Africa

Regional

IRIN 28 Sept 2001 African press warns of 'religious war' In the wake of the attacks on New York and Washington, many African newspapers caution against responding to the crisis along religious lines.

AFP 25 Aug 2001 Angola, Congo and DRCongo to create conflict prevention organ The governments of Angola, Congo-Brazzaville and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), already tied by a security pact, have agreed to set up an organ aimed at conflict prevention, a statement said. The organ will be an expansion of an existing commission set up in 1999, which has primarily been deployed to resolve security problems arising on the common border of the three African neighbours, the statement said. It was issued late Friday at the end of talks here between the three countries' interior ministers. It said the new organ will group either the interior or the security ministers of Angola, Congo-Brazzaville and DRC, and will comprise a revolving presidency and a secretariat-general. The statement did not specify when the revolving presidency would come into effect nor where the secretariat-general will be sited. Under their existing security pact, the three countries are obliged to support each others' loyalist forces in the face of armed rebellions. The Angolan army is already committed in the DRC, backing Kinshasa -- along with troops from Zimbabwe and Namibia -- in its three-year-old battle with rebels supported by Rwanda and Uganda. Despite the military alliance, relations between Brazzaville and Kinshasa are marked by mistrust, fuelled by repeated rumours that the DRC is supporting Brazzaville rebels, and that Brazzaville is backing DRC rebels. Both sides have continually denied the claims.

Business Day (Johannesburg) EDITORIAL September 17, 2001 African Union Needs New Approach to Deal With 'Third-Termers' Johannesburg YOWERI Kaguta Museveni, Uganda's president, once famously described the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) as a trade union of dictators. The OAU's dictators may just be on the way out or transforming themselves. But as the OAU mutates into the African Union (AU), it is finding that its membership is gaining more leaders who want to cling onto power at all costs. Related to this is modern day Africa's other challenge: that of dealing with human rights violations and/or leaders who abuse their citizens to hang in there. After the independence struggles, ordinary Africans have had to endure years of unconstitutional changes of governments in their countries. West Africa elevated the practice of toppling governments into an art form. In fact, practically all the continent's regions have had an experience with a coup or an attempted one. After years of watching, helplessly, their unalterable rights to vote in (and out) a government of their choice being perverted, Africans can now look to bodies like the AU and the Commonwealth for solace. Commendably, both these bodies, without much clout, have banned from their ranks dictators who shoot their way to power. This no-nonsense stance has forced dictators to rehabilitate themselves into civilian leaders. Still, there are few or no instruments at all to deal with how sometimes democratically elected leaders abuse their citizens to stay in power. The AU's "third-termers" are growing in numbers. After Namibia's ageing Sam Nujoma changed his constitution to give himself a third term, he was joined by Zambia's Frederick Chiluba, the AU's inaugural chair. Popular resistance forced Chiluba to back down on the idea. Malawi's Bakili Muluzi, the chair of the Southern African Development Community , has not given up hope of a third term. Few believed Angola's Eduardo Jose dos Santos when he announced plans recently not to avail himself as a candidate in the next election due only in a year. Apart from the trappings of power, what makes an honourable exit such a difficult proposition? Rule out hard times. Most tend to use their time in State House to prepare for a comfortable retirement. A growing body of evidence, albeit the bulk of which remains anecdotal, is emerging, suggesting that the reluctance to leave office stems from fear of prosecution for mainly gross human rights abuses while in office. As a result, new ways are found to prolong their stay in power. Elections are unnecessarily delayed or the constitution is changed to allow another term. There are several ways of dealing with this problem. One would be to use multilateral instruments say an AU-wide twoterm presidential limit to deal with the third-termers. This would be a useful forward-looking approach. But it would do nothing to help address the current problem of human rights excesses. Africa's apparent answer to this has been disappointing and inadequate. Emerging from the past of its twin evils colonialism and recently apartheid SA's new leaders formed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to look into human rights abuses committed during apartheid. The amnesty-for-full-disclosure approach, coupled with largely symbolic compensation for victims, was to have formed the basis for reconciliation and nation-building. It is early days to say for certain that Archbishop Desmond Tutu's commission was a complete waste of time. But its proponents appear to exaggerate its contribution to reconciliation. Still, this has not stopped other African countries from following this route. Nigeria, under Olusegun Obasanjo, was the first to probe excesses under successive military regimes. Last Wednesday, he testified to the Oputa commission on his role in the Kalakuta invasion, an army raid which he allegedly ordered that led to the death of many, including Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Fela Kuti's mother. For the record, he has denied ordering the raid. Even before this experiment has played itself out, Ghana's John Kufour has tabled a bill that would probe violations under Jerry Rawlings, his coup-makerturned-civilian predecessor. The Movement for Democratic Change has promised a TRCtype structure if Zimbabwean voters install its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, in office next March. Naturally, this would have to reopen Matabeleland atrocities files as well as look into the violence of the past 18 months. The Oasis Forum, a network of civic organisations at the forefront of Zambia's anti-third-term movement, yesterday proposed such an inquiry into Chiluba's human rights performance during his two terms. As happened with SA's National Party and Nigeria's ex-military rulers, Generals Ibrahim "IBB" Babangida and Abdulasalami Abubakar, ex-presidents find such inquiries embarrassing and rattling. They can be equally uncomfortable for sitting ones too. Crucially, though, there is no demonstrable evidence that they aid reconciliation. Neither do they act as a sufficient deterrent against similar rights abuses in future. It is time the AU begins the search for more effective means of dealing with third termers in its transformation to what Museveni, himself a one-time coup maker, might one day call a trade union of democrats and human rights champions. Otherwise it risks inheriting the OAU's reputation as a toothless bulldog.

Algeria

AP 27 Sept 2001 Shooting Spree Kills 22 in Algeria By ABDELLAH CHEBALLAH, ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) - Suspected Islamic militants killed 22 people - including 12 as they celebrated a wedding - in a shooting spree in a small town near the capital, security forces said. The assailants carried out the attack on Wednesday in Larbaa, about 18 miles south of Algiers, the officials said on condition of anonymity. Seven others were injured. Four assailants in military uniforms stormed into a home where wedding festivities were under way, turned out the lights and sprayed the victims with automatic fire, several people in the region said. The attackers had talked their way into the home by asking for water, the people said in telephone interviews. They also spoke on condition of anonymity. Security forces said the assailants shot and killed 10 other people in the area near the home. The attack was first reported in the Liberte daily Thursday. The motive for the attack was not immediately clear. Algeria has been wracked by an Islamic insurgency that has left more than 100,000 people dead since 1992. The agricultural region where the massacre took place is a center of activity for Islamic militants, but had been largely spared from recent insurgency-related violence. The uprising began when the government canceled legislative elections that the Islamic Salvation Front had been expected to win.

18 Sept 2001 Algeria tackles Islamic militants - Recent massacres are blamed on Islamic extremists By BBC North Africa correspondent David Bamford Security officials in Algeria have claimed a military success against an Islamist militant group that has been waging a war of insurgency for the past nine years. They said the army had killed at least 28 rebels belonging to the second biggest Islamist faction, the Salafist Group or GSPC, to the south of the capital, Algiers. The victory claim follows growing criticism of the authorities over their failure to put an end to endemic terrorism in Algeria in which an estimate 150,000 people have been killed. Reports are rare in Algeria of military successes against Islamist rebels and this claim of victory is fortuitous for the government which is facing a wave of criticism. Forceful The contrast is being made between, on the hand, the Algerian authorities inability to have any impact on the country's endemic terrorism, and, on the other hand, the forceful approach being taken by President Bush following the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. But now Algerian security forces say that, as a result of a sustained bombardment, they have managed to kill twenty-eight Islamist rebels belonging to the GSPC. The rebels were located 300km south of Algiers in mountains between the desert towns of Laghouat and Djelfa. The group is said to have been active for some time and were responsible for transporting weapons from African countries to the south to their GSPC allies in the north of Algeria where many attacks have taken place in the last few weeks. Earlier on Monday, news came through from Mascara in northwestern Algeria of the latest attack by the main Islamist group, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in which eight civilians were killed, six of them from the same family.

BBC 9 Sept 2001 Gunmen kill 10 in Algeria Islamists are blamed for a spate of recent massacres By North Africa correspondent David Bamford There are reports of a new armed attack by suspected Islamists in Algeria, near the country's second city Oran. At least 10 people are reported to have been killed and nine injured when they were attacked after attending a funeral ceremony. The victims of these latest killings in Algeria had just taken part in an evening funeral ceremony in the town of Arzew, east of Oran. Security forces say the attackers sprayed the procession of mourners with automatic weapons fire. Ten people were killed and another nine wounded, four of them seriously. Militant tactics This is the first Islamist attack in the Oran region of this magnitude in several years. Till now, this area has been spared the worst of the unrest. But the attack seems to be part of a change in tactics by the militants, who in the past three weeks have targeted beach resorts and for the first time in two years, the city centre of Algiers, where a bomb injured more than 30 people. More particularly, the attack was close to the sea terminal of some of Algeria's main gas pipelines, a strategically vital area for the country's economy. Political message So far, there has been no attempt by the Islamists to sabotage the pipelines themselves. But this latest attack may well be intended as a political message for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika as he wrestles with a series of problems, including whether to offer concessions to the ethnic Berber community. The Islamists and the Berbers are political enemies, and any concessions given to one is regarded by the other as a cause for protest.

BBC 1 Sept 2001, Algerian Berbers lukewarm on talks Thousands of Berber activists in Algeria have given a lukewarm response to a government offer of direct talks after four months of Berber unrest. In a statement the activists - who are meeting in the northeastern Kabylia region - said any government initiative needed to be accompanied by concrete action to earn their confidence. They questioned the government's failure to sack police officers blamed for the killings of some 60 civilians in Kabylia, and said they would go ahead with a new protest march in the capital, Algiers, in October. Trouble in the Berber-speaking region began in April when a teenager was shot and killed in police custody. Since then, Berbers have held huge demonstrations demanding increased cultural rights and justice.

Angola

Rueters 2 Sept 2001 Attack on Angola Buses Kills 38 -State Radio LUANDA - Suspected UNITA rebels attacked two buses in Angola on Saturday, killing at least 38 people and injuring dozens more, state radio reported on Sunday. ``More bodies are being found in bushes,'' Radio Nacional de Angola said. The radio had earlier said gunmen from the rebel National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) were responsible for the attack at Gabela in Cuanza Sul province, around 95 miles southwest of the capital Luanda. ``We were going to Luanda when our bus was attacked by gunmen,'' it quoted survivor Isaquiel Tomas as saying. Both buses were carrying civilians, it said. Local authorities were not available to confirm the attack. Analysts say UNITA has stepped up its activity lately, especially near the capital, in a bid to force the government back to the negotiating table. Angola has known little but civil war since independence from Portugal in 1975. A shaky peace deal between the government and UNITA, reached in 1994, crumbled in 1998. At least 250 people died last month when UNITA rebels attacked a train southeast of Luanda, shooting down passengers who tried to flee after the train hit a land mine and exploded in a ball of flame.

AFP 12 Sept 2001 Angolan rebels kill 25 in village attack, ambush - Angolan rebels killed 25 people and injured 27 others in two attacks in the southern Huambo province this week, Roman Catholic radio Ecclesia reported on Wednesday. The radio said rebels from the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) on Tuesday attacked the village of Longonjo in Huambo province, killing 24 villagers and wounding 27 others. Meanwhile, in an ambush Tuesday in Caala in the same province, UNITA forces killed an army commander in charge of anti-rebel operations in the area. The province has been hard hit by a civil war that has ravaged Angola since independence in 1975. The conflict, which resumed in 1998 after the collapse of a 1994 peace accord, has so far claimed at least 500,000 lives and displaced some four million people out of a total population of 12 million.

AFP 20 Sept 2001 Five dead in ambush by suspected rebels in Angola - Five people were killed and six others injured this week when a truck was ambushed, apparently by Angola's main rebel group, in the southern province of Bie, the Catholic radio network Ecclesia reported Thursday. A survivor of the attack, Inacio Sorte, told the radio that the truck was attacked Wednesday near the village of Belchoir, where gunmen opened fire before pillaging the vehicle, which carried both people and goods. The injured were hospitalized for treatment in Kuito, the provincial seat of Bie. On September 11, 24 people were killed and 27 others injured in an attack on an isolated village in the southern province of Huambo. That attack was also blamed on the rebel National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). Bie and Huambo are among the provinces hardest-hit by the civil war, which has raged almost non-stop since Angola's independence from Portugal in 1975, following a 14-year armed liberation struggle. The war has claimed at least 500,000 lives and displaced some four million people out of a total population of 12 million.

Botswana

Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) COLUMN 14 Sept 2001 Stunning Victory Or Slap in the Face? Stephen Corry- The Mail & Guardian's article on the Bushmen of Botswana ("Going back to their roots", August 31) accurately reports that more than 1†000 of them were removed from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and put in bleak resettlement camps where social and economic problems are rife - in contrast to false claims by the Botswana government that the people wanted to go and that they like the camps. But the article goes on to call the current negotiations about land use - for those remaining in the reserve - a "stunning victory". We believe this goes much too far. It is not a success "for indigenous people worldwide" as the article claims: on the contrary, mere "land usage" completely ignores natural justice and falls far short of rights long recognised internationally and taken for granted by indigenous peoples elsewhere. Under international law, indigenous and tribal peoples have full ownership rights over the lands they live on and use. This important principle was spelled out in United Nations conventions in 1957 and 1989 - yet Botswana fails to recognise or apply it. The Central Kalahari Game Reserve was initially set up as a safe haven for the Bushmen who have lived there for thousands of years. In recent years, the Botswana government has gone to great lengths to evict them, flouting international law. In 1997 officials tore down Bushman houses and trucked them to the camps, which the Bushmen call "places of death". Those accused of hunting in the reserve are still tortured, and high-handed threats to cut off services there are made every so often (most recently, just last month). Wildlife officials are now talking of "allowing" the Bushmen to stay, to gather veld food and so forth. Far from being a cause to celebrate, this is colonialist arrogance. The Bushmen already have the internationally recognised legal right to stay where they are, to gather, to hunt and, what is more, to own their ancestral lands. South Africa has already shown its recognition of at least some of this. It is surely time for Botswana to catch up. The British and other European invasion of North America wiped out some 95% of the native population: this is rightly seen as colonial genocide. Yet the destruction of most of the Bushmen in southern Africa in recent centuries is a comparable tragedy, and a crime, perpetrated by both white and black, which is still largely unrecognised. By refusing Bushmen land ownership, the Botswana government continues the injustice - and shows itself to be decades behind many other governments with tribal minorities. The government responds that the "backward" Bushmen must be "integrated" - whether they want it or not. It is time for the Botswana government to cast off this backward mentality, which wants everyone to become the same, and to embrace a modern multiculturalism which takes pride in diversity. Survival International's campaign has nothing to do with "keeping people as they are". Rather, it is about letting people decide their own future and supporting those whose very existence is threatened by denying their land ownership. Bushman society, like all societies, has always changed, and we are not trying to prevent this; that would be absurd. In supporting what the Bushmen themselves want, Survival is not a group of Europeans dictating to Africans. Survival's supporters come from over 80 nationalities and our campaign has already been welcomed by many citizens of Botswana, Bushmen and non-Bushmen, black and white. We have worked on many dozens of similar cases, all over the world, for more than 30 years. Governments cannot "give" people human rights, they can only recognise and uphold those rights which are accepted by the international community and enshrined in international laws - or, like Botswana, they can fail to do so. Defending the victimised is not meddling in other countries' affairs, it is the business of all of us - and is it not the point of human rights? Stephen Corry is director general of Survival International

Burundi

BBC 21 September, 2001 Fighting flares near Burundi capital The army is engaged on the outskirts of Bujumbura Reports from Burundi say there is heavy fighting between ethnic Hutu rebels and the mainly Tutsi army north of the capital, Bujumbura. Local officials say that at least two government soldiers have been killed and several wounded. These are regular military operations against rebels that have come massively from the [DR] Congo, but we have all the means to hit them hard Colonel Augustin Nzabampema The main road from the capital to the north of the country has been closed as a result of the fighting. The rebel Forces for the Defence of Democracy has refused to sign up to a peace agreement that calls for a power-sharing government with the mainly Tutsi-government and other political parties. Well equipped A transitional government is expected to be installed in November under the peace agreement brokered by the former South African President Nelson Mandela. The war has caused massive civilians suffering Military sources have told the French news agency, AFP, that the FDD seemed well equipped, "with 82mm mortars". A local official told AFP that the fighting began at dawn on Thursday when the rebels attacked a military post in Mageyo district, 15 kilometres (nine miles) from central Bujumbura. The army responded by launching a heavy counter-offensive. Air bombardment Army spokesman Colonel Augustin Nzabampema, told Associated Press news agency: "These are regular military operations against rebels that have come massively from the [DR] Congo, but we have all the means to hit them hard." He also said that the army was bombarding rebel positions from the air. President Buyoya will remain in power until 2003 The BBC's Prime Ndikumagenge said this was certainly using newly-purchased war planes. Witnesses told AFP that Burundi's main north-south highway, Route Nationale 1, which goes from Bujumbura north to Rwanda has been closed since Thursday.RN1 passes through Mageyo. Power-sharing Under the power-sharing plan, President Pierre Buyoya will remain in power for 18 months from November, with a Hutu vice-president. Mandela is determined to bring peace to Burundi In April 2003, their roles will be reversed, with Mr Buyoya becoming vice-president. While most of Burundi's political parties have accepted this proposal, some are unhappy that Mr Buyoya will remain as head of state for the first part of the transition period. The murder in 1993 of Burundi's first ethnic Hutu president triggered a civil war which correspondents say has killed at least 200,000 people.

Côte d'Ivoire

ICRC 20 September 2001 Côte d'Ivoire: Assistance for 1,400 displaced people The ICRC has provided emergency assistance consisting of cleaning materials, soap and blankets to 1,400 displaced people of Malian origin who fled the area around Lake Kossou, in the centre of Côte d'Ivoire, as a result of ethnic violence. The displaced people are now in five camps in the city of Bouaké. The distribution of relief supplies followed an evaluation of their needs carried out from 12 to 15 September by the ICRC in cooperation with the Red Cross Society of Côte d'Ivoire. The ethnic violence flared up in August between native inhabitants and people of Malian origin. Thousands of the latter — who have lived as fishermen on the shores of Lake Kossou for over a generation — were forced to seek refuge in several nearby cities. Most of the displaced could be accommodated by relatives or friends, but those living in the camps in Bouaké "are particularly vulnerable and they are living in very bad sanitary conditions", according to ICRC delegate Claude Champagne. A certain number of displaced people have chosen to return to Mali, while others are still hoping to be able to resume their activities in Côte d'Ivoire.

DR Congo

AP 14 Sept 2001 Congo Disarms Alleged Rwandan Militias By ARNAUD ZAJTMAN, KAMINA, Congo - Congo's government rounded up 3,000 Rwandan Hutu fighters it said it had disarmed and paraded them before journalists and diplomats in a gesture to move a peace deal along. Rwandan Hutu fighters, who carried out the 1994 genocide in Rwanda against the Tutsis, fled into Congo after the slaughter to fight alongside Congo's government in its civil war. In response, Rwanda poured thousands of troops into Congo in August 1998 to try to oust late Congo President Laurent Kabila and to hunt down the former Rwandan Hutu militiamen. Rwanda has insisted it will not withdraw from the country until the Hutu militia threat is dealt with. Wednesday's presentation of the Hutu fighters at a military base in Kamina in eastern Congo appeared to be a gesture by Congo in response to the Rwanda government's demand. Security Minister Mwenze Kongolo said during the ceremony he now expects the Rwandan army to withdraw its troops from Congolese territory. According to a 1999 peace accord, the United Nations should assist in the disarmament of militia groups and in the withdrawal of foreign forces from Congo, both key issues for peace in central Africa. The five foreign armies in Congo - Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, Rwanda and Uganda - have withdrawn from key flashpoints this year under U.N. monitoring, but remain in Congo. Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia backing the government of Joseph Kabila, while Rwanda and Uganda are backing separate Congolese rebel groups. Kongolo said it was up to the United Nations to screen the disarmed soldiers in Kamina and decide what to do with them. It was not clear if the Hutus would be handed over to the United Nations or the Rwandan government. Even with U.N. and other diplomats present, the leader of the Rwandan Hutu group didn't hesitate to threaten Rwanda's current, Tutsi-controlled government. ``Our men will not go back to Rwanda until a dialogue is launched there,'' the movement's president, Ignace Murwanashyaka said during the disarmament ceremony. ``If (Rwandan President) Paul Kagame does not respond to our demands, we will restart hostilities.'' Murwanashyaka, who was not among those quartered at the military base, said the 3,000 troops at Kamina represented only a ``tiny'' proportion of all Rwandan militia fighters opposed to Rwanda's government. He said the rest were in rebel-held areas in the east and within Rwanda itself.

Ethiopia

BBC 5 September, 2001, Film pushes Ethiopia to confront past Waiting to be executed: A dramatic thriller set during Mengistu's rule By Nita Bhalla in Addis Ababa The Ethiopian film The Father has been winning awards across Africa for portraying the horrors of the "Red Terror" campaign unleashed by deposed dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam more than 20 years ago. And the 28-minute film, which is now on a satellite television channel in Ethiopia, has finally got people talking about the dark days in the late 1970s when tens of thousands of people were killed, tortured or disappeared. First time director Ermias Woldeamlack, who is 37 years old, is firm in his belief that the story has to be told. There is little literature, film, theatre or music re-telling the "Red Terror" period, he says. And the absence of such materials indicates that Ethiopians are hiding from the goings on of that period rather than come to terms with them, Ermias believes. "We didn't deal with them as it is not in our culture to have done so. But the only way we could move on, is to address them head on," he said. Its good to talk The young director explains: "The Rwandans are talking about the genocide, the South Africans about the apartheid era and so, Ethiopia has to talk about the 'Red Terror'. The Father is the first step." And it would seem Ethiopians have taken that tentative step. A number of them have seen the short, tense political thriller and have been giving some feedback. "People said that they enjoyed it and that we reflected accurately what had happened during 'Red Terror'." "But also, many have been critical. They say we were unfair to the Mengistu regime. All this is good. At least it's got people talking about it," he adds. Personal grievances There is no official figure on how many lost their lives during Mengistu's campaign to root out opponents, but it is believed that tens of thousands died. Ermias has his own personal grievances. "My older brothers were arrested and killed. They were targets because all students were suspected of revolt and coup plotting". "Although I was a young boy at the time, I remember how Mengistu's soldiers would come and ransack our home looking for evidence against my brothers, but they found nothing," says Ermias. Ermias attributes the film's international success to the fact that little is known about the previous military regime's atrocities. 'Shocked' "It seems no one outside the country knew about them. People were shocked that this happened in Ethiopia and that is why there has been so much interest in the film," he says. The director thinks the "dark macabre nature of the movie adds a real atmosphere of suspense and unpredictability which many found fascinating". The Father was first screened in November 2000 at South Africa's Sithengi film and television market. Last month, it won best debut movie at the Ghanaian Aniwa film festival as well as the Silver award for best short feature at the Zanzibar film festival. Industry But Ethiopia's film industry is underdeveloped. Struggling filmmakers complain about the lack of training and equipment. The government film institute that existed, ironically during the days of Mengistu, was disbanded when the new government took power in 1991. It said film making should be privately funded. Still Ethiopians have produced some outstanding film makers, including the highly acclaimed director Haile Girima, who is a professor at Howard University. He has a string of successful films such as Harvest 3000, Adwa and Imperfect Journey to his name. Another success story is the film maker Solomon Bekele, with his award winning Aster - a story about love crossing the barriers of class and wealth. However, these directors are few and far between, and although The Father is a real boost to the industry, critics believe if Ethiopia is really serious about reviving the industry, proper funding and training are needed.

Kenya

BBC 19 September, 2001 Kenya ethnic clashes 'leave 30 dead' The bodies of at least 30 people killed in ethnic clashes in Kenya are reported to have been dumped in the River Tana in the east of the country. Kenyan television quoting local officials said armed gangs from the pastoral Wardey community attacked members of the Pokomo community in the area. The report said the Pokomo people were on their way from a funeral when the attack took place on Tuesday afternoon. The BBC's Noel Mwakugu monitoring events in the region says police have disputed the number of dead saying that only one person was injured. This is the latest in a series of clashes between the two communities over land. Since the start of this year some 100 people are estimated to have lost their lives, despite government's attempts to mediate between both sides. Our correspondent says the peace initiatives have not succeed because of petty jealousies and mutual suspicions. New police The Pokomo people are now calling for new members of the local police to be brought in, claiming that the present force gives preferential treatment to the rival Wardey community. They also say most of the rural guards have been disarmed, leaving them exposed to attacks. The Wardey for their part complain of harsh treatment on the hands of the local administration. No arrests have been made in connection with Tuesday's attack.

The Nation (Nairobi) 6 Sept 2001 Three Killed, Cattle Burnt in Tana Feud Three people were killed and more than 60 animals burnt when a group of angry farmers attacked herders in Tana River District. The victims were identified as Rolly Hassan, 28, Mohamed Said and Hassan Salat, 13. A fourth person is still missing. Some 89 dairy cows belonging to the Wardei community were seriously wounded in the suspected revenge attack by villagers from Kinakomba, Galole Division, on Tuesday night. The villagers hijacked the four herders as they grazed their animals near a farm on the banks of the Tana. They were killed and their bodies thrown into the crocodile-infested river. Police, led by the Hola police station boss Boniface Chai, yesterday morning retrieved the bodies after an extensive search. The district security team was at the scene yesterday, including District Commissioner Soita Wasike. The bodies were taken to Hola District Hospital and were to be buried in the town last evening. The district has witnessed several clashes between farmers and pastoralists. In May, two Pokomo men were killed following a dispute over grazing land. Mr Wasike expressed dismay at the incident, saying it was the worst since the outbreak of ethnic clashes early this year. According to the DC , the attack was purely a revenge. He promised that thorough investigations would be carried out to arrest the assailants who had crossed the river and fled. The incident later exploded into full scale resulting in the death of more than 37 people. President Moi recently criticized the three area MPs and administration for failing to stop the fights and warned that the government may be forced to send in the GSU if the clashes did not subside.

Namibia

IRIN 21 Sept 2001 Hereros Claim Against Berlin Lawyers representing the Chief Hosea Kutako Foundation have temporarily withdrawn a legal claim for reparations against a German company but added another against the German government, 'The Namibian' said on Thursday. Lawyer Philip Musolino was quoted as saying the case against Terex Corporation had been temporarily dropped after the company claimed in court papers submitted recently that it was under different management at the time of the atrocities. "We have dismissed them from the case provided they open their books for inspection," Musolino said. Musolino and Dessel act on behalf of the Chief Hosea Kutako Foundation which claims a combined US $2 billion in reparations from Deutsche Bank and Woermann Line (now known as SAFmarine). They have also filed another lawsuit for US $2 billion against the German government on Tuesday. The foundation, headed by Herero Paramount Chief Kuaima Riruako, has accused the German companies and the government of forming a "brutal alliance" to exterminate over 65,000 Hereros between 1904 and 1907. Musolino said the companies were expected to file their responses in 60 to 90 days where after the Hereros would have 30 days to reply. In the court papers, Riruako and others state that the companies helped imperial Germany to relentlessly pursue the enslavement and genocide of the Hereros. The Hereros handed over a formal request to the then President of Germany, Roman Herzog when he visited Namibia in March 1998, in an effort to be compensated. During his visit, Herzog said the Hereros could not claim any compensation from Germany as international rules on the protection of rebels and the civilian population were not in existence at the time of the conflict.

Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) 17 Aug 2001 A Forgotten History - Casper W Erichsen Concentration camps were used by the Germans in South West Africa. In a recent M-Net documentary, Scorched Earth, an array of historians described how the deplorable and inhumane conditions in concentration camps accounted for the deaths of 27 297 Boers, as well as an estimated 20 000 black casualties. The programme marked the centenary of the use of concentration camps in South Africa. The ripples of the outcry that followed Emily Hobhouse's exposure of these British war atrocities are still felt today, as illustrated by the very emotional tone of the M-Net programme. These emotions stand in stark contrast to the largely forgotten history of Namibia's equally sinister history of concentration camps. There were five concentration camps in all in Namibia, then German South West Africa, between 1904 and 1908. They were called Konzentrationslagern in reports and succeeded South African camps by two years. The anti-colonial struggles of 1904 to 1908 were characterised by two major uprisings: the Herero uprising in northern and central Namibia and the Nama uprising in the south. In January 1904 war broke out between the Herero nation and the German colonial administration in Namibia. The colonists were caught by surprise and suffered many defeats in the early stages of the sporadic and uncoordinated war. After about six months the picture changed. The battle at the Waterberg, in the north-east, on August 11 1904, marked the beginning of the end for the Herero, who fled in their thousands into the Omaheke sandveld, perishing in high numbers. The Herero nation was literally uprooted as an entire people spread across the Kalahari, trying to flee German punitive patrols. Those who did not reach Bechuanaland, now Bots-wana, either succumbed to the desert or were picked up by German patrols and put in concentration camps. In 1904 camps had been set up in Windhoek, Okahandja and at the coastal town of Swakopmund. In 1905 two new camps were opened in Karibib and Lüderitz. In terms of mortality statistics, the Namibian camps were horrific. An official report on the camps in 1908 described the mortality rate as 45,2% of all prisoners held in the five camps. The prisoners were typically fenced in, either by thorn-bush fences or by barbed wire. As the word concentration implies, thousands of people were crammed into small areas. The Windhoek camp held about 5 000 prisoners of war in 1906. Rations were minimal, consisting of a daily allowance of a handful of uncooked rice, some salt and water. Rice was an unfamiliar foodstuff to most, and the uncommon diet was the cause of many deaths. Disease was uncontrolled. An almost total lack of medical attention, unhygienic living quarters, insufficient clothing and a high concentration of people meant that diseases such as typhoid spread rapidly. Beatings and maltreatment were also part of life in the camps ñ the sjambok was often swung over the backs of prisoners who were forced to work. The concentration camp on Shark Island, in the coastal town of Lüderitz, was the worst of the five Namibian camps. Lüderitz lies in southern Namibia, flanked by desert and ocean. In the harbour lies Shark Island, which then was connected to the mainland only by a small causeway. The island is now, as it was then, barren and characterised by solid rock carved into surreal formations by the hard ocean winds. The camp was placed on the far tip of the relatively small island, where the prisoners would have suffered complete exposure to the gale-force winds that sweep Lüderitz for most of the year. The first prisoners to arrive were, according to a missionary called Kuhlman, 487 Herero ordered to work on the railway between Lüderitz and Kubub. The island soon took its toll: in October 1905 Kuhlman reported the appalling conditions and high death rate among the Herero on the island. Throughout 1906 the island had a steady inflow of prisoners, with 1 790 Nama prisoners arriving on September 9 alone. In the annual report for Lüderitz in 1906, an unknown clerk remarked that "the Angel of Death" had come to Shark Island. German Commander Von Estorff wrote in a report that approximately 1 700 prisoners had died by April 1907, 1 203 of them Nama. In December 1906, four months after their arrival, 291 Nama died (a rate of more than nine people a day). Missionary reports put the death rate at between 12 and 18 a day. As much as 80% of the prisoners sent to the Shark Island concentration camp never left the island. Fred Cornell, a British aspirant diamond prospector, was in Lüderitz when the Shark Island camp was being used. Cornell wrote of the camp: "Cold ñ for the nights are often bitterly cold there ñ hunger, thirst, exposure, disease and madness claimed scores of victims every day, and cartloads of their bodies were every day carted over to the back beach, buried in a few inches of sand at low tide, and as the tide came in the bodies went out, food for the sharks." During the war a number of people from the Cape, strapped for money, sought employment as transport riders for German troops in Namibia. Upon their return to the Cape some of these people recounted their stories, causing debate in the local media. On September 28 1905 an article appeared in the Cape Argus, with the heading: "In German S. W. Africa: Further Startling Allegations: Horrible Cruelty". In the article, Percival Griffith, "an accountant of profession, who owing to hard times, took up on transport work at Angra Pequena [Lüderitz]", related his experiences. "There are hundreds of them, mostly women and children and a few old men ... when they fall they are sjamboked by the soldiers in charge of the gang, with full force, until they get up ... On one occasion I saw a woman carrying a child of under a year old slung at her back, and with a heavy sack of grain on her head ... she fell. "The corporal sjamboked her for certainly more than four minutes and sjamboked the baby as well ... the woman struggled slowly to her feet, and went on with her load. She did not utter a sound the whole time, but the baby cried very hard." These atrocities did not go unnoticed by the Germans, who wrote reports, articles and letters about the camps. Shark Island came up in a German Parliament debate in 1906, when the Social Democrats demanded to know what was going on there. It seems, however, that generations since then have tried hard to forget this history. The South African camps have memorials and written histories, the Namibian camps do not. On the site where Shark Island once lay now lies a caravan park. Even worse, at the entrance of the park is a monument to the German soldiers who died between 1905 and 1908 a monument to the victor and not the victim. The centenary of the 1904 war is just around the corner; perhaps Namibians will take the opportunity to reflect, not so much on what is remembered but rather on what is not.

Nigeria

ICRC 20 Sept 2001 Nigeria: Red Cross aids victims of fresh intercommunal fighting Some 50,000 people fled their homes after fighting erupted between Christians and Muslims in Jos, in central Nigeria, on 7 September. Most sought refuge in military bases, police stations, churches, schools and even the city's airport. Clashes, which intensified following reports of the attacks carried out last week in the United States, continued until 12 September despite intervention by the armed forces and a strict curfew (4p.m. to 7 a.m.). The fighting left many injured or dead, with some sources close to the government reporting 500 dead. The Red Cross counted 928 people injured. Hundreds of vehicles were set alight and some neighbourhoods were completely destroyed. Aided by a regional coordinator and volunteers from Benue, Kaduna and Bauchi, the local branch of the Nigerian Red Cross Society swung into action when the fighting continued into a second day, taking the injured to hospital and giving basic medical care to displaced people from both communities. The city's authorities have supported the Red Cross in its work by making a 20-fold increase in their annual contribution to the branch and placing at its disposal a vehicle, fuel and food for distribution to the neediest victims. The ICRC initially responded by sending enough emergency medical supplies to treat some 2,000 injured people. A delegate went to the scene to provide logistical support for the work in progress, assess security conditions and, above all, draw up a plan to meet any needs that had not been covered by action already taken by the authorities or other humanitarian organizations. By the end of last week, several thousand people had returned to their homes while those whose homes had been destroyed stayed wherever they could. Many others left for other parts of the country. On 18 September, the ICRC began distributing relief in conjunction with the Nigerian Red Cross. Some 15,000 people who are now in safety but lost everything in the fighting received blankets, sleeping mats, plastic sheeting, buckets, soap and cooking utensils.

BBC 10 September, 2001 Death toll mounts in Nigerian city -Vigilantes killed and burned their victims A report from the central Nigerian city of Jos says more than 160 people have been killed in three days of violence between Muslims and Christians An official of the International Red Cross, Phillip Macham, told the French News agency : "Our records, at this afternoon, show that 165 bodies have been deposited at various hospitals in Jos" He said that, in addition, more than 900 had been injured as rival gangs rampaged through the city of four million people. But these may not be the final figures. According to Mr Macham there are "still so many bodies on the streets." Played down Earlier on Monday, the authorities gave far lower casualty figures, but also acknowledged they were not " final". An official spokesman put the number of dead at 51 with more than 500 injured since the outbreak of fighting on Friday. Correspondents say the figure could have been played down for fear of igniting fresh clashes. Churches, mosques, cars and houses were burned down, as the authorities extended a curfew to try to calm the situation. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo ordered the military into the city at the weekend, and they appear to have gradually restored order, although small-scale skirmishes have continued. Sporadic gunfire Thousands of people fled their homes in Jos and sought refuge in military and police compounds when the fighting erupted. A journalist in Jos, Shehu Sawlawa, told the BBC's Network Africa programme that, although the presence of the security forces had given some people the confidence to begin returning to their homes, others have been leaving on buses and open top lorries. President Obasanjo has condemned the violence. "I wonder what sort of Muslims and Christians start burning churches and mosques - places where God is worshipped?" he asked. "True believers in God cannot start killing other human beings." Talks Religious leaders from both sides are calling for talks and a former Nigerian military ruler, General Yakubu Gowon - himself a Christian from the north - is trying to organise a meeting between Muslim and Christian elders. The population of Jos is overwhelmingly Christian, but there is a sizeable Muslim community. The unrest was sparked on Friday by an argument outside a mosque, after which vigilante groups went on the rampage following a false rumour that a Christian church had been burnt down. Relations between the two communities were already tense after the appointment of a Muslim to head a state poverty-reduction programme. Sharia There is also an ethnic dimension to the conflict, as many of the fighters on the Christian side are members of the Berom tribe, a group native to Jos. Fulanis and Hausas - two of Nigeria's largest ethnic groups - make up a large proportion of the Muslims. Relations between Christians and Muslims in northern Nigeria have been tense since the introduction of the Sharia Islamic law in 12 states. In February 2000, more than 2,000 people were killed in religious unrest in Kaduna, and some 450 more Nigerians died in reprisals in the south- east of the country.

BBC 16 Sept 2001, Obasanjo demands end to strife Mr Obasanjo made a tour of the battered city The Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo has visited the central city of Jos following religious violence believed to have left as many as 500 people dead. Clashes broke out between the city's Muslim and Christian groups on 7 September, and intensified earlier this week in the wake of the devastating attacks on the United States. Mr Obasanjo described the violence that has occurred in Jos as an "an act of extreme barbarity". A BBC correspondent who was in the city when the clashes broke out said she saw two people killed with machetes. Their attackers praised God as they carried out the murders. Hundreds dead Thousands of inhabitants have reportedly fled their homes, and have been sheltering in army camps outside the city. An army contingent has been sent into the city to enforce a curfew in the hope of preventing further outbreaks of violence. In addition to the dead, more than 1,000 people have reportedly been injured in the course of the clashes. According to the French news agency AFP, some 300 people have been arrested, although it is as yet unclear how many have been charged. Mr Obasanjo has said the violence was a disgrace for the country. "It is a gory site," he said after touring the city. "I have gone around to see things for myself." Spreading tensions The population of Jos, the capital of the Plateau State, is overwhelmingly Christian, but there is a sizeable Muslim community. Fulanis and Hausas - two of Nigeria's largest ethnic groups - make up a large proportion of the Muslims in the city. Relations between Christians and Muslims in northern Nigeria have been tense since the introduction of the Sharia Islamic law in 12 states. In February last year, more than 2,000 people were killed in religious unrest in Kaduna, and some 450 more Nigerians died in reprisals in the south-east of the country. Reuters reports that Mr Obasanjo has sent ministerial delegations to other potential trouble spots to appeal for calm and to stop the bloodshed spreading across the country.

IRIN 25 Sept 2001 Focus On Underlying Religious Tensions Lagos - Life is returning to normal in the central Nigerian city of Jos after bloody clashes earlier this month between Muslims and Christians, but there are fears that the underlying tensions may have wider national and international ramifications. The violence, which started on 7 September, caused businesses and offices to remain closed for the better part of two weeks. Although the estimated 500 people killed have been buried, grim reminders of the carnage that occurred remain. Charred buildings dot the city. Burnt-out cars litter the streets. And over 15,000 displaced people sheltering in military barracks, police compounds and other public places are awaiting relocation. "That such a thing happened at all in Jos means that the ethnic and religious crisis rocking Nigeria in the past two years has crossed a critical threshold," Cheche Okpaga, a graduate of the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies in Kuru, near Jos, told IRIN. "Right now it could happen anywhere in Nigeria and could easily envelop the whole nation." For many people, Jos was an unlikely place for sectarian violence. Populated predominantly by Christians from the many ethnic groups found in Nigeria's north-central plateau region, the capital of Plateau State had been renowned for its liberal, cosmopolitan disposition. With a mild climate ranging between 15 and 25 degrees centigrade all year round, it had always been a favourite destination of European tourists and settlers since the then British colonisers opened the tin mines that led to the building of the city about a century ago. Jos also attracted large numbers of Hausa-Fulani Muslims from further north, who came as traders, and similar numbers of Christians from Nigeria's southern states. A cocktail of ethnic, religious and political grievances Many people now trace the recent religious violence to the strong feelings aroused among local people by the introduction of strict Islamic or Sharia law in several predominantly Muslim northern states in the past two years. Jos was particularly affected by the violence that last year rocked the northern city of Kaduna, which has a large non-Muslim population, following proposals to introduce Sharia there. "A large number of the southern Christians who felt compelled to leave Kaduna because of the tension and insecurity there chose Jos as their next destination," Phil Nwachukwu, a resident of the city told IRIN. "Many came with their grievances against Muslims as well, and this has not helped inter-religious relations at all." However, there was also a mix of other political grievances among the local people against the Hausa-Fulanis that ultimately made the city highly combustible. For one, the Islamic conquests that entrenched both the Muslim religion and Hausa-Fulani rule in large parts of northern Nigeria in the early 19th century did not penetrate the plateau area and most of the central region. However, following British colonial conquest, they were to become part of Northern Nigeria, where the British practised indirect rule using the Islamic emirs as proxy rulers. Hausa-Fulani political domination continued after Nigeria's independence in 1960, with long-bottled resentment erupting periodically into violence, such as the Tiv riots in the 1960s, periodic communal clashes in the Tafawa Balewa area of Bauchi State since the 1940s, and a crisis between the Hausa and Kataf communities in Kaduna State in 1992. But because Ahmadu Bello, the leading Hausa-Fulani political figure of the 1950s and 1960s, watered down the application of Sharia, keeping it out of criminal matters and restricting it to personal matters, he was successful in dispelling the fears of ethnic minorities in the region, giving credibility to the political notion of a united northern Nigeria. Things fall apart with introduction of strict Sharia Things have been unravelling rapidly with the return of strict Sharia in several northern states, which has awakened previously dormant fears of domination among non-Muslim ethnic minorities. Therefore, when President Olusegun Obasanjo's government some months ago appointed a Hausa-Fulani Muslim to head a poverty alleviation programme for the Plateau State capital, it raised the hackles of the indigenes. Thus began the build-up of the tension that exploded in violence a few weeks later, ignited by a quarrel outside a mosque between Muslims at prayer and a Christian woman. And as Jos burned, the ripples were felt in far-flung parts of Africa's most populous country. In the mainly Muslim city of Kano to the north, militant youths burned a major church in reprisal for the attacks on Muslims in Jos. In the predominantly Christian city of Onitsha in the southeast, Hausa-speaking Muslims were killed in reprisal for attacks on southerners. The disturbances also coincided with the attack launched on major landmarks in New York and Washington by suspected Islamic extremists. In Nigeria there were signs that religious sympathies coloured some of the responses to the tragic events. Newspaper reports said some youths in the northern state of Zamfara, the first to introduce strict Sharia law, rejoiced at the sad fate that befell the United States. A Lagos university teacher, Nna Odo, expressed his strong pro-Christian, anti-Muslim bias, when he told 'Vanguard', a Lagos daily, that the United States should invade Arab countries in retaliation. Some analysts feel that such reactions contain a warning for Nigeria's authorities even if the mainstream reaction has been sympathy with the US people, irrespective of religious beliefs. "If the developments related to the U.S. attacks in the international arena are allowed to fall along the Christian-Muslim divide, it is not unlikely that Nigeria could easily become one of the major flashpoints of worldwide religious conflict that might emerge," political analyst Johnson Okonjo told IRIN. The government does not appear unmindful of the risks either. Since the Jos riots, it has made efforts to get the Nigerian Inter-religious Council, which comprises Christian and Muslim leaders and has been largely dormant since it was set up by Obasanjo in the first year of his term, to work seriously towards dousing religious tension. Security agencies on the look-out for agitators Security agencies, following a new government directive in the aftermath of the U.S. terror attacks, are also now watching out for international infiltrators who might want to take advantage of increasing hostility between Muslims and Christians in the country to foment more sectarian trouble. A report in the 'Punch' daily said the move was informed by the fact that Mohammed Suleiman al-Nalfi, who was wanted in connection with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York, was arrested last year at Lagos airport and handed over to US law enforcement agents. Several Afghans and Pakistanis had also been arrested in recent months in Nigeria and deported because, according to the authorities, they could not give satisfactory explanations of their mission in the country. Haz Iwendi, spokesman of the Nigeria Police confirmed the new security directive last week. "We have beefed up security around the various embassies," he said. "We are also working on theories that terrorists may have links in Nigeria. We are working with Interpol ... All our men are on full alert."

This Day (Lagos) 4 Sept 2001 Why We Fought Civil War - Gowon Ademola Adeyemo Ibadan. Former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, breaking his silence yesterday on reasons for the Nigeria civil war, said that the war broke out due to the inability of Eastern Region leaders to employ dialogue in conflict resolution. Gowon spoke in Ibadan while presenting the keynote address at a conference on the "Nigerian civil war and its aftermath" organised by the Programme on Ethnic and Federal Studies (PEFS), University of Ibadan. The former Head of State, who said yesterday was the first time he would comment formally at any public gathering on the 30-month war, also spoke on why he did not hand over power to civilians in 1975 as he promised. Speaking on the causes of the Nigerian-Biafran conflict, Gowon identified the euphoria of Nigeria's independence in 1960, and the post independence struggles for social and political space by the regional leaders as one of the contributing factors of the war. Said he: "It was the first time since the amalgamation of 1914 that our indigenous leadership was in full control of political power." Also, the former Head of state explained that before the eruption of conflict, innocent citizens were harassed by the Biafrans "along the fringes of what the leadership of the Eastern Region regarded as the territory of Biafra." "Others are the confiscation of federal revenues, from all sources in the Eastern Region. The other signs included the attempted time bombing of the National Assembly, the venue for the scheduled constitutional conference of 12th September, 1966. "The failure of the Aburi meeting and accord, which had initial hopes of success, and the outbreak of ethnic hostilities and the indiscriminate killings in the north and east, further complicated and aggravated the situation," he stated. Gowon also said that the growing inter-ethnic rivalry and suspicion between the three major ethnic groups equally contributed to the war. Said he, "There was also a growing inter-ethnic rivalry and suspicion especially between the three major ethnic groups - Hausa/Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba. This was usually expressed as fear of domination. "This domination could be political, economic, educational, social etc. The west and east feared Northern political domination because of its size both in surface area as well as population," he said. On the other hand, he said, the north feared the east and west's domination in education. "The January 1966 coup with its selective killings and the subsequent reactions, all these and other factors exacerbated the tension and distrust amongst especially the three major ethnic groups in the country that contributed in no small way to the collapse of the First Republic. Indeed the so-called "young Turks", Nzeogwu and co used this as their rational for staging the January 1966 coup," he said. Gowon, however, blamed the outbreak of the war on the non-employment of dialogue by the Eastern Region leaders in resolving their complaints. "History has shown that dialogue is the supreme therapy even in the worst circumstances of violent conflict. Those who shun dialogue often return to it with their tail between their legs," he said. On why he did not hand over to civilians in 1975, as promised, Gowon stated that he was busy reconstructing the nation's economy "because as at that time, the economy was in a bad state, and I believe no democracy can survive in a hostile economy situation," he said. Gowon became Head of State after the July 1966 coup. During his administration, Nigeria fought a 30-month civil war. After the Biafran opposition collapsed in 1970, Gowon declared there was 'no victor, no vanquished.' He quickly implemented a policy of reconstruction, rehabilitation and reconciliation. Having reneged on his promise to handover to an elected civilian government in 1975, his administration was sacked the same year. Gowon went back to school in England after his removal but was dismissed from the army for having a hand in the coup that led to the assassination of his successor, Gen. Murtala Mohammed on February 13, 1976. He was pardoned by the Shehu Shagari administration and his rank restored.

Tempo (Lagos) OPINION 20 Sept 2001 Obasanjo's Obsession With Biafra Gbenga Aroyehun. Professor Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe once described President Obasanjo's many pronouncements on Biafra war as obsessive. For some time, Ndigbo issues have dominated political discourse, a situation created by Ohanaeze Ndigbo's statements and activities. We all have our obsession, it is part of human nature , therefore both Ohanaeze and other commentators including our learned Professor suffer from the same 'sickness.' One thing we cannot take from President Obasanjo is his frank sometime brutal, some time tactless, but truthful comments on national issues. The other time, he referred to Lagos as jungle city and most people took umbrase for it. But we all know that that description of Lagos is apt, in fact it is flattery, if there is something worst than that, it should have been used. The Biafra war will continue to loom large in the consciousness of Mr. President because the war made him what he is today. He is a soldier, a writer, a politician, a statesman and an international figure, all because of the Biafra war. He distinguished himself in that war, when he headed the 3rd Marine Commando, he had the singular honour of receiving the instrument of surrender from General Effiong. His account of that war in his 'My Command' has made him a writer. He became the Head of State and now Mr. President, both, he owes to the war and his unflinching belief in the unity of Nigeria. Other former Heads of State and war veterans may not be inclined to comment on Biafra for some reason but may share the sentiments of Mr. President. It may be personal style. Therefore, there is no issue in being obsessed with certain issue but it becomes one if Mr. President's comments are laced with falsification of true event or invention tinged with malice; it is doubtful if Professor Ekwe can accuse President Obasanjo of deliberate falsification of history. What are the grievances of the learned Professor against a soldier- politician? It is quite in order if Mr. President described the civil war as one fought for resource control. The President has only broadened our understanding of resource control especially in Nigerian parlance. I cannot see why Professor Ekwe should make it an issue because I am in agreement with Mr. President. Biafra sought to control their own affairs therefore resource control goes beyond oil, it involves controlling one's own institutions, directing one's affairs and managing one's human and material endowments. I would like to ask why Igbo declared secession? Therefore, the war was declared, waged, lost and won over resource control. There are two levels of interpreting Mr. President's comment on Biafra as a war of resource control vindicates his position in two ways. The first is that Biafra sought to control its affairs, this is true, a plain fact as borne by history of circumstances leading to the war and its aftermath. The second is resource control in terms of the oil in the minorities' land. By declaring Biafra Republic, by fiat the Igbo took over the oil fields and oil installations in non-Igbo areas of Rivers. The unfortunate thing is that those who have the oil did not declare secession but their Igbo neighbours, who wanted to control and manage those resources on behalf of Easterners or Biafrans. After all, Ojukwu collected oil royalty from Shell and other oil companies operating in his short-lived Biafra. But our Professor went on to say that the war did not end with the capture of oil fields and installations and the federal troops embarked on deliberate ethnic cleansing by pushing the war into the heartland of Igbo. This to him, shows that the war was to exterminate the Igbo race and not for resource control. It is obvious from reading available materials on the war, that Biafra even after the capture of their economic backbone, did not sue for truce or showed any sign of discontinuing the war. Biafra only gave up when it had no means to continue the war. If the rebels had surrendered with the fall of Rivers State, perhaps, the nation would have been saved the agony of prolonged war. The question put to Mr. President, should have been put to the leadership of Biafra. However, to forestall possible repeat of 'bloodbath,'Professor Ekwe has recommended those responsible for the war or bloodbath or both to account. I quite agree with him on that score but the snag is, who are to account? Those who started the war or those who responded to the aggression. Ndigbo declared secession and war on Nigeria and till date the Igbos have not brought those responsible to account for their action. It would be interesting if Igbo tries their leaders for forcing them into ill-prepared, unnecessary and costly misadventure that was Biafra. Professor Ekwe condemned other constituent nations and nationalities of the federation for their 'scant opposition to wanton destruction of Igbo lives 30 years ago." This is rather unfortunate coming from a man who claims to be an authority on Biafra. The opposition from other nationalities was more than that. Papa Awo led a delegation to Ojukwu to warn him to desist from secession and the former Governor of Mid-Western region was part of it. Soyinka was very vocal in his condemnation of war and the Federal Government, he was incarcerated for his anti-war activities. Late Tai Solarin mobilized support for war refugees and so on. It is not only on record that the learned professor opposed Biafra. I am not aware of Igbo intellectuals or politicians who opposed the war and publicly declared so. With due respect, Igbo intellectuals were too carried away by possible prospects in the nascent republic. I would like to be educated on who the anti-war activists (of Igbo Origin) in Biafra are. Late Ken-Saro Wiwa in his 'On a Darkling Plain' narrates how University of Nsukka became the hotbed of secession. He had to leave when Nsukka campus and town became unsafe for him because of his anti-Biafra war pronouncement. Even the nascent Biafra could not accommodate non-Igbo soldiers who gave them initial successes. Victor Banjo and co were labelled saboteurs and killed. The researcher on Biafra cannot claim ignorance of these facts. Professor Ekwe tried to explain our backwardness due to the failure of Biafran misadventure. According to him, we are backward in all areas of human development in Nigeria and by extension Africa, because we did not allow Biafra to secede. In public office, Igbo have not fared better than their counterparts. They have contributed their quota to the sorry present that is Nigeria. All the shout of marginalisation is bunkum because every part of the country is so marginalised when you look at human development. In addition, there is no position of authority in social, economic and political sphere that has not been occupied by an Igbo. There are minorities who have not occupied any significant political office in Nigeria. This is a fact of history. Igbo was the first Governor-General and first President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria - Late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. The first military Head of State was late Gen. Aguiyi Ironsi, an Igbo. The first army chief of staff was Igbo. The first Vice-President was Dr. Alex Ekwueme, an Igbo. Not to mention many positions of authority they now hold in the present democracy. Can we say the same of many minorities in the country? Enough of this shouting match in the village square. If we delve into history of the defunct Eastern region, the minorities there did not have a fair deal from the Igbo, who marginalised them. It was so brazen that it aroused their resentment. If they had been fair to them, perhaps their Biafra might not have been short-lived. Curiously, Professor Ekwe reversed his reason for Mr. President's obsession and substituted it with 2003 election. However, he conceded that Mr. President has not signified his intention to run. Although he is convinced that President Obasanjo is whipping up anti-Igbo sentiment for that purpose. I cannot say much on that. But Ohanaeze lacks political fact, talks too much and is insensitive to the political atmosphere of the time. Here is a president who has just spent half his term and a socio-cultural group challenged, him, vowed to unseat him. Do you expect him to fold his arms? He is not so politically naive as people take him. If Ohanaeze wants to play marginalisation politics, he is ready, if it wants to whip up war sentiments, he is a veteran of same war. However, he does not need anti-Igbo sentiment to win the presidential project because such is a misnormer. We do not want an Igbo president, we want a Nigerian president coming from one of the many nationalities that make up the country. An Igbo president invokes a president that will rule solely in favour of Ndigbo. In any case, what can such a person do? He cannot control the juggernaut that is bureaucratic, neither can he populate the National Assembly with Ndigbo alone. It is as if Ohanaeze is bent on forcing an Igbo on the nation as president. This feeling should not be allowed to sink into our consciousness because it can be counter-productive. Someone should please tell Ohanaeze that no section, no ethnic group, can win a presidential election without active and massive support of other nationalities. To think it can ride on marginalisation to presidency is simplistic. They should drop the toga of Igbo president, it will alienate most Nigerians. Ohanaeze should heed the wise counsel of Dr. Maduekwe. Yet the obsession of Igbo on Biafra should begin to wane. They are too sensitive to it. All the writers that lambasted Mr. President are Igbo as mentioned by Professor Ekwe in his article. You cannot accuse the President of the crime you are also guilty of.

Rwanda

IRIN 29 Sept 2001 The chairman of National Unity and Reconciliation Commission, Jean Nayinzira, said on Thursday his work was being hampered by people lying to the body and by misperceptions about the situation in the country, the Rwanda News Agency reported. However, he told reporters that the commission was now evaluating the results of its work over the past two so it can better chart a course for national reconciliation. To do this, he said, assemblies will begin deliberations on 20 October in all the country's 11 prefectures. The results will form the basis for the drafting of a new programme to promote national reconciliation and unity. "All Rwandans must take part in providing ideas that will promote the process," Nayinzira said. The commission was provided for under the 1993 Arusha peace accord to reconcile Rwanda's fractious politicians. However, the commission's task broadened to reconcile the badly divided society following the 1994 genocide in which at least 800,000 Tutsi and politically moderate Hutus were killed by government soldiers and their allies. Nayinzira said that survivors of the genocide can now sit and share with those who killed their relatives. He said many have shared land.

IRIN 25 Sept 2001 Government to Set Up 11,000 Traditional Courts Rwanda is to set up 11,000 traditional courts, known as Gacaca, to ease pressure on an overburdened prison system now holding 115,000 inmates awaiting trial for the 1994 genocide, the state-owned Rwandan News Agency reported on Monday, quoting the advisor to the Supreme Court, Augustin Nkusi. "By the end of this year, the files for all genocide suspects in prison will be ready so that they can be taken to their respective sectors for justice," he said. The trials, expected to last three years, are being brought before the Gacaca Courts because the modern judicial system is unable to handle the workload. Nkusi, who is the secretary-general of the Gacaca Court system, said trials would be nationwide and save the country scare resources that could be channeled into development projects. Government spends at least US $1 million on the prison system each year, he added, equal to the budget for the national University of Butare. Rwanda had 785 judges before the 1994 genocide in which some 800,000 Tutsi and politically moderate Hutus were killed, he said. Less than 20 judges and 70 lawyers survived he said.

IRIN 20 Sept 2001 Heated Debate of Media Bill Soon The Rwandan Transitional National Assembly this week began debate on the draft law regulating the practice of journalism, which currently includes three controversial articles that would impose long-term jail sentences and even death for those found guilty of inciting genocide. However, the president of the Rwandan Association of Journalists President, James Vuningoma, said while journalists and politicians generally agreed that anti-genocide legislation pertaining to use of the media was necessary, it should not be a part of a body of law pertaining specifically to journalists. "There is no country in the world that has experienced genocide that has not instituted such laws," he told IRIN on Thursday, "but a consensus has been reached among those in our profession that such legislation should be incorporated in a body of genocide law, and not in a law pertaining solely to journalists." He added that Rwanda did not have laws pertaining to genocide occurring after December 1994, leaving "a vacuum as to where to put such laws," and fueling a sense of urgency among legislators to get at least something on the books. However, Vuningoma said, journalism was being unfairly singled out and such legislation should be "put in a separate body of legislation pertaining to genocide where it will be clearly applicable to all". The three articles in question are Article 88, which provides for a sentence of 20 years to life for anyone found guilty of intending to use the media to incite people to violence; Article 89, which provides for a sentence of death for anyone found guilty of using the media to incite genocide; and Article 90, which would prohibit return to Rwanda for anyone found guilty of using the media to incite genocide from outside Rwanda. However, Vuningoma said, Article 90 would not be permissible under international law since it would effectively render an individual stateless. Between April and June 1994, an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were killed by extremist Hutu elements of the public and government, including the Hutu militias (Interahamwe) and the armed forces (ex-FAR).

Somalia

AFP 3 Sept 2001 Residents in southern Somalia flee homes in fear of violence MOGADISHU, Sept 3 (AFP) - Dozens of families were Monday fleeing Somalia's southern Middle Juba region in fear of renewed interclan fighting following the deployment of rival militia forces, residents said. "We are afraid of fresh clashes that would pit militia forces loyal to Somali warlord General Mohamed Said Hirsi "Morgan" and those of Juba Valley Alliance (JVA) headed by General Ahmed Warsame in Middle Juba's Jilib and Buale towns," Jilib resident Ahmed Abdi Hassanown told AFP by telephone. Hassanown said that Morgan deployed more fighters in the area at the weekend, but JVA forces were waiting to crash his offensive. "The situation is compelling the poor civilians to take their scanty valuables and run. It is a matter of saving lives from the savage war," Hassanow said. The JVA and Morgan have clashed in the nearby Lower Juba since July 27, leaving some 200 people dead and displaced hundreds of families, militia and medical sources said. "Already dozens of families left and more others who can afford to get food during the voyage would go to Mogadishu and the port town of Merka," said another Jilib resident, Asha Ibrahim. People in the area complain of landmines planted by warring sides, which have injured civilians, animals and damaged vehicles. Morgan is a member of the Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC), which is opposed to Somalia's transitional government set up last year. JVA is allied with the transitional government, which the SRRC has vowed to topple.

AFP 14 Sept 2001 Three killed in factional fighting in southern Somalia MOGADISHU, Sept 14 (AFP) - At least three people were killed and eight wounded when factional fighting erupted in the southern Somali town of Qoryoley on Friday, residents contacted by field radio said. The fighting was between militiamen of the Digil clan and those allied to the Islamic courts that control much of the Lower Shabelle region. Digil fighters briefly took control of Qoryoley, but their rivals later recaptured the town. Four of the wounded were taken to hospital in the coastal town of Merka, 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of Mogadishu, medical sources said.

AP 6 Sept 2001 Somali war crimes to be probed Nairobi - A UN-appointed human rights expert on Thursday said he will urge the Security Council to set up a committee to investigate war crimes in Somalia - including the action of UN troops deployed in the country between 1992 and 1995. Ghanim Alnajar, who was appointed human rights expert for Somalia by UNSecretary-General Kofi Annan in June, said he would write to the Security Council and Annan immediately to recommend the setting up of the panel of experts. "This is the first step (in which) the international community will have a say about something of the grievances that went on in Somalia," Alnajar said after 10-day trip throughout Somalia. "I have in my mind all atrocities that have been committed in Somalia, including the alleged practices of the United Nations during their presence in Somalia. I don't discount that," he said. Before President Abdiqasim Salad Hassan and 245 legislators were chosen a year ago at a peace conference in neighbouring Djibouti, Somalia had been without a central government for a decade. The Horn of Africa nation descended into chaos after opposition leaders who ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 turned on each other. Clan-based factional fighting reduced the country of 7 million into battling fiefdoms ruled by heavily armed militias. From late 1992 to early 1995, a US-led United Nations' mission - which numbered more than 30 000 troops at its peak - was deployed in Somalia to protect convoys of relief food for victims of a famine. But the mission descended into disaster when 18 American soldiers were killed in a botched attempt to capture key aides of the late faction leader Mohamed Farah Aidid in October 1993. Hundreds of Somalis, including women and children, also died in the operation in Mogadishu, the Somali capital. Towards the end of Siad Barre's rule from 1969 to 1991, civil conflict broke out in Somalia. In the late 1980s, an estimated 40 000 civilians were killed when government forces bombed Hargeisa, the capital of the northern region of Somaliland. Alnajar, a Kuwaiti, said Somalis were demanding an investigation into past atrocities and said it could help promote reconciliation in the fractured nation. "The most important point is that this will depoliticise the issue. It will not be north against north or clan against clan, but there are certain individuals responsible for committing war crimes and genocide in Somalia, and this has to be addressed," he said. Nevertheless, it is difficult to conceive how such a panel could work in Somalia at this time. Abdiqasim's government has little influence outside Mogadishu, and much of the country remains divided among factions opposed to his three-year transitional administration. And many senior figures in the administration, including Abdiqasim himself, were members of Siad Barre's government. Alnajar, who is the first UN-appointed human rights expert to visit Mogadishu since 1993 because of the insecurity there, said he talked to all leaders in the country, including many of the factions leaders, and said they supported such a war crimes investigation. But even if the Security Council does accept his recommendations, it will take a long time to set up the committee, Alnajar said. "I'm not sure the Security Council will accept this recommendation, this has a lot to do with the political climate of the Security Council and the balance of power," he said. "I'm not recommending any model, this issue has to be addressed in a proper manner with a panel of experts." - Sapa-AP

South Africa

Argus (Cape Town) 28 Sept 2001 Fake 'Protocols' Aims to Stir Hatred for Jews Trevor Oosterwyk, Cape Town An Islamic scholar and academic at the University of Cape Town says the justice of the Palestinian cause is ill-served by quotations from Nazi ideology against the Jews. Abdulkader Tayob, lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Cape Town, described the tendency by some Muslims to do this as "desperate, shortsighted and immoral". "We must condemn the tendency within a sector of the Muslim community to celebrate Hitler. "A recent rally in Cape Town upheld a poster declaring 'Viva Hitler' which cannot be acceptable under any circumstances. The holocaust against Jews in Nazi Germany was not in principle only directed at Jews. "Unfortunately, many Jews have popularised this notion, and ignore the white supremacist motivation of Nazi ideologyŠ "The tendency to elevate Nazis and to quote from their research against Jewish people, is the most desperate, shortsighted, and immoral strategy to speak for the justice of Palestine and Palestinians." While Tayob was not specifically referring to the document known as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, his condemnation certainly extends to using this document to back up an argument on the current crisis in the Middle East. This is what Sheikh Faaik Gamieldien did in a recent letter to the Cape Argus when he quoted from the Protocols to accentuate his point about the conflict in the Middle East. It is claimed in certain areas that the Protocols was drawn up at an international conference on Judaism in 1897. The document purports to document an international Jewish conspiracy to achieve Jewish world domination, and to impose a new world order by seizing power of the Western world's social, political and economic institutions. The document has over time become the pretext under which some of the most vicious anti-Jewish acts have been committed. The first time the Protocols was used to "prove" the Jewish conspiracy theory was in Russia in 1903 when a Russian, Sergei Nilus, presented the document to the czar as a way of providing the political context to explain the political turmoil in his country. The czar, however, declared it an outrageous fabrication, ordered that all copies be destroyed and banished Nilus. In the same year the document was serialised in a Russian newspaper but it attracted no interest at all. During 1905 it was published again and this time it attracted wide interest. Hitler apparently used it extensively in his writing of Mein Kampf and it thus formed an important part of the Nazi's justification of genocide of the Jews in World War 2. The document gained credence in England when in 1921 the Communist daily the Morning Star published it. It was published in the London Times that same year, but the Times later admitted that the newspaper had committed a grave error in publishing it. Motor manufacturer Henry Ford sponsored the Protocols reproduction in a book but in 1927 an American judge ordered him to destroy a large printing of the book. So what is it - fact or fiction? The earliest copies were apparently written in French. It is generally believed that a copy of the Protocols was in circulation as early as 1884, a full 13 years before the Basle congress. The most damning evidence against the document being authentic is that modern scholars have proved that the Protocols was based in part on a satirical attack on the French Emperor Napoleon III by Maurice Joly, written and printed in Geneva in 1864. The pamphlet was titled Dialogues from Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu. In 1868 the German Hermann Goedsche, writing under the pseudonym Sir John Radcliffe, adapted Joly's pamphlet and turned it into a mythical tale of a Jewish conspiracy as part of a series of novels entitled Biarritz. In it he writes of a secret centennial rabbinical conference which meets at midnight and whose purpose is to review the past 100 years and to plan the next century. These two documents - the pamphlet and the novel - were later reworked into a document titled the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which was taken to Russia in 1895 and printed privately in 1897. Throughout its history it has been used in the cause of anti-semitism and forms an integral part of a long history of the demonisation of Judaism and Jews. On November 28, 1993 the Los Angeles Times wrote: "In what observers called a historic ruling, a Russian court has pronounced the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion an anti-semitic forgery - the first such verdict in the land where the fraud originated 90 years ago." In a letter to the Cape Argus earlier this month, Sheikh Gamieldien discussed the Arab-Jewish conflict, using the Protocols as proof that what was happening in the Middle East was essentially a continuation of the "plans" contained in the Protocols. Milton Shain, a lecturer at UCT and a author of a book on anti-semitism, responded and said: "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is one of the most notorious racist tracts of modern times, specifically compiled to inspire hatred towards Jewish people. "No one should underestimate the dangers of such lies. Just as the Protocols was exploited by Hitler and the Soviet Union, so it is now being exploited by those seeking to delegitimise Israel." Sheikh Gamieldien does not agree that everyone regards the Protocols as a forgery. As proof he refers to two newspaper articles published during the 1920s. The first is from the Dearborn Independent, July 10, 1920: "Whosoever was the mind that conceived them possessed a knowledge of human nature, of history, and of statecraft which is dazzling in its brilliant completeness, and terrible in the objects to which it turns its powers. "It is terribly real for fiction, too well sustained for speculation, too deep in its knowledge of the secret springs of life for forgery." The other, The Times, London, May 8, 1920: "Whence comes this uncanny note of prophecy in part fulfiled, in part far gone in the way of fulfilment? "Have we been struggling these tragic years to Š extirpate the secret organisation of German world domination only to find beneath it, another, more dangerous because more secret? "Have we Š escaped a Pax Germanica to fall into Pax Judaeica?" Tayob's warning thus assumes importance and whatever view one takes on the Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion does not take the debate forward.

IRIN 11 Sept 2001 Anti-Racism Declaration Finally Adopted UN Integrated Regional Information Network September 11, 2001 Posted to the web September 10, 2001 The World Conference Against Racism ended in Durban this weekend with delegates finally adopting a declaration and action plan to combat racism and xenophobia. The conference had to be extended until Saturday as disagreements over two of the most contentious issues, the Middle East and slavery, kept delegates in Durban a day longer than scheduled. Canada, Australia, Syria and Iran were among those countries which were unhappy over the final text relating to the Middle East conflict. http://www.unhchr.ch/html/racism/

NYT 4 Sept 2001 U.S. and Israel Quit Racism Talks Over Denunciation By RACHEL L. SWARNS The United States and Israel withdrew after lamenting that a meeting intended to celebrate tolerance and diversity had degenerated into a gathering riven by hate. DURBAN, South Africa, Sept. 3 The United States and Israel walked out of the United Nations meeting on racism here tonight, denouncing a condemnation of Israel in a proposed conference declaration and lamenting that a meeting intended to celebrate tolerance and diversity had degenerated into a gathering riven by hate. South Africa rushed tonight to convene emergency meetings to redraft the declaration and program of action in the hope of averting other walkouts, and a spokesman for the European Union delegation, which also raised concerns, said its diplomats would take part in the efforts to rewrite the draft documents. In announcing his decision in Washington, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said, "I have taken this decision with regret because of the importance of the international fight against racism and the contribution that the conference could have made to it." "But following discussions today by our team in Durban and others who are working for a successful conference, I am convinced that will not be possible," he said. Secretary Powell said negotiators here had failed to persuade Arab delegates to remove criticism of Israel from proposed conference documents that assail "the racist practices of Zionism" and describe Israel's treatment of Palestinians as a "new kind of apartheid." Questions about whether Israel should be condemned for its treatment of Palestinians and whether the West should pay reparations for slavery and colonialism have roiled conference preparations for months. Washington has said repeatedly that it would not consider language that criticized Israel or legitimized reparations for descendants of slaves. The fact that the United States did not send Secretary Powell to the conference, which opened on Friday, was a sore point with many of the countries represented here. The United States and Israel both sent mid-level delegations. The decision to withdraw even those delegations dashed the hopes of thousands who have brought their fight against intolerance to a country chosen by conference organizers for its remarkable story of racial reconciliation. Olivier Alsteens, spokesman for the European Union delegation, said it had no immediate plans to withdraw, "But if at one moment, we feel there is no other opportunity, then we will leave all together." The American and Israeli pullout was warmly applauded by Jewish groups but greeted with great regret by South Africa and other developing countries and with anger by black Americans and their supporters. It seemed likely only to heighten the frustration and divisions between the increasingly polarized groups. Tonight, black Americans and their allies took to the streets here, chanting "Shame, shame U.S.A." The protesters said they were deeply disappointed that the United States could not find a way to compromise and sign an international declaration that is expected to condemn slavery and racial discrimination. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has been urging the Arab League to back away from the charged language, and members of the Black Congressional Caucus also criticized the Bush administration's decision. Representative Donna M. C. Christensen, a Democrat who is the delegate to Congress from the Virgin Islands, said, "It leaves African- Americans with no recognition of all the suffering we have had and all of the suffering we continue to have." Representative Tom Lantos, Democrat of California and a delegation member, said he was sorry that the United States was pulling out. But he said the team, headed by E. Michael Southwick, a deputy assistant secretary of state, had no choice because the Palestinians and their supporters refused to compromise. The American and Israeli decision came after officials from the United States and Norway had huddled for hours in closed-door meetings with Palestinian and other Arab officials, trying to broker a deal. Norwegian diplomats proposed new language that mentioned the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but was fair to both sides, according to American officials. But the effort failed, and some meetings were so heated that participants ended up shouting. "It was an ugly meeting," Mr. Lantos said in an interview. "This was not a question of persuading people. This was a question of an iron wall we were up against, and there was no give." Arab officials blamed the Bush administration for the failure of the talks. Farouk Kaddoumi, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, accused the United States of using the dispute as a pretext to avoid serious discussion of slavery and reparations for the descendants of African slaves. The Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Maher, said the Norwegian compromise document trivialized Palestinian suffering. "The only mention of Israel is that the Palestinians and Israelis should go back to the peace process," Mr. Maher said in an interview. "That is not enough. "We are talking about a war waged using the most sophisticated weapons on a civilian population," Mr. Maher said. "This is a government that has taken an official decision to assassinate people. You want this conference, which deals with discrimination, not to mention these things? That is precisely what must be raised." Polarization has also been evident in the interactions of delegates from civic groups meeting here in the hope of influencing the final declaration on racism, which is to be completed on Friday. Last week, some Arab groups here distributed offensive literature that included posters of Jews with big noses and bloody fangs. Members of Palestinian and Jewish groups shouted at each other during competing rallies. And on Saturday, about 25 Jews walked out of a meeting of civic groups when someone suggested removing references to anti-Semitism. After the Jewish groups walked out, the coalition of civic groups approved a report that accused Israel of "racist crimes against humanity, including ethnic cleansing and acts of genocide" in its treatment of Palestinians. The report is not binding, and it is unlikely the language would be adopted. "The U.S. did not reject a discussion about racism, they rejected a conference that was tainted by racism," said Stacy Burdett, an assistant director at the Anti-Defamation League, who is attending the conference. "This wasn't a discussion about legitimate issues. It was a hijacking that vilified and demonized Jews." Mordechai Yedid, the head of the Israeli delegation, said in an interview, "Our position has always been to agree to generic language, to the suffering of people, to war, to occupations." "This time because the conference was so important to us and to our history as a people who suffered from anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, we have gone beyond, to specific language," he said. Several human rights groups argued tonight that the United States should have stayed to improve the language about Israel and to show solidarity with the many suffering people in the world. "We're very troubled by the whole Zionism as racism formulation as well, but we think our responsibility is to stay and have the conversation," said Karen K. Narasaki, president of the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium. "You certainly don't build your moral standing in the world by running away." And the South African government warned that by leaving, the United States might give the impression that it was ducking tough issues, like race relations within its own borders. "It will be unfortunate if a perception were to develop that the U.S.A.'s withdrawal from the conference is merely a red herring demonstrating an unwillingness to confront the real issues posed by racism in the U.S.A. and globally," the South African government said in a statement.

Boston Globe 3 Sept 2001 OPINION : Durban, racism, and Islamism By Jeff Jacoby, SECRETARY OF STATE Colin Powell shunned the UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa, for fear of lending unwarranted dignity to an ugly anti-Israel, anti-Jewish slanderfest. Just how ugly became clear yesterday, when delegates to the conference's forum of non-governmental organizations voted to brand Israel a ''racist apartheid state'' guilty of ''systematic ... war crimes, acts of genocide, and ethnic cleansing'' and urged the UN to reinstate its notorious resolution equating Zionism with racism. It had been obvious from the outset that anti-Semitic Israel-bashing would be high on the Durban agenda. Delegates arriving last week were greeted by the sight of posters featuring a large Star of David and the word ''apartheid'' in big letters. A press conference called by 20 Jewish organizations was broken up when Arab rowdies began shouting and blocking the speakers. The Associated Press reported that the Arab Lawyers Group distributed ''pamphlets depicting Jews with fangs dripping blood and wearing helmets inscribed with Nazi swastikas.'' Josef Goebbels died in 1945, but his intellectual descendants are alive and well. ''There's anti-Semitism and hate literature at the world racism conference,'' Columbia University law professor and human rights scholar Anne Bayefsky told reporters last week. ''It couldn't get much worse.'' Well, serious people know better than to take the UN seriously. It is clear that Durban is not meant to focus soberly on ''racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance.'' It is clear less from the topics drawing so much attention - like Israel - as from the topic about which nothing is being said: militant Islamic fundamentalism. Of all the forms of intolerance and xenophobia abroad in the world today, none is as violent, oppressive, and widespread as radical Islamism. Islamist persecution is in the news almost daily. Consider some of the stories that were reported as the Durban conference was gearing up: Afghanistan's Islamist dictators, the Taliban, announced that six international aid workers who have been jailed on charges of preaching Christianity will be put on trial. As for the 16 Afghans arrested with them, they will face the death penalty if they are found to have converted from Islam. Iran's ''moderate'' president, Mohammed Khatami, pledged to continue providing financial support to Hezbollah, one of the world's most murderous organizations. Iranian support for Hezbollah - the Islamist terrorists who blew up the US embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut - has been estimated at $100 million a year. The humanitarian group Middle East Concern said that 10 Christians, all foreign guest workers, were arrested in Saudi Arabia after hosting a party that included a talk by an evangelist. Under Saudi law, it is illegal for non-Muslims to hold religious services - even in private. A Pakistani criminal court sentenced Dr. Younus Shaikh to death for blasphemy. His crime? Telling his students that before becoming a prophet at the age of 40, Mohammed and his family had not been practicing Muslims. It is important to emphasize: Islamism is not Islam. On the contrary, it is a perversion of Islam. The traditional religion practiced by most Muslims is tolerant and moderate, an ancient faith with a rich tradition of scholarship. Islam places great emphasis on virtue, charity, and living according to God's will; it is not at all incompatible with political democracy or religious pluralism. Islamism, by contrast, is a power-obsessed ideology. Like other 20th century ''isms'' - Communism, fascism, totalitarianism - it is radical, repressive, cruel, contemptuous of human rights, and deeply hostile to outsiders. Countries ruled by Islamists, such as Iran, Afghanistan, and Sudan, are among the most unfree places on earth. They strangle basic freedoms, oppress women, incubate terrorism, and persecute religious minorities. Islamist xenophobia and violence has many faces. In Sudan, the regime uses chattel slavery, forcible conversion, and mass murder as weapons in its ''jihad'' - holy war - against black Africans in the south. Islamist gangs in Egypt carry out deadly pogroms against Coptic Christians. This summer, Afghanistan's Taliban demolished ancient Buddhist works of art, then ordered every Hindu in the country to wear yellow identification badges. Terrorist networks like Osama bin Laden's and Islamic Jihad place a premium on killing and wounding Americans. Death sentences are pronounced against authors - like Salman Rushdie or, more recently, the American Khalid Duran - who write books the Islamists don't approve of. The litany is grim, the victims are many, and the threat is global. An international conference genuinely committed to the fight against racism, xenophobia, and intolerance would place Islamist violence and bigotry squarely in its spotlight. But Durban is not such a conference. Which is why the subject of Islamism won't even come up. A scheduling note: Beginning Sept. 9, my columns will appear on Sundays and Thursdays. Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com.

Tanzania

Internews (Arusha) 10 Sept 2001 Self-Confessed Killer and Cannibal Testifies in Trial Internews By Jane Some, Arusha A self-confessed killer and cannibal testifying for the prosecution in the "Cyangugu Trial" today told judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) that they made brochettes of human hearts and liver during the genocide in Cyangugu Prefecture, Rwanda. The witness -- identified only as "LAP" for his protection -- is a 32-year-old Hutu currently detained in Rwanda for genocide- related crimes. He is testifying against three former senior government officials who are jointly tried before the ICTR. The three genocide suspects are Emmanuel Bagambiki, former governor of Cyangugu Prefecture, Andre Ntagerura, former minister for transport and Samuel Imanishimwe, former commander of the Cyangugu military barracks. All three have denied the charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. They allegedly committed the crimes in Cyangugu Prefecture during the April-June 1994 genocide. The trial resumed today after adjourning on 17 June. However, it adjourned again in the morning because counsel for Bagambiki was not in court. Vincent Lurquin of Belgium, lead counsel for Bagambiki, arrived from Brussels in the morning and was in court at 3:00 pm when LAP took the stand. LAP's testimony dwells mainly on the activities of Bagambiki and Imanishimwe during the genocide. Led by Holo Makwaia of Tanzania, LAP testified on events that took place in Cyangugu on 13, 14 and 22 April 1994. He said he was part of a group that manned a roadblock at a place known as Gatandara and admitted having killed "many" people at the roadblock while armed with a gun, machete and club. "We were killing people at the roadblock. The persons in question were brought there by the authorities, the prefect and the commander of Karambo camp," LAP said in response to questions by Makwaia. Asked to name the "authorities," LAP said they included Bagambiki and Imanishimwe (commander of Karambo camp). "On 13 April 1994, Bagambiki and Imanishimwe brought 15 people to the roadblock to be killed. The 15 were mainly civilian men," LAP claimed. LAP added that Imanishimwe and Bagambiki brought 10 people on 14 April and another 10 on 22 April to the roadblock to be killed. The witness explained that the reasons given by Bagambiki and Imanishimwe as to why the people had to be killed was that they were ethnic Tutsi. "In general, it was Bagambiki who said the words," LAP clarified. LAP explained how people were killed at the roadblock: "We hacked them. We attacked them with sharp weapons because we were prohibited from using bullets uselessly." He stated that Imanishimwe forbade them from using bullets to kill. Imanishimwe and Bagambiki would wait until the killings were completed, LAP told the court. "They didn't leave until we killed all the people they brought." LAP said Imanishimwe "personally committed atrocities" whenever he went to the Gatandara roadblock. "On 14 April, he wanted to rape a woman who was among the 10 people they had brought but the woman refused. When she left the house near the roadblock, Imanishimwe followed her out and shot her once in her genitals using his pistol," LAP claimed. On the same day, LAP alleged, Imanishimwe "started a ritual of eating human flesh and gave us an example. He ate the heart and liver of one of the victims. The heart and liver were eaten after being roasted on brochettes," LAP explained. The witness said some of the bodies were transported in a vehicle belonging to the prefecture while some were buried near the roadblock. Makwaia later showed the witness two pictures of Cyangugu. LAP identified one of the pictures as being that of the Gatandara roadblock and the other one as Kamarampaka Stadium, another massacre site in Cyangugu. LAP confirmed that he was among the attackers during massacres at Kamarampaka Stadium. LAP will continue to testify tomorrow. The trial is held before Trial Chamber III of the ICTR, comprising Judges Lloyd George Williams of St Kitts and Nevis (presiding), Yakov Ostrovsky of Russia and Pavel Dolenc of Slovenia.

Reuters 18 Sept 2001 Rwanda pastor genocide trial starts By Mary Kimani ARUSHA, Tanzania. A Rwandan pastor, extradited from the U.S. last year, went on trial with his son at a U.N. tribunal on Tuesday facing charges of involvement in their country's 1994 genocide. Seventh Day Adventist Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana is the first church leader to come to trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and is represented by former U.S. Attorney-General Ramsey Clark. He and his son Gerard, a medical doctor, have pleaded not guilty to charges of genocide and crimes against humanity alleged to have been carried out in 1994 when Hutu extremists massacred 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Father and son, dressed in sombre suits and subdued ties, sat impassively as the prosecution set out its case, launching a scathing attack on the 77-year-old church leader. British prosecutor Charles Adeogun Phillips said the pastor encouraged a large group of Tutsi men, women and children to seek refuge in a church and hospital in the Kibuye region of western Rwanda and then called Hutus to come and kill them. "Dressed in his customary suit and tie, Pastor Ntakirutimana watched as people were shot and beaten to death, encouraging the killers to ensure no one survived," Phillips said. "TOMORROW WE WILL BE KILLED WITH OUR FAMILIES" The prosecutor read from a letter allegedly sent to Ntakirutimana by seven Adventist pastors who were subsequently killed, an incident featured heavily in U.S. writer Philip Gourevitch's book on the genocide. "We wish to inform you that we have heard that tomorrow we will be killed with our families," Phillips said, quoting a line of the letter which Gourevitch's uses as the title of his book. "We therefore request you to intervene on our behalf and talk to the mayor," Phillips read from the letter. Ntakirutimana's response was contained "in a brief, heartless letter," Phillips said. "It stated 'there's nothing I can do for you. All you can do is to prepare to die, for your time has come."' Prosecutors said both men should also face war crimes charges, and accused them of actively participating in the massacres in Kibuye and elsewhere, and later hunting down and killing Tutsi survivors. Many Tutsis took refuge in churches during the genocide, only to find their place of refuge became a massacre site. "Anyone who visited churches in Rwanda...and saw the corpses of men, women and children, twisted in pain and lying in the hundreds beside the altar of the churches in Rwanda will never forget," Phillips said. Human rights groups say some church leaders from various denominations played a leading role in the genocide, using their authority to encourage the massacres and join in the killing. An Anglican bishop is also awaiting trial at the ICTR on genocide charges after being arrested in Kenya this year. Four Rwandans, including two Catholic nuns, were sentenced to between 12 and 20 years in prison by a Belgian court in June for helping Hutu extremists kill more than 5,000 Tutsis. Ntakirutimana fled to Texas after the genocide, but was arrested by U.S. authorities in 1996. After losing several appeals against his extradition, he was finally transferred to the ICTR in the Tanzanian town of Arusha on March 24 last year.

Uganda

IRIN 5 Sept 2001 Six Killed in Rebel Attack On NGO Vehicle Six people were killed and two seriously injured on Saturday when a group of suspected Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels ambushed an aid vehicle in northern Uganda. Gunmen attacked a Catholic Relief Services (CRS) vehicle five kilometres from the Sudanese border on the Bibia-Adjumani road, killing one Sudanese CRS employee and five fellow nationals, Ugandan army spokesman Lt-Col Phineas Katirima said on Monday. CRS Uganda Country Director Paul Townsend told IRIN that the vehicle was traveling to Adjumani to pick up a CRS staff member at 8.30 am on Saturday when it was attacked by a group of armed men. The attackers then burned the vehicle and fled, he said. Townsend confirmed that five people had died in the attack, and said six others were taken to hospital in Gulu town, where one victim subsequently died of his injuries. Katirima said he strongly suspected that the attackers were from the LRA. "They always target helpless people and never attack army units. It is consistent with their character," he said. Although the UPDF was deploying forces to guard against rebel attacks in the north, it did not have the resources to "defend every inch of ground", he added. The LRA, led by self-styled mystic Joseph Kony, has been fighting a guerilla-style war against Ugandan government forces - and the people of northern Uganda - in the north of the country since the late 1980s. The militia frequently attacks the government's "protected villages" for internally displaced people (IDPs), looting goods and abducting people to serve as fighters. Humanitarian sources told IRIN that the LRA usually did not bother to steal vehicles as they would be unable to travel past Uganda People's Defence Forces (Ugandan army) security checks on the road. The rebels tended to attack vehicles, loot them and abduct or kill the passengers, before fleeing into the bush, sources said. Saturday's ambush was the second serious attack in northern Uganda which has attributed to the LRA in under a week. On 27 August, gunmen attacked a bus on the Gulu to Atiak road, killing five people and injuring 12 others. Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS), a Catholic NGO, stated in a situation report on Friday that the attack was the first serious incident of suspected LRA activity in several months. "Most of us have been lulled into a sense of calm assuming the situation in the north has been coming under control," said JRS director Brother Mike Foley. Recent reconciliation efforts between the governments of Sudan and Uganda, following from the Nairobi peace agreement signed in 1999, have removed much of Kony's support in Sudan and weakened the LRA. Sudanese President Hasan al-Bashir said last month that Khartoum had provided the LRA with ammunition and logistical assistance in the past, but that the rebel group was now outside government-controlled territory and outside its influence in the south of the country. Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Uthman Isma'il said on 27 August - following reported clashes between the Sudanese army and the LRA, which was seeking to recapture escaped abductees - that Sudanese government forces would challenge any LRA military operations on Sudanese territory. "Sudan will not tolerate any casualties in the ranks of the Sudanese army or among the civilian population," he added. LRA units have also carried out a number of attacks on villages in Eastern Equatoria State, south Sudan, according to media reports. The 'Khartoum Monitor' reported on Sunday that LRA members had overrun communities in Imatong Province because they were in desperate need of food and clothing. Some analysts have suggested that the withdrawal of support by the rebels' traditional sponsor, Sudan, was forcing the rebels to increase their raiding and looting in order to secure arms, food and other resources. Katirima told IRIN that the LRA ambushes were "futile" and that the rebels would soon be defeated. "They won't gain any support by committing atrocities like this one," he added. As part of recent efforts to bring an end to the LRA's insurgency, the Ugandan government has offered an amnesty to all present and former rebels. However, Katirima said that rebel soldiers would only be eligible for the amnesty if they peacefully surrendered. "If we capture them while fighting they will pay. One of these days we will catch up with them and we will kill them," he added. The recent increase in suspected LRA activity in northern Uganda has raised fears for humanitarian agencies working in the area. Senior humanitarian affairs adviser for UNOCHA (Uganda), Michael Jones, told IRIN that