuation procedures Company spokesman Donald Boham Company spokesman Donald Boham said that the wells are "potential time bombs". Shell was forced to abandon production in Ogoniland in 1993 as a result of the campaign by the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, who accused it of responsibility for widespread pollution. The company says that only two wells were properly sealed. Ensuring safety Mr Boham now says that the remaining 14 must be sealed with cement and other materials before disaster strikes. He said that there is a danger that leaking gas combined with the oil could create an inferno. Oil fires have been a major problem in Nigeria. Most Ogonis are extremely suspicious of Shell. The company is accused of causing serious environmental damage in the area. But Mr Boham said: "The need to secure these wells and other facilities, and to clean up spills which occurred in our absence, has been the subject of dialogue with the people of Ogoni." The spill that Shell is investigating in the Yula oilfield was first reported on Sunday. Shell officials told the BBC that initial evidence suggests it may have been the result of sabotage, but Ogoni activists have released a statement saying they are shocked by such suggestions. They say that oil is still flowing out at the point of the spill and that there is a risk of fire in the area.

Friday, 11 May, 2001, 15:53 GMT 16:53 UK are much feared By Sam Olukoya in Lagos Posters bearing the inscription "The police is your friend" are displayed on the walls of police stations in Nigeria. But for many Nigerians, the police are a foe and not a friend. A lot of these mobile policemen still have the military hangover Police spokesman This applies especially to the mobile police, a paramilitary arm of the Nigerian police. On the streets of major Nigerian cities, mobile policemen cut a larger than life image. Their trademarks are an automatic rifle, a horse whip, boy's cap or beret, black shirt over khaki trousers and canvas boots. And unfortunately they have the reputation of being poorly educated, poorly trained and trigger happy. Kill and go Nigerians have given them the nickname "kill and go" for their tendency to gun down innocent people and walk away. Of late, the country has witnessed an increase in the killing and maiming of innocent people by the mobile police. The police are trying to clean up their act ... One significant step is an order by the Inspector General of Police, Musiliu Smith, that mobile policemen nationwide be retrained in the use of firearms. Another step is the introduction of the use of rubber bullets to quell riots. Police spokesman Haz Iwendi says this is to prevent the frequent loss of lives during riots. The mobile police who are generally sent out to quell riots do so with live bullets rather than rubber ones. The weapon in the hands of the mobile policeman may also change. Police Affairs Minister Stephen Akiga says the police could soon phase out the use of sub-machine guns in an attempt to stop cases of accidental discharge of bullets. Just how many deaths result from accidental discharge from police guns is unclear, but most deaths caused by police are suspected to be the result of deliberate shootings. "There are hundreds of tales of killings attributed to the police," says Olusegun Adeniyi, a columnist with This Day newspaper of Lagos. A Lagos based news magazine says that last year, as many as 387 people were killed by the police in Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital. The victims are often branded armed robbers. Mr Iwendi attributed the spate of police atrocities to long years of military rule feels an end to these atrocities is in sight with Nigeria's return to civil rule. "A lot of these mobile policemen still have the military hangover and I assure you that the present administration will inculcate the spirit and virtues of democracy in men and officers of the police force," he says. Nigerians say they are keeping their fingers crossed.

Rwanda

Panafrican News Agency (Dakar) May 12, 2001 Kigali, Rwanda Five suspected perpetrators of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda have been acquitted by the public in Gashonga and Butarama districts of the southwest Cyangugu province. Rwanda's Minister of Justice, Jean de Dieu Mucyo, announced Saturday in Kigali that the suspects were found innocent. They were among 42 detainees at the central prison of Cyangugu. All suspects were taken to the area where they allegedly took part in the genocide and shown to the public who could testify in favour or against them. "The 42 detainees were introduced to the public and the people who remebered how they behaved during the 1994 genocide came forward and testified about their guilt or innocence," the minister told PANA. All of the country's prosecutors and local authorities were present at the gathering. In the beginning, according to Radio Rwanda, the population was reluctant to testify against their kinsfolk who were involved in the genocide. But the authorities, including the justice minister, warned the residents not to defend relatives if they really took part in the genocide. They also warned them against making baseless accusations.... Of the 335 genocide suspects presented to the public in Cyangugu province so far, only 67 were pronounced innocent, the province's prosecutor, Emmanuel Mukunzi, told PANA. Since the start of the trials in Rwanda in December 1996, more than 3,000 genocide suspects have been tried. Over 500 have been sentenced to death and 22 of the convicts were publicly executed in April 1998.

BBC 26 May 2001 A court in Rwanda is reported to have sentenced 10 people to death and 23 more to life imprisonment for leading the 1994 genocide in which around half a million people died. The state run radio said the court in Gisenyi, 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of the capital Kigali, had found them guilty of organizing the militias that carried out the killings of Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus. The radio said that a former member of parliament under the last extremist Hutu government, Wellars Benzi, was among those sentenced to death. Mr Benzi was accused of of inciting Hutus to kill Tutsis through articles published in the Kangura newspaper.

AP 26 May 2001 A Rwandan court has sentenced 10 people to death and jailed 23 for life for taking part in the country's 1994 genocide, judicial sources have said. The 33 ethnic Hutus were found guilty of killing minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus and pillaging their property in northwest Gisenyi province near the border with the Congo, the sources said. Following Friday's sentencing, they have 15 days in which to lodge an appeal against the court's decision. The 100-day massacre of 800,000 people by Hutu extremist Interahamwe militia and Rwandan troops ended only when a Tutsi-dominated Rwandan rebel force based in neighbouring Uganda won a four-year civil war and overthrew the Kigali government. Among those sentenced to death on Friday was Wellars Banzi, a prominent Hutu militant active in the late 1950s and 1960s under the country's first president, Gregoire Kayibanda, a Hutu. Banzi also served as a member of parliament and was once president of the extremist ruling MRND party, the National Revolutionary Movement of Rwanda. The MRND and other Hutu extremist parties, advocates of an ethnic supremacist ideology known as Hutu power, have been widely blamed by historians for engineering the 1994 genocide.

IRIN 31 May 2001 Former Rwandan president Pasteur Bizimungu's bid to announce a new party, the Democratic Party for Renewal (PDR), was quashed on Wednesday when security personnel broke up a press conference he had organised at his residence and subsequently put him under house arrest. Bizimungu told the BBC Kinyarwanda service that since the law of the country did not allow membership of two parties, he had wanted to officially inform the government and other officials about the new party. He said under "normal circumstances" they would have launched the party on Friday. "However, as I can see what is happening, it may not be possible. Right now if they had not prevented me from leaving my house, we would have signed invitation cards for people," he told the BBC on Wednesday. Bizimungu narrated how an intelligence officer came to find him as he was having lunch with the Belgian ambassador. He named the PDR's vice-president as Charles Ntakirutinka, a former minister. "The list is long. As you know, we should be at least 30 to be able to create a party," he said. "The [ruling] Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) as it is currently cannot lead us to the objectives we had set up. In the RPF, words are not matched with actions," Bizimungu said. "That is why we decided to get out of it so that we can achieve the objectives of democracy and unity of Rwandans."

IRIN 31 May 2001 Three men accused of killing former Rwandan interior minister Seth Sendashonga were set free on Thursday by a Kenyan court, which blamed the Rwandan government for the murder, the Internews press service reported. The High Court Judge, Msagha Mbogholi, ruled that Sendashonga's murder was political. He said the suspects - David Akiki Kiwanuka, Charles Muhanji Wamuthoni and Christopher Lubanga Mulondo - were not at the scene where Sendashonga and his driver were murdered in Nairobi's Parklands suburb on 16 May 1998. The judge said the Kenyan government had failed to prove that the three, who have been in custody since May 1998, murdered the former minister and his driver, Jean Bosco Nkurubukeye. "The late Sendashonga fell out with the Rwandan authorities and resigned as a minister. He must have known a lot about the system. He was set to testify in the French tribunal and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha. His elimination was therefore imminent," Judge Mbogholi said. He added that the Kenyan police did not carry out proper investigations because the Rwandan government failed to waive the diplomatic immunity of suspects at their embassy in Kenya to facilitate prosecution.

Sierra Leone

IRIN 11 May 2001 The UNHCR reported that as at 3 May, 71,231 Sierra Leoneans had returned home from Guinea where they fled fighting between government forces and insurgents, and hostility from some host communities, OCHA said in its Humanitarian Situation Report for 20 April to 8 May. The returnees began arriving, mostly by boat, since September 2000. However, UNHCR reports that while boat arrivals from Conakry to Freetown, had declined those returning on foot had increased. UNHCR reported that overall 24,434 had walked from Guinea to the Sierra Leonean towns of Kenema, Lungi and Kabala. "The unanticipated high number of foot returnees is posing problems of absorption capacity in the camps which need to be speedily expanded due to the current rainy season," OCHA reported. It added that during April over 10,000 spontaneous returnees arrived in Daru and Kenema, in eastern Sierra Leone. Returnees are placed in transit centres until they can be relocated to other communities. However, OCHA reported, some returnees "continue to insist" on staying at the transit centres until their areas of origin are safe. "This poses a risk, as the transit centres may turn into de facto IDP camps," OCHA reported. A few Sierra Leoneans have also been fleeing fighting in northern Liberia. Some 310 refugees who escaped into Jendema, Pujehun District were sent to the Gofor IDP camp in Kenema on transport provided by the Lutheran World Federation, OCHA reported. However, Sierra Leoneans in two refugee camps in Sinje, western Liberia, said they were not keen to return home because UNAMSIL was not fully deployed and the RUF had not disarmed

South Africa

Mail & Guardian 11 May 2001 The African National Congress interim leadership in the Northern Province is facing the daunting challenge of rooting out ethnic tensions among the members of the party ... Several ANC leaders are accused of inciting ethnicity in their constituencies, resulting in the rise of ethnic consciousness in the ANC. ... The Northern Province is made up of three former homelands — Lebowa, Venda and Gazankulu —where ethnic groups were separated in terms of the apartheid homeland policy from the mid-Sixties. Said an ANC leader: “The whole ethnicity problem has demobilised the branches. Branches are no longer engaged in social programmes aimed at uplifting their communities and discussing policy issues.” ANC interim leadership coordinator Pitsi Moloto said it was not the party’s tradition to deal with issues along tribal and ethnic lines. He confirmed that the leadership wrangle, which had rendered the executive committee dysfunctional, centred on tribal and ethnic tensions. But, he said, his team “is not concerned about who was fighting whom or how Shangaans and Sothos were fighting”.

Sudan

ICRC 9 May 2001 An ICRC aircraft was fired on today midway between Lokichokio, Kenya, and Juba, in southern Sudan. The co-pilot, a Danish national, was killed. The attack occurred when the aircraft was climbing back to its assigned altitude after a technical problem had forced it to descend briefly to 6,500 feet (2,000 metres). The captain, also a Dane, heard what sounded like "explosions" and realized that his co-pilot had been hit. He turned back to Lokichokio but the co-pilot was dead on arrival. According to the Kenyan police, who inspected the aircraft, bullet damage was visible around the cabin. There were no passengers on the flight, which was on a routine mission and had received all necessary authorizations from all the parties on the ground. The ICRC gives prior notice of all such flights. At present, the organization is attempting to clarify the circumstances of this incident. It has decided to suspend all its flights to southern Sudan. This attack occurred less than two weeks after the murder of six ICRC staff in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It constitutes another blow to the ICRC and to humanitarian action. It is important to emphasize, however, that what happened today was profoundly different from what occurred in the Congo.

ICRC 21 May 2001 From today, 21 May 2001, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) will resume its flights, which were suspended on 9 May following a grave security incident in which an ICRC aircraft came under fire and the Danish co-pilot, Ole Friis Eriksen, was killed. The decision to resume flights was based on information indicating that this event was the result of a tragic combination of circumstances and was not a premeditated attack, nor was the ICRC deliberately targeted. The plane had been forced by a pressurization problem to descend to an altitude of 2,500 metres over the Didinga Hills, an area with plateaux and peaks culminating at over 2,500 metres. The aircraft was therefore quite near the ground, and was preparing to regain altitude when it came under fire. The region is known to harbour several armed groups belonging to various movements. The bullet holes found in the cabin appear to have been made by a light automatic weapon. From now on ICRC flights will be subject to more specific security directives, relating in particular to the zones overflown and the minimum altitude to be maintained. It should be mentioned that ICRC aircraft have been overflying this area for several years and that all parties involved in the conflict are kept fully informed. The ICRC is pursuing its contacts with the parties concerned in order to elucidate the exact circumstances of the tragedy.

Tanzania

AFP 8 May 2001 [full text] An international seminar on conflict prevention in Africa opened here Tuesday with host Benjamin Mkapa, the Tanzanian president, questioning the continent's commitment to peace. "There is not much evidence yet that Africa is about to irrevocably turn its back on violence and conflict," Mkapa said at the meeting, which brings together top military brass and politicians from 15 African states and a score of partners from developed countries. "We clearly face the urgent need to address conflicts on the African continent, to create frameworks and pillars for peace and stability," Mkapa said in a keynote speech. Many African countries are currently in the throes of war, including Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in the west, while further east the civil conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has sucked in troops from Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola. Burundi and Angola have their own civil wars, as do Sudan and Somalia. Mkapa noted that at least half of all the wars in the world were being fought on African soil, which is home to 10 percent of the global population. "Unfortunately, we still have people and governments in Africa that believe their personal interests can only be promoted and safeguarded through military might and conquest," lamented Mkapa. The project to Reinforce African Peacekeeping Capacities (RECAMP), a French initiative, offers a multinational, voluntary forum for states across the continent wishing to work together, in partnership with Western donors, to end conflicts and minimise their humanitarian impact on civilians. The Tanzanian president noted that post-independence conflicts in Africa have killed an estimated eight million people including two million children. "According to UNICEF (UN Children's Fund), another four to five million children have been disabled, 12 million rendered homeless and more than a million orphaned or separated from their families, while tens of thousands have become child soldiers," he said. The African states taking part in the seminar are Angola, Botswana, the DRC, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. RECAMP is seen as complementary to the US African Crisis Response Inititiave, a bilateral programme under which the United States trains and equips troops from selected countries on the continent with the intention of making them better peacekeepers. US officials are taking part in the RECAMP seminar in Tanzania. RECAMP seminars were held in recent years in Senegal and Gabon; "Tanzanite 2000-2002 RECAMP-3" marks the first application of the initiative outside of France's traditional sphere of influence in Africa. Participants in the seminar will spend the week working on a fictional conflict scenario and on the steps that would lead to the deployment of a multinational African force mandated by the United Nations. In the war game set out in Dar es Salaam, the east of a country called Mauve has been taken over by rebels. The conflict spills over into the north of neighbouring Blue, pushing with it a wave of refugees. Blue calls for an inter-African force to be set up and deployed under the auspices of the Organisation of African Unity. Delegates will end their week of role-playing by adopting a UN resolution that will serve as the green light for the next phase of the RECAMP exercise: setting up a military headquarters and conducting military manoeuvres. Donor states -- whose role would be to provide logistical support and expertise -- taking part in RECAMP-3 include the United States and Britain as well as Australia, Argentina, Russia, Japan and China.

BBC 15 May 2001 [full text] Rwanda tribunal 'racism' row A leaked letter reveals why seven prosecutors at the UN tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha have controversially not been reappointed. The letter obtained by journalists, written by chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, was a response to a complaint made by the seven lawyers to the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The six African and one Indian lawyer attributed Ms Del Ponte's decision not to renew their contracts beyond May to racism. Rebuffing the charge, Ms Del Ponte said the lawyers were not suited as prosecutors. Her letter, obtained by the AP news agency, said the lawyers' complaint to the secretary-general reinforced her decision about their professionalism. Criticism "The memorandum is symptomatic of professional incompetence of each of the signatories... instead of directing their energy toward the ends of international justice, they are absorbed in their own narrow self-interest," the letter said. Carla Del Ponte: Difficult relations with Rwanda A spokesman for the tribunal in Arusha would not comment on the letter or the accusations. Carla Del Ponte, a Swiss, oversees the Rwanda tribunal and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. She was appointed in 1999. The Rwandan Government has criticised the Rwanda tribunal in the past for their slow work rate. Very few genocide suspects have been successfully prosecuted since it was set up. More than 750,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in the genocide.

BBC 20 May 2001 The UN war crimes tribunal for Rwanda based in Arusha, Tanzania, has arrested one of its own investigators on charges of genocide. Simeon Nshamihigo was identified by a witness at the court as having been implicated in the 1994 mass murder of Tutsis and moderate Hutus by Hutu extremists. It is the first time someone on the tribunal's payroll has come under suspicion. His name appeared on the Rwanda Government's list of the most wanted genocide suspects. Mr Nshamihigo was detained on the tribunal premises by security staff on Saturday. Tribunal officials said he had been working as part of the defence team of former Rwandan military commander Samuel Imanishimwe, who operated in the southern Cyangugu region at the time of the genocide. They also said he had been using a false name and travelling under a passport from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Mr Imanishimwe is jointly charged with two other former senior Rwandan officials for genocide and crimes against humanity. He is awaiting trial in Arusha. The arrest comes after the Rwandan Government in March complained that some investigators working for defence teams at the International Criminal Tribunal (ICTR) for Rwanda were genocide fugitives. Massacres The ICTR maintains that it screens defence investigators, who are hired under contract by defence lawyers. It says security screening considers but does not depend on the Rwandan government's list of suspects. An estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by the army and Hutu militias as violence swept through Rwanda in 1994. Some two million Hutus fled to DR Congo. They included some of those responsible for the massacres, and some joined Zairean forces to attack local Tutsis.

BBC 22 May 2001 Rwanda wants more genocide prosecutions Rwanda has asked the United Nations war crimes tribunal in Tanzania to arrest five members of the tribunal's staff, whom it suspects of involvement in the 1994 genocide. Justice minister Jean de Dieu Mucyo told the BBC his government wanted the five brought to Rwanda for trial or, failing that put on trial by the international court. The request follows the tribunal's arrest of an investigator at the weekend - the first time a member of its own staff had been implicated in the genocide. The minister said he had already asked Tanzania to extradite the man, Simeon Nshamihigo, who was identified by a witness as having been involved in the mass murder of Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Uganda

AP 8 May 2001 Reversing an earlier presidential statement [made 30 April 2001], Uganda said it would continue to participate in a peace process designed to end Congo's 21/2-year civil war and keep troops in the central African country. President Yoweri Museveni, angered by a U.N. report that accused his country of participating in the plunder of Congo's natural resources, said late last month Uganda would withdraw from the Lusaka Accords and pull its soldiers out of Congo. The Cabinet, however, has resolved to continue the country's participation in the Congo peace process, Foreign Minister Eria Kategaya said in a statement obtained on Tuesday. Most Ugandan troops will be pulled out of Congo, but some soldiers will remain in a buffer zone along some parts of the border to prevent Ugandan rebel attacks from Congolese territory until Uganda's security is assured, the May 7 statement said. Uganda has promised to pull all of its troops from Congo once there is no longer a threat of rebel attack. On April 16 the United Nations released a report that implicated Uganda and Rwanda in the alleged plundering of Congo's vast resources. Uganda and Rwanda both sent troops into Congo in 1998 to back Congolese rebels seeking to overthrow former President Laurent Kabila. Both countries were also acting to secure their borders from attacks by Rwandan and Ugandan rebels operating from within Congo. Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia sent in troops to support Congo's government.

Zimbabwe

BBC 2 May 2001 The bishops spoke out against the intimidation of the independent press Roman Catholic bishops in Zimbabwe have issued a sharp rebuke against President Robert Mugabe's government over the level of political violence in the country. Violence, intimidation and threats are the tools of failed politicians. Bishops' letter The pastoral letter did not name Mr Mugabe or the governing Zanu-PF party but accused the holders of power of abusing their fellow human beings. It also criticised militants and self-styled war veterans who have launched a campaign of intimidation against opposition groups and white landowners. The bishops urged the government to uphold the rule of law. "Violence, intimidation and threats are the tools of failed politicians. We must point out to them that they are engaging in an unjust activity," the letter says. Condemnation Referring to the war veterans the bishops say: "It is the duty of government to ensure that the nation is not held to ransom by a few. "We urge the government to allow the law enforcement agents to perform their duties without interference so that there is a sense of security in the country." The bishops say that land reform is a pressing issue left over from the colonial era, but in trying to solve the problem new injustices should not be created. The letter will be distributed to every Catholic church, school and institution in Zimbabwe. Correspondents say the bishops' statement is the harshest by a religious group in Zimbabwe against the government. In the past the church has been accused of not speaking out against the violence and intimidation in Zimbabwe. The BBC correspondent in Zimbabwe says that in a predominantly Christian country the bishops' statement is a significant development.

BBC 30 May 2001 President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has responded angrily to recent criticism of his government by the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, during his recent African tour. Mr Mugabe said that the United States and Britain were leading a campaign to demonize Zimbabwe's role in the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and its human rights record at home. At the same time, he said, these countries were condoning acts of genocide and gross looting by rebels and their allies, Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi.

Americas

Canada

Reuters May 1, 2001 [full text] Human rights activists and Sudanese expatriates descended on Talisman Energy Inc.'s annual meeting on Tuesday to accuse the Canadian oil company of fueling Sudan's civil war, but Talisman's chief executive said the firm's presence was only improving the situation. Outside the hotel where the meeting took place, about 200 demonstrators beat drums and chanted their opposition to Talisman's (Toronto:TLM.TO - news) involvement in a big south Sudan oil project they say is giving the Islamist government financial muscle to wage war against tribal and Christian people in the southern part of the country. ``Talisman is an accomplice to the genocide of our people in southern Sudan,'' said Albino Allam, chairman of the Federation of Sudanese-Canadian Associations and a Sudanese native who has lived in Canada for seven years. Inside the meeting, Talisman CEO Jim Buckee defended the company's activities to numerous people who took to the microphones in protest, saying he agreed the war was a tragedy but that Talisman was doing all it could to influence the government of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and promote peace. However, it was not prepared to unload its 25-percent stake in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Co., which runs the lucrative 200,000 barrel a day oil concession, he said...There is a huge gulf of perception as to what is happening on Sudan's bare plains, where the oil fields are located. Numerous human rights groups, Amnesty International and Christian Solidarity International among them, report mass displacement of people by the Sudanese military to make way for oil development, and bombing raids on civilians by helicopter gunships that use the oil consortium's airstrips as bases. Talisman has said it has seen no evidence of large numbers of villagers being displaced, and that the army uses the government-owned runways to defend against rebel attacks. It has conceded there were four incidents last year where the military used the airstrips for offensive purposes, but has worked to dissuade them from the practice. Talisman shares closed off 76 Canadian cents at C$61.64 in Toronto on Tuesday. They have traded as high as C$65 and as low as C$43.75 in the past year. ($1 equals $1.53 Canadian)

Reuters 17 May 17 After 12 years of being married to Canadian independent filmmaker Atom Egoyan and appearing in as many of her husband's films, Arsinee Khanjian would like to be described as something more than Egoyan's ``muse.'' Born in Beirut and raised in Montreal in an Armenian family that fled massacres in the First World War and Lebanon's civil war, Khanjian is ready for another revival, closer to her roots in the theater, French culture and Armenian history. COUPLE HAUNTED BY 'THE GENOCIDE' This new phase in Khanjian's professional career coincides with a very personal project that she describes as a lifetime challenge and a mission for her and her husband. In June, she will take part in the shooting of ``Ararat,'' a film the Armenian community has been waiting for a long time. It commemorates what Armenians say was the massacre of up to a million of their people by Turks in the First World War. ``Since Atom started shooting, people were asking him: 'When will you do a film on the genocide?''' ``For years he could not do it, but by sharing our interrogations on identity he developed an emotional, intellectual and political vision on the meaning of history,'' she said, carefully stressing each word in a husky voice. To tell the tragic story of his people without turning it into a classic historic epic, Egoyan decided to show it through the lens of a character shooting a film on the killings. Egoyan's alter ego, acting as the ``spokesman'' for the Armenian community, had to be French singer Charles Aznavour, Khanjian said. ``He represents our pride of being Armenian. No Armenian doesn't know Aznavour.'' ``Ararat'' is also a tribute to Arshile Gorky, an Armenian painter who escaped the killings and sought refuge in the United States in 1920. Khanjian plays a historian who wrote a book on Gorky and who collaborates with Aznavour to incorporate elements of the painter's life in his film. Khanjian usually collaborates on the preparation of her husband's films, but this time she said Egoyan worked solo because the subject was too sensitive. ``I am so afraid to see that polite lack of interest, that fuzziness in the eyes of the public,'' she said, referring to the unwillingness of many people to hear about this difficult and controversial subject. France and a few other countries have officially recognized the incident as a genocide but Turks deny it and the number of those who died is still unknown nearly a century later. Khanjian's grandparents survived and she inherited a very strong sense of justice from this experience, she said, making ''Ararat'' a very personal project and part of her quest to commemorate her ancestors' fate. ``I live the genocide as if it were my own memory,'' she said. ``For my mother, my whole life had to be devoted to this event: Seek the necessary justice and protect the memory of those who have disappeared.

Chile

Reuters 14 May 2001 By Elisabeth O'Leary MADRID (Reuters) - A Spanish judge Tuesday ordered the arrest of a former Chilean defense minister who served under dictator General Augusto Pinochet. Baltasar Garzon ordered Hernan Julio Brady Roche to be detained on charges of genocide, terrorism and torture. Garzon -- who tried to extradite Pinochet to Spain from Britain on similar charges in 1998 -- wants to question Brady, 80, over the killing of a Spanish diplomat in 1976, court documents said. Carmelo Soria was working for the United Nations (news - web sites) economic commission CEPAL in Santiago when he was taken hostage, tortured and killed by Chile's secret police, the documents said. Brady, who was defense minister in the mid-1970s, was believed to have played a role in the death of Soria, they said. Chilean police statements attributed the Spaniard's death to drunken driving. Brady is thought to be in Germany, the documents said. Earlier this year Soria's family asked for the case to be reopened in Chile. A previous investigation was shelved under the terms of an amnesty law passed in 1978, during Pinochet's 1973-1990 military regime. Spain's Chief Public Prosecutor Eduardo Fungairino opposed Garzon's order, arguing Spain had no jurisdiction to investigate events in Chile and the case was too long ago, judicial sources said. Fungairino also tried to block Garzon's attempts to try Pinochet in Madrid. The former dictator was arrested in Britain in October 1998 on a warrant put out by Garzon. But Pinochet eventually escaped prosecution in Spain when Britain ruled him mentally unfit for trial. More than 3,000 people died or disappeared in political violence during his rule, according to an official report.

Colombia

AP 2 May 2001 [full text] Paramilitary fighters branded terrorists this week by the U.S. government are unrepentant about the bloody counterinsurgency campaign they are waging across Colombia. Three weeks after allegedly taking part in what officials are calling one of the most gruesome massacres in memory -- villagers were reportedly mutilated with chain saws -- militia members captured by troops near this Pacific port spoke defiantly about their struggle. "I am proud to be a member of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia," one olive-clad fighter declared to journalists flown to a naval base here Tuesday. The militia member, who declined to give his name, was among 62 alleged paramilitary fighters captured in a weekend operation that Colombia's government says is proof of its resolve against rightist violence that the military has been accused of tolerating. They are part of a larger unit accused in the Easter week massacre of at least 19 villagers -- possibly as many as 40. "Despite the criticism that we get, today once more we can show positive results," President Andres Pastrana said inside an aircraft hangar where the militia members had been displayed. "Today, we are fighting all of those operating outside the law." Pastrana said it was the largest capture ever of fighters from the group known by its Spanish initials, AUC. Colombian marines claimed to have killed another eight fighters as they fled the massacre site by river. Spread at the president's feet as he spoke were items seized from the fighters: assault rifles, grenades, mortar launchers, militia armbands and a chain saw... From less than a thousand in 1992, the AUC is now believed to have at least 8,000 fighters. Led by Carlos Castano, a former army guide whose father was assassinated by guerrillas, the group has killed thousands of suspected leftists and is trying to sabotage peace talks between Pastrana and guerillas. U.S. officials now say the AUC could pose an even greater threat to Colombia's democracy than the leftist rebels.The State Department on Monday included the AUC for the first time in a worldwide list of terrorist organizations. A U.S. spokesman cited a "dramatic increase" in AUC use of terrorist tactics, including kidnappings and the murder of civilians. The list had already included Colombia's two main rebel groups -- the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish initials, FARC, and the National Liberation Army, or ELN.

Deutsche Presse Agentur 6 May 2001[full text] At least 17 Colombian civilians and rebels were killed in clashes and massacres on Sunday. Local reports said that six farmers were killed by unknown assailants in Cauca province in the south of the country. In the north, right-wing paramilitaries killed four youths. Clashes with government troops also left six rebels of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces dead in the country's southwest. Also Sunday, the rebels ambushed a police patrol in the Huila district, leaving one civilian dead and eight injured. In the capital Bogota, meanwhile, the secret service arrested a leading member of the right-wing guerrilla group AUC. Dumar Guerrero is accused of having taken part in two 1997 massacres in the Meta district that left 35 people dead.

AP 12 May 2001 By JARED KOTLER In a country fed up with rebel violence and skeptical of peace talks, a hard-line politician is riding a tide of public anger that could carry him into Colombia's presidency. While some label Alvaro Uribe a right-wing extremist, a growing number of Colombians want get-tough policies and see him as their savior. With campaigning already in high gear, his stances on negotiating peace with guerrillas have electrified Colombia's presidential race a full year before the first round of voting. With his wire-rimmed glasses and dull gray business suits - along with a resume that boasts graduate work at Harvard and Oxford - the 48-year-old former governor hardly looks the part of an extremist. But his upstart candidacy is stirring strong emotions and illustrating what some call a rightward shift in Colombia's historically centrist politics. Voters are frustrated that President Andres Pastrana's concessions to the rebels in return for talks have so far failed to stop the violence. Uribe's own father was assassinated by guerrillas, and his rise comes as outlaw paramilitary groups expand a massacre campaign against suspected leftists in the countryside and congress debates ``war legislation'' to give the military broad powers to detain suspected terrorists. Critics cast Uribe as an extremist who would plunge the South American country into wider bloodshed and chip away at its democratic traditions. The rebels have called him the candidate of war.'' However, supporters see in Uribe an experienced and decisive leader - perhaps the only man capable of bringing order to the chaos of an escalating 37-year civil war. ``I'm going to vote for Alvaro Uribe and so are 99 percent of the people who come into my store,'' said Fabio Delgado, the owner of a convenience store in an upscale Bogota neighborhood. ``This country needs discipline, it needs a strong hand.'' The latest Gallup poll, taken in March, gave Uribe 25 percent of the vote, up from just 5 percent in August. The telephone poll of major cities had a 3 percent error margin. Should Uribe's support continue to grow, analysts say he might muscle his way into a second-round runoff even though he lacks the support of Colombia's two main parties. The leading contenders in the race are Noemi Sanin of the Yes Colombia Party, and Horacio Serpa of the Liberal Party. The incumbent, Pastrana, cannot run for re-election because Colombian law limits presidents to a single four-year term. Interviewed Friday during a campaign stop at a Bogota university, Uribe shrugged off his ultraconservative reputation while hitting the law-and-order themes that have earned him support. Calling himself ``a democrat with authority,'' Uribe told The Associated Press he would strengthen Colombia's U.S-backed military and also demand that guerrillas agree to a cease-fire and permit U.N. observers before he would continue the two-year-old peace process. Uribe also backed growing U.S. military aid to fight drugs and criticized Pastrana's peace policies - the strategy pollsters say is the key to his success. He said Pastrana created a ``paradise for criminals'' when he ceded a Switzerland-sized southern territory at the outset of the talks to the country's largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Negotiations with the group have borne little fruit. The rebels are accused of using their sanctuary to train fighters, move arms and drugs and harbor kidnap victims. Uribe also defended his controversial term as governor of western Antioquia State from 1995-1997. From the state house in Medellin, Uribe encouraged the formation of village and neighborhood watch groups - some of whom, human rights groups charge, evolved into abusive right-wing paramilitary militias. Uribe says the program was legal and succeeded at cutting crime. If elected, he said he would put 100,000 more police on the streets get citizens to ``cooperate'' more with the security forces. Associates say Uribe's hard-line image has overshadowed more moderate positions on social issues picked up as a maverick member of the social-democratic Liberal Party. Addressing a packed auditorium at the El Rosario University, the candidate wielded a laser pointer and spoke on topics from global warming to rural irrigation. But his success may ultimately hinge on whether there is more war or peace. ``If the peace process succeeds, Alvaro Uribe has little hope of becoming president,'' said Hernan de la Cuesta, Gallup's director in Colombia. ``But if the process continues to falter, his chances look good.''

AFP 14 May 2001 [full text] Fighting between leftist guerillas and Colombian government forces killed 52 people over the weekend, police and military sources said, as the country's fragile peace process continues to unravel. The Colombian army said it killed 44 rebels and captured 20 in fighting over the weekend, while losing three soldiers. In the same period, five farmers were killed, presumably by the rebels, police said. The fighting comes at a time when peace talks have stalled between the government and the two main rebel groups -- the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army. Meanwhile, right-wing paramilitaries -- the guerrillas' sworn enemies -- have increased their activities. President Andres Pastrana, whose mandate ends in 15 months, has invested most of his political capital in the quest for a peaceful end to the four decades of guerrilla warfare that has ravaged the country. Some 200,000 people already have died in the conflict.

AP 31 May 2001 Leftist guerrillas rampaged through a cluster of villages in northern Colombia over the weekend and killed at least 24 residents, hacking many of them to death with machetes and burning down homes, local officials said Thursday. Officials said the death toll was tentative, and based on accounts from family members of the victims who fled the massacre zone in Corboda state. Cordoba's governor's office and the mayor of Tierralta, the nearest large town, blamed the Sunday and Monday attacks against three nearby villages on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Villagers said the victims were peasants intercepted by the rebels while out looking for firewood and food in the mountains. The region is also base for cultivating coca, the raw material for cocaine. The FARC, Colombia's largest guerrilla band, is fighting a 37-year war for control over territory dedicated to the lucrative drug crops. Rebels and rightist paramilitary forces have been battling for months in the Tierralta region. Villagers are often caught in the middle, targeted in massacres by one side or the other aiming to punishing them for collaborating with the enemy.

Guatemala

Boston Globe 13 May 2001, By Christine MacDonald, Globe Correspondent, Five years after a peace accord ended more than three decades of civil war, Guatemala is finding it difficult to shed its legacy of violence. In the 17 months since the hard-line Guatemalan Republican Front took power, assassinations, death threats, and attacks have escalated against opposition politicians, indigenous and campesino activists, human rights workers, and members of the country's judiciary, say human rights advocates. Last weekend was particularly violent. Saturday afternoon, an American nun was shot dead as she drove down a street in the capital. One day earlier, two armed men kidnapped a Guatemalan activist and threatened her before dropping her off in outskirts of the city several hours later. Observers say the situation has deteriorated as court cases over the 1998 killing of Roman Catholic Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi and other attacks make their way through the judicial system. The cases have thrown an unwelcome spotlight on a number of former military officers, many of whom continue to wield power in the Central American country. Since last year, a half-dozen attacks have targeted members of the legal team that built a case against three men with military backgrounds and two church workers who were charged in the Catholic prelate's murder. Witnesses and judges have also been attacked, including a judge hearing the Gerardi case. About a week before the trial started in March, her home was damaged by live grenades thrown into her backyard as police officers guarded the front door, according to a report she filed with the Association of Judges and Magistrates. Yolanda Perez Ruiz, the association president, said eight judges have been killed since last fall. ''This is an intolerable attack on the independence of the judiciary,'' Perez said. ''It is a strategy to tie the hands of judges. What worries me the most is that the government hasn't concerned itself to make a clear statement. Not once has it expressed its repudiation of the violence.'' Gerardi presided over a commission investigating massacres of civilians and other war crimes. He was killed in April 1998, three days after releasing a report that blamed the Guatemalan government for 93 percent of the wartime human rights violations. Oscar Chavarria, a lawyer with the Myra Mack Foundation, said his group is seeing ''a reactivation of human rights violations by the state'' since President Alfonso Portillo took power in January 2000. ''We are returning to the past when the heads of state considered us their enemies,'' said Chavarria. The foundation and several groups have published scathing human rights reports in recent months that have attracted the attention of a UN Human Rights ombudsman. He arrived last week for three days of meetings with activists and government officials but has yet to issue recommendations. The government has played down the problem. Ricardo Gatica Trejo, spokesman for Interior Minister Byron Barrientos, a former military intelligence officer, said organized crime is a bigger problem facing law enforcement. ''The violation of human rights in Guatemala is not a serious problem. There are isolated cases carried out by individuals. Nevertheless, the government is making a constant effort to monitor the situation,'' said Gatica. Since the peace accord, the government has downsized the army and made some legal reforms stipulated in the agreement. But it has postponed programs to improve police training and hire more civilian police officers. According to a report released May 3 by the United Nations' Verification Mission, the human rights monitoring body in Guatemala, much remains to be done to reform the national police force. The mission concluded that since the start of 2000, police have become the ''principle responsible parties for the gravest human rights violations.'' Portillo came to power with a mandate to be tough on crime. But less than halfway through a four-year term, he is being widely criticized for being ineffectual in fighting corruption and crime that provide cover for political violence. In Guatemala, as with nearby Nicaragua and El Salvador, the end of civil war has given way to a wave of violent crime by organized bands and street gangs. ''In the war years, one would know where an attack came from. It was either one or the other,'' said Perez, referring to the military and leftist guerrilla forces. ''Today, it is difficult to identify'' attackers. Such is the case of Sister Barbara Ford, a Roman Catholic nun originally from New York who was gunned down May 5 when she left a small town in the Quiche region to buy a water heater. Investigators say it is not clear if she was killed in an attempt to steal her pickup truck, which the killers abandoned two blocks away, or for her work with war victims in a region devastated by the war. Her colleagues say it was a political killing. A memorial service last week in Guatemala City drew hundreds of human rights workers and friends and declarations of outrage from 1992 Nobel Prize recipient Rigoberta Menchu. Exacerbating Portillo's political troubles, observers say, is a power struggle within his Guatemalan Republican Front. Portillo has seen his political stock fall dramatically in opinion polls. A chief rival is retired General Efrain Rios Montt, who ruled the country in the early 1980s during the worst period of arbitrary executions, forced disappearances, and torture, according to the Gerardi report. He is the Front's founder and today serves as president of the country's legislature. ''Nobody knows who has the power,'' said Jorge Lavarreda, an analyst with the National Center for Economic Research, an independent think tank. This story ran on page A19 of the Boston Globe on 5/13/2001.

AP 24 May 2001 By RICARDO MIRANDA, SAN MARTIN JILOTEPEQUE, Guatemala (AP) - Maria Julia Elias quietly stared at the bones and wondered if this was the end of her 19-year search for her husband, who was taken by soldiers during Guatemala's civil war. The 46-year-old Mayan woman watched along with several others Wednesday as anthropologists concluded a two-month excavation of 21 mass graves, where they recovered the remains of 66 bodies. Elias lost hope long ago of finding Salomon Nutzus alive. She hopes that by finding his remains, she can close a painful chapter in her life. ``I just want to give him a Christian burial,'' said Elias, who plans to travel to Guatemala City to help forensic experts identify the remains. Anthropologists said the victims were killed as part of the army's effort to keep rebel forces from invading the country's capital. ``They arrived to our town in the night and took everyone,'' Elias said. ``I escaped with my seven children, but Salomon was captured.'' The United Nations has described Guatemala's 36-year war between leftist guerrillas and hardline state forces as a genocide against the country's Mayan population. An estimated 200,000 people were killed before peace accords were signed in 1996. Soldiers swept through towns, massacring people to curb support of the largely Indian guerrilla fighters, said Fredy Peccerelli, president of the Forensic Anthropologic Foundation of Guatemala. San Martin Jilotepeque, about 50 miles outside Guatemala City, saw heavy combat. ``The army feared the uniting of a weak urban guerrilla force with fighters from the countryside, that is why San Martin Jilotepeque was so important,'' said Peccerelli, whose group co-sponsored the excavation. The Coordination of Widows and Orphans of Guatemala, which also sponsored the excavations, followed tips from family members and poked through dirt to find the graves. The group is preparing a lawsuit against the army and local commanders who ordered the killings. No one has been charged. The forensic foundation has recovered the remains of 238 bodies from six excavations since January. In 1994, foundation scientists uncovered 111 bodies buried after a 1982 massacre in the highlands city of Rabinal, where 172 people were killed. A year later, 85 bodies were uncovered in a mass grave from another 1982 massacre, in northern Baja Verapaz, where 268 people were killed.

Nicaragua

Published Tuesday, May 8, 2001 Activist's death reignites conflict in Nicaragua Murder carries echo of battles between Liberals, Sandinistas BY FRANCES ROBLES frobles@herald.com SIUNA, Nicaragua -- Agustín Mendoza was a farmer, Liberal Party activist, father of the Nicaraguan vice consul in Miami, and a jolly man whose company everyone enjoyed. ``Agustín Mendoza was a true friend of ours,'' said Bernardino Herrera, political secretary of the opposing Sandinista National Liberation Front. ``Be clear: A lot of people loved him.'' Who then left the 67-year-old dead at his farmhouse with his head sliced clean off his body? Mendoza was one of five victims of an April 19 massacre that has stunned Nicaragua because of its particularly brutal nature -- three of the dead were decapitated -- and its political overtones. TOWN'S FURY Much of this town's fury has been directed at the Andrés Castro United Front, or FUAC, former Sandinista soldiers that rob and attack in the name of politics. They are accused of killing opposing party members to keep their followers from the polls, leading the president to vow to scour the mountains until the group is stopped. The murder has reignited the decades-old conflict between the incumbent Liberal Party and leftist Sandinistas, who ruled Nicaragua from 1979 until 1990. Eleven years after the end of a civil war between the Sandinista-ruled government and U.S.-supported rebels -- and six months before a presidential election -- the violence carries the echo of old battles and arouses fears that the political violence that damaged Nicaragua throughout its history has not yet run its course. The focal point now is this town of 82,000 in northeast Nicaragua, still terrified weeks after the one-night burst of violence attributed to the FUAC. In addition to the the five dead, a pair of brothers were kidnapped and their whereabouts remain unknown. The victims were all either ex-contra fighters -- rebel opponents of the former Sandinista government -- or active with the ruling PLC. TENUOUS PEACE If this deeply polarized city is an example, then Nicaragua's tenuous peace is at the brink of falling apart in the countryside, where memories of a hard-fought war are still fresh and bodies keep mounting. ``People are tense,'' said Siuna Mayor Julián Gaitán. ``There are people here who don't like others to have their own ideological thoughts. We are feeling it. Farmers are leaving in fear, abandoning their beans, animals and cows. We're in crisis. Nothing led up to this, just politics.'' Gaitán and other PLC leaders say they count 47 murdered party members in Siuna alone over the past four years, but the worst of it began April 18. That night, a truck-load of armed men pulled up at the home of Paulino and Arturo Peralta Garzón, brothers who fought in the resistance against the then-ruling Sandinista Front. The brothers were calmly led from their hammocks where they lay, allowed to stop inside to don boots and a shirt. With their arms tied behind their backs, they were marched away and last were seen in the same condition in a nearby town. There have been no demands for ransom, nor any corpses. Eight hours after the Peralta brothers were taken away, in the nearby community of Santa Fé, an armed bandit stormed the ranch of Felipe Herrera, 43, vice president of that district's Liberal Party, and his wife Miriam Espino, 38, the group secretary. Herrera shot back, killing the man and infuriating his accomplices. DECAPITATIONS They jumped the fence to the Herrera home and shot him and his 17-year-old son dead. Then they decapitated his wife and did the same to their older son. The tale was told to police by a 13-year-old daughter who cowered under the bed, watching her family's slaughter. Later, the same killers apparently stopped at Agustín Mendoza's home, too, leaving his headless body by the doorway. For the Mendoza family, there is no question but that FUAC is responsible for the killings, and in this tiny town, FUAC is just another name for a familiar adversary: Sandinistas. ``They are back in the mountains like it was the '80s,'' said Samuel Mendoza, a son. ``They are inciting war.'' His brother and the victim's namesake, Miami's Nicaraguan vice consul Agustín Mendoza, urged police to hunt down the killers. ``If they don't, we're entering a difficult and dangerous situation for peace,'' the vice consul said. ``Nicaraguans do not want war.'' Government spokeswoman Marta McCoy said the president plans to launch a security offensive to bring confidence back to the mining town. ``It has to worry us that armed people are going around -- it puts our political stability at risk,'' McCoy said. ``It worries us because 47 innocent people have been killed, innocent people who were struggling for democracy.'' The prevailing theory is that FUAC is running a fear campaign to keep people from the polls Nov. 4, when Sandinista General Secretary Daniel Ortega, the former president, will run again. The Sandinistas won several important mayoral elections last November -- but not in Siuna. The FUAC, named after an 1850s youth who became prominent in the struggle against American soldier of fortune William Walker, was once believed to be 700 strong but may have dwindled. IN THE MOUNTAINS Leader José Luis Marenco is believed to be in the mountains still, making new allies. FUAC claimed responsibility for the 1999 kidnapping of a Canadian mining executive. Police here say despite their political origins, they have evolved into old-fashioned criminals. ``We're like a soccer ball, everyone kicks us and nobody defends us,'' FUAC leader Roberto Pérez said Thursday in the Sandinista newspaper El Nuevo Diario. ``Some of them even scored a few goals.'' Pérez -- a pseudonym -- said his group formed to provide services for peasants and to rid the region of up to 40 gangs of highway robbers. Since the group disarmed, he said, perhaps the gangs they helped dismantle have begun operating again. Siuna Police chief José David Jarquín said evidence links some Marenco associates to the killings, but he is not convinced that makes the murders political. He has no theories about why the five were killed, noting they were not robbed. The Sandinistas agree and argue that they are not affiliated with the paramilitaries. ``The Sandinista Front has nothing to do with these people. The Sandinistas do not have an armed band. For what?'' said Bernardino Herrera, who is not related to the murder victim. ``The government wants to politicize the murders. That's very dangerous.''

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