Africa

Algeria

VOA News 10 Feb 2002 6 Killed in Algerian Massacre Algerian officials say unknown gunmen have killed six people and wounded one other during an attack near the capital, Algiers. Authorities say the killings took place late Saturday in a village in the Bougara area, located about 30 kilometers south of Algiers. Officials say the victims were all members of the same family. The attack came a day after Algerian security forces said they had killed the head of the country's most radical insurgent group in a nearby town (Boufarik). However, authorities have not linked the two events. Algerian officials announced that Antar Zouabri and two other members of the Armed Islamic Group, known as the GIA, died Friday in a gunfight with security forces. The GIA is one of two militant groups blamed for many massacres that took place in Algeria during the past decade, as the government struggled to control violent attacks by Islamic extremists. The militants rejected an amnesty offered three years ago by the military-backed government of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who said he was trying to bring the country together. The uprising in Algeria dates back to 1992, when the army canceled a national election that the Islamic Salvation Front was set to win. Since then, nearly 150,000 people have been killed. Most of the victims have been civilians. Some information for this report provided by AFP and Reuters.

Angola

AFP 31 Jan 2002 Nearly 305,000 stranded by fighting in central Angola: UN LUANDA, Jan 31 (AFP) - Some 305,000 people in central Angola cannot receive humanitarian aid because they are cut off by fighting between government and rebel forces, UN and government officials said Thursday. Another 22,000 are living in dire conditions, they said. Assistance Minister Albino Malungo meanwhile appealed to humanitarian organizations for food, tents and clothing for thousands of people who have managed to reach the cities of Camacupa and Kuito in central Bie Province. "People there have no resources," he said. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) issued a report entitled "Humanitarian Crisis in Bie" saying that people had been displaced by fighting in Bie and neighboring Huambo and Moxico provinces. Non-governmental organizations in Bie estimate that some 21,500 displaced people have yet to be registered and have so far been unable to receive humanitarian aid. Angola has suffered armed conflict for most of the last four decades, as feuding liberation movements turned their struggle into a civil war that has raged almost non-stop since independence from Portugal in 1975. The war between the government and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) has left more than 500,000 dead and forced some 4.1 million from their homes.

AFP 3 Feb 2002 Two UNITA attacks in Angola leave at least 15 dead LUANDA, Feb 3 (AFP) - At least 15 people have been killed in two attacks by UNITA rebels in different parts of Angola, according to press reports and statements from the army and rebels Sunday. At least 14 people were killed and more than 40 youths were abducted during a raid by the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) on the port of Baia Farta, the Portuguese daily Diario de Noticias reported. The paper said 150 homes and shops were sacked and 50 head of livestock stolen during the surprise attack by UNITA forces Saturday on Baia Farta, near Benguela, some 450 kilometers (280 miles) south of the capital Luanda. Baia Farta lies in an area known for fishing and tourism and has been the centre of heavy investment from Portugal. The headquarters of the African Investment Bank was among buildings looted during the raid, the paper added. Meanwhile, one civilian died and another was injured in a UNITA attack early Saturday on the town of N'Dalatando, 250 kilometers (150 miles) east of Luanda, according to army officials in the capital. The attack was led by five rebels who fled after soldiers returned fire, the army said. UNITA said in a statement that it had actually taken control of N'Dalatando, provincial seat of Kwanzu-Norte. The rebel group said it had killed 68 army soldiers and seized "a large quantity of military goods," while 12 rebels died and 21 were injured, in a statement signed by rebel leader General Geraldo Abreu "Kamorteiro." The Portuguese news agency Lusa, citing army Colonel Paulo Silva, said UNITA had attacked N'Dalatando on Saturday, but that the resulting skirmish with the army that lasted only five minutes, according to the Portuguese news agency LUSA. One woman died in the attack, as well as unknown numbers of rebels, LUSA said, citing Silva. Angola gained independence from Portugal in 1975 but the liberation war soon turned into a civil conflict that has raged in the country on and off ever since. UNITA downed a military plane with a Russian crew in an eastern province a week ago, killing some 30 people, according to Moscow.

IRIN 13 Feb 2002 Angola: ''Scorched earth'' policy condemned JOHANNESBURG, 13 February (IRIN) - The head of the Irish development agency GOAL on Wednesday condemned what he called a "scorched earth" policy by the Angolan military in the east of the country, aimed at driving people out of the bush and into the government-held city of Luena. John O'Shea told IRIN from Dublin that people were being forced from their homes in Angola's eastern province of Moxico, "and piled into a town that cannot cope with their numbers." He called on the Irish government to raise the issue as soon as possible with the UN Security Council. "I'm trying to bring attention to a running sore that nobody seems to want to know about," O'Shea said. "I want to put pressure on the Irish government to bring the people of Moxico to the attention of the Security Council." O'Shea's concerns were shared by other humanitarian workers in Angola contacted by IRIN. "The red flag we are raising is that the policy of the government seems to be the cleansing of Moxico province and a rapid resettlement of people in the Luena area without the provision of adequate services like water, sanitation and shelter," one aid worker said. "They are bringing people to Luena without ensuring that there are any safety nets when they arrive." According to a report on the crisis in Luena by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 5,600 internally displaced persons (IDPs) arrived in the city from conflict areas in Moxico and other provinces during January. Around 90 percent of the new arrivals were ferried in from the countryside on board government helicopters. The bulk of the new IDPs are sent to Muachimbo, some 12 km from Luena, beyond the government's security checkpoint. Although the camp has capacity for 7,000 people, more than 8,000 have been squeezed into the facility and more are arriving. "Approximately 80 percent of the population at Muachimbo does not have access to adequate shelter or essential non-food items, including clothing, kitchen kits and blankets," the OCHA report said. An aid worker whose organisation is active in Luena, told IRIN that villagers found in areas in Moxico the military want to clear are crowded onto helicopters with little opportunity to bring anything with them. "Overland they would have some chance, but people are arriving [at Luena airport] bewildered." OCHA pointed out that many of the IDPs landing in Luena are in a critical condition. "Large numbers of children are both severely and moderately malnourished" and there are indications that "the nutritional status of the new arrivals has reached emergency levels". The report said that the most common causes of illnesses and death among the IDPs include malnutrition, diarrhoea, malaria, tuberculosis and acute respiratory infections. Angola's UNITA rebel leadership is believed to have taken refuge in Moxico - an early stronghold of the movement - a vast, under populated and remote region bordering Zambia. A long-running government offensive has sort to trap UNITA forces and their guerrilla chief, Jonas Savimbi, active in the rugged territory. Analysts suggest that as part of that operation, the government is attempting to remove the civilian population that could provide supplies and support to UNITA. Provincial authorities estimate that an additional 50,000 IDPs could arrive in Luena in the next five months. "Humanitarian partners are operating at full capacity and do not have sufficient resources to respond to additional influxes of IDPs," the OCHA report warned. An aid worker based in Luanda explained that additional problems were that the government had been slow to identify and de-mine new potential IDP sites within the security perimeter to ease the existing overcrowding at Muachimbo, and the poor condition of the landing strip at Luena airport due to the lack of maintenance. "We can't get in the number of flights needed. For 5,000 displaced you need pretty consistent resupply," she said. During the first week of February, local authorities, UN agencies and NGOs developed a plan of action to address the emergency needs in Luena. The steps include opening a new reception centre close to the airport and a local hospital where there is a therapeutic feeding centre. The humanitarian conditions at Muachimbo are also targeted for improvement, and the identification of a secure alternative IDP site. Repairs to Luena airstrip are also a priority.

AFP 5 Feb 2002 Angola's army says 23 rebels killed during weekend attack LUANDA, Feb 5 (AFP) - Angola's army killed 23 rebels while fending off a weekend attack on the south-central port town of Baia Farta, the military said in a statement Tuesday. The army also rescued all those abducted by rebels during the Saturday raid by the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), the statement said, without specifying how many people were involved. The Portuguese daily Diario de Noticias reported Sunday that 40 people had been kidnapped. At least 10 and as many as 14 people were also killed during the attack on this small coastal town, near the industrial city of Benguela, 450 kilometers (280 miles) south of Luanda. The rebels pillaged and looted homes, according to witnesses quoted by state television, which broadcast images of houses and public buildings riddled with bullet holes. The attack on Baia Farta took place shortly after another rebel attack Saturday on the town of N'Dalatando, 250 kilometers (150 miles) east of Luanda, which left one person dead, according to the army. Angola gained independence from Portugal in 1975, but the liberation war soon turned into a civil conflict that has raged in the country on and off ever since.

Botswana

Natonal Post (Canada) 8 Feb 2002 Outcry mounts over future of Bushmen Botswana says 700 natives must leave their traditional Kalahari homeland: Water supply to be cut Corinna Schuler National Post Stephen Corry, Survival International The Bushmen of the Kalahari say they will use bows and arrows to defend their only water pump. Botswana's government is determined to oust the last surviving Bushmen from a remote game park in the Kalahari Desert this week by cutting off their only water supply -- a pump the tribal bands have vowed to defend with bows and arrows. This latest attack on "Africa's first people" has enraged human rights campaigners in southern Africa, provoked questions in the British parliament and set activists planning protests in four European cities. "This is undoubtedly the final chapter in the appalling story of injustices which have been suffered by the Bushmen for centuries," says Stephen Corry of Survival International, the London-based lobby group that is staging the demonstrations. He even goes so far as to call the forced removal of Gwi and Gana Bushmen genocide. Botswana calls it modern reality. "People are free to live as they like," says Major-General Moeng Pheto, the man in charge of the Remote Area Development Program. "But if they stay in the game reserve, they will have to do it without supplies from the government." Botswana, which has a history of good governance that is rare in Africa, insists it cannot afford to keep the water pumping. But diamond resources make the country one of the richest on the continent and, in any case, offers of funding from the European Union have gone unanswered. At the centre of the controversy are 700 men, women and children known locally as Basarwa, "people who have nothing." They live in six mud-hut villages inside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and want to stay on the land where their ancestors hunted more than 20,000 years ago. If the government cuts off their water, they face a stark choice -- give up the land and their link to ancestral graves or die of thirst. The government is downplaying the mounting opposition and there is no way to obtain independent confirmation of what is happening inside the park. But one Gwi Bushman reported this week that dozens of police and government officials had arrived to oversee the dismantling of the pump. "People are frightened," Xlaexlan told lobbyists at the First Peoples of the Kalahari. "The government is saying it will cut off all supplies. My sister is leaving, and my mother and father are emotionally sick because of what is happening ... They say the army is coming in." Xlaexlan, who was born and raised on the reserve, is one of the few residents who speaks English. He said some tribesmen are guarding the pump at night. "They are planning to defend it with what little they have -- bows and arrows," says Qose Xukuri, a First Peoples spokeswoman. The vast Central Kalahari Game Reserve was created by the British in 1961 to provide a haven for the Bushmen and the game animals on which they depend. But the fact is the Bushmen no longer fit the quaint stereotype portrayed in such Hollywood movies as The Gods Must be Crazy. The park's residents swapped animal skins for jeans and runners long ago. They still hunt with bows and arrows, but instead of chasing animals on foot, they ride horses and use packs of dogs. In the old days, Bushmen survived the desert by collecting water from tubular plants, then storing it underground in ostrich eggshells. Today, the Basarwa cannot live in the wild without outside help. For decades, the government supplied water, trucked in food and dispatched mobile health clinics. Then, five years ago, it announced plans to move all Basarwa out of the park and into relocation camps, saying they should be in more settled communities where services could be provided more easily. At least 1,200 Bushmen were lured to the camps with promises of schools, clinics, fresh water and a "resettlement bonus" of five cows. The army trucked out hundreds of others and bulldozed their huts before an international outcry put an end to forced evictions in 1998. Life in the government camps proved bleak. "Those of us who have gone to the settlements know that there are so many problems there," says Ms. Xukuri. "So many people are left with nothing, depending totally on government for handouts. They are just drinking alcohol. We are becoming poorer and no one is hunting." Lobby groups suggest the government is trying to clear the park to make way for tourist developments and diamond mines. Several companies hold mining concessions within the reserve and De Beers has already sunk an exploratory shaft near the Bushmen community of Gope. Others believe Botswana is simply embarrassed by the Bushmen. "How can you have a Stone Age creature continue to exist in the age of computers?" asked Festus Mogae, Botswana's President, back in 1996, when he was vice-president. Five years ago, Botswana promised Britain, its old colonial master, that officials would never again force people to leave the park. But it has finally lost patience with the 700 holdouts. First, it accused them of "over-hunting" and limited licences for each man to three large antelope a year. Last month, it stopped the health clinics and food trucks, and now it has announced plans to dismantle their only water pump. This week, the water continued to flow while government officials tried to persuade people to register for the relocation camps.

Burkina Faso

BBC 3 Feb 2002 Massacres alleged in Burkina Faso Human rights activists in Burkina Faso have accused the authorities of carrying out wide-scale extra-judicial killings as part of a campaign to curb armed robberies. The Burkinabe Human Rights and People's Rights Movement said its members had reported discovering more than 100 handcuffed and bullet-riddled bodies in the three months to early January. It said such executions were just as unlawful and unacceptable as the activities of the bandits being targeted by the security forces. There has been no reaction to the allegation from the Burkinabe authorities.

BBC 5 Feb 2002 Burkina Faso denies massacres The government says security forces acted in self-defence The Burkina Faso Government has denied allegations that security forces have carried out a series of extra-judicial killings of suspected criminals. The denial follows reports by human rights activists that they found more than 100 handcuffed and bullet-ridden corpses. They accuse the authorities of carrying out the killings as part of a campaign to curb armed robberies. The Burkinabe Security Minister, Djibril Bassole, acknowledged his forces had killed a number of suspected criminals. But he said his officers had no choice but to defend themselves against what he called armed and dangerous bandits. Abandoned corpses The allegations came in a letter from secretary general of the country's Human Rights Movement, Chrysogone Zougmore. He said that between mid-October last year and the beginning of January this year, his organisation found a total of 106 bodies. The corpses had either been disposed of in swampy areas, dumped on the road side, or just left for vultures, dogs and crocodiles to feast on. He placed the blame for the deaths squarely on the security ministry which has recently embarked on an operation to rid the cities and highways of armed robbers. Only last week, newspapers published pictures of nine bodies found in the north of the country, close to the border with Mali. Mr Zongmore said the security forces had very intelligent and able officers who were capable of arresting suspects and bringing them to trial. Otherwise, he said, there was a danger that innocent people could be executed, under the guise of upholding law and order. He added that those who gave the orders for the killings were just as guilty as those who carried them out. Call for proof At a press conference on Tuesday, Minister for Security Lieutenant Colonel Djibril Bassolet questioned the numbers issued by the Human Rights Movement. He acknowledged that some killings had taken place, but he insisted that none of those had been extra-judicial, saying many bandits were using highly professional and dangerous weapons. Colonel Bassolet said members of the security forces had no choice but to defend themselves. He said the government was doing its best to protect its citizens by providing security around the country. But if the Human Rights Movement had any proof of extra-judicial killings, he said the group should submit it to him and he would investigate it.

Burundi

IRIN 27 Feb 2002 BURUNDI: Twelve killed in ambushes NAIROBI, 27 Feb 2002 (IRIN) - A total of seven soldiers have been killed in the past few days in rebel ambushes in western Burundi, Burundi's Radio Publique Africaine (RPA) reported on Tuesday. On Monday afternoon, a vehicle travelling from Bujumbura to Rumonge, fell into a rebel ambush at Nyarukona in Gitaza zone, RPA said. Five people, including a soldier, were killed while four civilians were kidnapped during the incident and the vehicle burnt. In another ambush in Bubanza Province, northwestern Burundi, six soldiers were killed in an ambush on Tuesday morning as they were walking to Kivyuka market in Musigati commune, it reported. It said the soldiers were allegedly killed by rebels who recognised them. The attack was reportedly to avenge the death of Louis Sinabajije, a former leader of the rebel Forces pour la defense de la democratie (FDD), who was gunned down last week during a confrontation with the regular army, RPA added. Kivyuka market was deserted immediately after the exchanges of gunfire intensified between the assailants and the army, who had come to the rescue of their slain colleagues. A security official in Burundi confirmed to IRIN on Wednesday that the reported incidents had taken place, adding that there have been infiltrations by rebels from neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo. He added that soldiers have been trying since last week to flush out rebels in the Rukoko valley and Mutimbuzi area in western Burundi.

Cote d'Ivoire

Africa News Service, Inc. 5 Feb 2002 West Africa; Regional Seminar On International Criminal Court BYLINE: UN Integrated Regional Information Networks BODY: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) held a three-day regional seminar last week in Abidjan on the statute of the International Criminal Court(ICC). The aim of the conference, attended mainly by senior officials of ECOWAS member states and law specialists, was to inform the regional experts on the role and purpose of the Court, its powers and its methods of operation, ICRC's regional office in Abidjan said in a statement. Participants were also briefed on the measures countries need to take to implement the statute of the Court. At the end of the conference, three recommendations were adopted, including one calling on those West African countries that have not ratified the court's statute to do so. Countries were also urged to implement measures to facilitate cooperation with the Court once it becomes effective, and to strengthen legislation prohibiting violations of international humanitarian law. Six of the 15 ECOWAS states - Benin, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone have ratified the statute of the proposed court. Eight others - Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote d'Ivoire, The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia and Niger - have signed but not yet ratified, ICRC said. Togo has done neither. The statute of the ICC was adopted in Rome on 17 July 1998. According to ICRC, 49 countries have so far ratified it. It will come into force two months after its 60th ratification. The ICC will judge those deemed most responsible for violations of international law including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

DR Congo

AFP 2 Feb 2002 Thousands flee violence in DR Congo town: UN GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo, Feb 2 (AFP) - Almost 13,000 people living on the edges of a city in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have fled into the city centre to escape increasing violence involving rival groups, UN sources said Saturday. They said they feared a humanitarian crisis in the city of Kindu, where clashes were occurring between the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), the Rwandan-backed rebel group that rules much of the region, and members of a militia group known as the Mai-Mai. A UN coordination office for humanitarian aid in Goma, located near the DRC's border with Rwanda, said clashes between the RCD, supported by Rwandan government forces, and the Mai-Mai were taking place almost daily. The region was only 30 percent accessible to humanitarian groups, and water supplies and sanitation in Kindu were suffering as a result, the UN said in its latest daily information bulletin. Kindu, the capital of Maniema Province, is due later this year to host some 2,000 members of the UN Observer Mission in the DRC (known as MONUC from its French initials). The Mission is supposed to help disarm rival factions under a peace agreement. The UN office said that on January 25 a team from the British charity Merlin were held up by Mai-Mai fighters on the road leading from Kindu to Kalima. It said three members of the team who were abducted by the group were later released unharmed. A member of Merlin confirmed the report. An independent source confirmed that insecurity was increasing in areas around Kindu. Humanitarian problems in and around Goma were vastly increased last month when lava from a nearby volcano ploughed into the town, causing widespread devastation and sending several hundred thousand people fleeing.

BBC 6 Feb 2002 Lumumba's son hails Belgian apology Francois Lumumba, the son of Congo's first prime minister, has welcomed the "sincere regrets" expressed by Belgium over his father's 1961 assassination. "This recognition by Belgium is a determining step, a sign of political courage that must be congratulated," he told reporters. Belgium apologised for the first time on Tuesday for the killing of Patrice Lumumba who led Congo, later Zaire, to independence from the former colonial power. This follows a Belgian parliamentary commission's conclusion last November that Belgium did bear moral responsibility for the killing. The assassination has long been blamed on both Belgian intelligence and the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). At the time, Africa was one of the battlegrounds in the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. 'Indifference' "The government feels it should extend to the family of Patrice Lumumba ... and to the Congolese people, its profound and sincere regrets and its apologies for the pain inflicted upon them," Foreign Minister Louis Michel said. Lumumba: Liberator or agitator? Mr Michel said Belgium had demonstrated "apathy" and "cold indifference" towards Lumumba. Lumumba is the only elected leader in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo since it won independence from Belgium in 1960. A charismatic nationalist, he was overthrown four months after he took office, and was later murdered, aged 35. A Belgian commission of inquiry has heard testimony that Lumumba could not have been assassinated without the complicity of Belgian officers backed by the CIA. Colonial past In the chaos and factional fighting after independence, Lumumba was abducted by Congolese rivals, taken to the breakaway province of Katanga and killed. Two years ago, a book claimed Belgium had been responsible for the logistics behind the killing. But some have suggested that Lumumba's political rivals may have been to blame. The parliamentary inquiry and debate are being seen as a way for Belgium to come to terms with its colonial past, correspondents say. Sign of contrition Belgium is setting up a Patrice Lumumba fund, worth over $3m, in what correspondents describe as an effort to make amends. It will make an annual contribution of nearly $500,000 to the fund. Its aim is to help Congo's democratic development by financing conflict prevention, legal and youth projects. In a similar move two years ago, Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt apologised to the people of Rwanda for his country's attitude during the 1994 genocide.

Reuters 6 Feb 2002 Congo seeks more than apology for Lumumba's murder February 6, 2002 KINSHASA, Congo (Reuters) -- The Congolese government Wednesday applauded Belgium's apology for its role in the 1961 murder of independence hero Patrice Lumumba but said it wanted reparations and other countries should admit their part. Belgium's government apologized Tuesday for its role in killing Lumumba, an outspoken critic of colonialism, months after he was elected as the former colony's prime minister. "Saying sorry doesn't help. We are looking to ask for some kind of reparations -- not only for the family of Lumumba, but also for the Congolese people," the Democratic Republic of Congo's information minister, Kikaya Bin Karubi, told Reuters. "Democracy was killed with Patrice Lumumba and as a result, we have suffered decades of misery in this country," he said. Lumumba was shot on January 17, 1961, by police in the breakaway province of Katanga in the presence of Belgian police and officials, seven months after being elected to lead the huge Central African state after independence the previous year. Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel expressed his government's "profound and deepest regrets" for Lumumba's death, admitting that some members of the Belgian government of the time "carry an irrefutable part of the responsibility." A Belgian parliamentary commission concluded last November that Belgium was morally responsible for Lumumba's death, saying the government and Belgium's late King Baudouin knew of plans to kill Lumumba but did nothing to thwart them. But the commission found no evidence that Belgium had directly ordered his assassination. "We would also ask everyone else who was involved to do a similar investigation," said Karubi. "I'm referring to the United Nations, the United States and Russia because this country was the theater of the Cold War and that's what led to the assassination of our prime minister." Lumumba's anti-colonial stance and his overtures to the Soviet Union enraged and alienated Western powers. Since his death, the former Zaire has seen little stability. It is now trying to end a messy regional conflict that began in 1998 when Ugandan and Rwandan-backed rebels tried to oust the government, in turn supported by Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola. "The apology will help the peace process because anything that unites Congo at a time like this is good," said Karubi. Michel, an aspiring peace broker in the Congo war, promised 3.75 million euros ($3.27 million) to a foundation created in Lumumba's name to promote democracy in the Congo. In a previous attempt to make amends for its dark colonial past, Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt apologized for his country's failure to do more to try to prevent the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda, another former Belgian colony.

AFP 17 Feb 2002 Uganda deploys troops in DR Congo to quell ethnic clashes KAMPALA, Feb 17 - Uganda has deployed troops in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where some 200 people are feared dead in ethnic clashes, a military spokesman said Sunday. Bantariza Major Shaban Bantariza told AFP by telephone that soldiers of the Ugandan battalion stationed in Bunia town were deployed early Sunday to quell the unrest, sparked by a land dispute. "If the commander in Bunia feels that the capacity he has is not enough to contain the situation, then we shall withdraw some of the troops that were recently sent ... to beef him up," Bantariza said. Reports on Saturday said that that Lendu tribesmen attacked their Hema rivals at Kparanganza, 25 kilometres (15 miles) north of Bunia, in the early hours of Friday, killing around 200 people. A spokesman for the Hema community told AFP in the Rwandan capital Kigali on Saturday that Lendu militia had attacked the village in the early hours of Friday, while everyone was asleep. Bantariza said that casualty figures had yet to be verified, but pledged that the situation would normalize following the deployment. Bantariza said Saturday that the Ugandan military deployed in the area had hesitated to deploy "because its intervention in the past had attracted criticism that Uganda was biased in favour of the Hemas." Uganda recently said that the United Nations had consented to its new deployment of troops in the DRC, but Bantariza said that the two battalions still in the country should be spread out. Uganda has troops in the country to back one of two main rebel movements, the other backed by Rwanda, against the Kinshasa regime, which has enjoyed the military support of Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia. All parties to the conflict signed a peace accord in 1999, but only Namibia has withdrawn all its troops from the former Zaire.

Witness to Horrors 'Black Livingstone: A Tale of True Adventure in the Nineteenth-Century Congo' by Pagan Kennedy Reviewed by Samantha Power Sunday, February 10, 2002; Page BW05 BLACK LIVINGSTONE A Tale of True Adventure In the Nineteenth-Century Congo By Pagan Kennedy Viking. 237 pp. $24.95 If ever there was a man suited to go undercover to document Belgian atrocities in the inaptly named Congo Free State in 1899, it was the seasoned African-American missionary William Sheppard. Sheppard had mastered several African dialects, had gained privileged access to the impenetrable Kuba kingdom, and had earned an unusual reputation as a Christian more devoted to improving African lives than to saving African souls. So Sheppard was not altogether surprised when Malumba, tribal chief of the Pianga region, proudly showed him 81 hands: the evidence of a ghastly massacre he had just orchestrated. In fact, it was not Sheppard's "Africanness" that had earned him Malumba's trust: It was his whiteness. He was the Mundele Ndom, "the black white man," and Malumba wrongly assumed that all white men (even the black ones) were loyal to the vast Belgian apparatus that had ordered the massacres in its pursuit of the country's coveted rubber riches. With Malumba's unwitting help, Sheppard, decked out in his trademark Panama hat and white linen, collected graphic written and photographic evidence of the atrocities carried out at Belgian bidding. After personally counting through the clenched and open-palmed hands, a sickened Sheppard contributed reports to the century's first human-rights crusade: the campaign to end the Belgian horrors that pillaged the Congo and left more than 10 million of its citizens dead. Pagan Kennedy offers this and other stories in her biography of the man she calls the "Black Livingstone." Sheppard's trail-blazing accomplishments certainly warrant the effort. The son of a barber, Sheppard was raised in Virginia and schooled at Booker T. Washington Hampton Institute and at the Tuscaloosa Theological Institute in Alabama. For an African American even to reach Africa as a Southern Presbyterian missionary was a feat -- and one Sheppard could not accomplish until he could find a white colleague to accompany him. Sheppard gained fame not because of his race but because of his thunderous exploits, which ranged from big-game hunting and landscape architecture to anthropological foraging and art collecting. He won admission to the Royal Geographic Society, paid visits to Queen Victoria and to President Grover Cleveland. His most lasting contribution was probably the new image of Africa he communicated to packed churches on his trips back to the United States. While other missionaries sought to impose Christian doctrine and Western structures on the African continent, Sheppard was an open-minded and curious observer. He found himself dazzled by the cultural richness and complexity of the societies he encountered, visions he impressed upon church colleagues and open-mouthed audiences back home. Kennedy offers a smoothly written tale of Sheppard's life, and is to be commended for bringing his extraordinary story to greater prominence. But when she comes up against barriers to understanding, she is too quick to engage in what she herself calls "speculative biography." For example, she speculates that "most wondrous" for Sheppard "would have been his newfound liberation from the race hatred of the American South"; how he "must have looked forward" to the return of Sam Lapsley, his white friend and fellow missionary; and how Kubaland, the dazzling, orderly kingdom he was the first Westerner to penetrate, "must have reminded him of the American South." Kennedy continues: "In both places, his survival depended on his ability to play-act, to go under a false identity, to hide his true impulses and feelings -- and most important, to stay on the good side of men who could easily kill him." For a biographer not to decipher fully the motives and fears of a character is forgivable. The surviving paper trail for Sheppard's life is far thinner, for instance, than the treasure troves of material that Edmund Morris brilliantly mined to depict Sheppard's contemporary Theodore Roosevelt, with whom Sheppard shared considerable bravery, a love of the outdoors and a rare charisma. But Kennedy's flights of fancy and her constant efforts to superimpose on Sheppard's struggles in Africa the indignities he suffered in the Jim Crow South (not documented in any detail in the book) start to tire the reader. To attempt to tie Sheppard's adventures together, Kennedy stresses his ability to adapt to an unnerving and often terrifying variety of wildernesses -- that of the deep South, the deep jungle and the inner unknown. He is, she reminds us again and again, a "shape-changer." But she worries about what she calls "the cost of such stupendous adaptability." She asks, "Who was he under all the different masks and costumes?" Despite Kennedy's admirable and fond scavenging into Sheppard's past, he proves inaccessible. In her frustration, his biographer goes too far in offering answers and attempting to tidy up a character who defied categorization and simple moralizing. • Samantha Power is the author of the forthcoming " 'A Problem From Hell': America and the Age of Genocide."

Egypt

Al-Ahram Weekly Online 14 - 20 February 2002 Issue No.573 Putting out the fire Sectarian clashes between Muslims and Copts in an Upper Egyptian village are "under control", according to the police. Amira Howeidy could only get as far as neighbouring Maghagha to check the facts -- Bani Wallnems has been cordoned off since Sunday (photo: Yousri Aql) -- Sunset in the town of Maghagha, north of the Minya governorate in Upper Egypt. Accross the lush green fields, farmers depart for home, some with their cattle and sheep and others laden under huge bunches of clover. The call for the maghreb (sunset) prayer soars from village to village. It is very quiet, too much so perhaps. It is difficult to imagine that only a day before this scene of pastoral innocence turned ugly. On Sunday, 11 February, clashes between the Muslim and Coptic inhabitants of Bani Wallnems village, 30km from Maghagha, broke out leaving 11 injured, including two policemen. Part of the newly-constructed Al-Azra (The Virgin Mary) church and five houses belonging to Copts were torched, three cars destroyed and an entire village left in shock. Fifty people have been arrested in connection with the events. Heavy security forces have cordoned off Bani Wallnems since the clashes erupted preventing anyone from entering or exiting the village. Even the press -- rather, specifically the press, as an angry officer stationed at the entrance to the village made clear -- were denied entrance. "Go back," he shouted firmly at the Al-Ahram Weekly team. More than a dozen armed members of the Central Security Forces and assorted policemen blocked the entrance with the help of an armoured vehicle. "No one is going in. These are orders," they said. A statement, issued by the Interior Ministry a few hours after the clashes affirmed that the situation was "under control" and that the security apparatus succeeded in containing the violence which, according to the statement, was nothing more than a "minor incident." However, some of the inhabitants of Maghagha and the villages near Bani Wallnems reluctantly recounted scenarios of what they heard or think happened. Amm Hegazi, a local taxi driver, put it this way. "More than 30 or 40 Central Security Force vehicles were speeding up and down town in a state of frenzy yesterday. I heard that the whole thing began when the exaggerated ringing of the Church bells drowned out the call for the fagr [dawn] prayers coming from an adjacent mosque. This provoked the Muslims. One thing led to another and the clashes happened." Speaking on condition of anonymity, a local residing in the Nazlet El-Asr village, half a kilometre from Bani Wallnems, told the Weekly that, "the church was always there but recent extensions have made it as high as 15 metres. The adjacent mosque has similarly been extended upwards. On Sunday, instead of ringing the church bell briefly, Louka -- a school secretary whose uncle is a priest -- went on and on ringing. When some Muslims objected, he took his gun and shot at them." Since then, he said, "those armed men in green [anti riot squads] have occupied the village and enforced a curfew. It's been extremely tense." Following the clashes, all the injured were transported to the Maghagha Central Hospital and released on the following day, Monday. Hospital officials speaking to the Weekly said that the injuries were "slight." Security officials, however, were not commenting. The Maghagha prosecutor said that those arrested -- of whom 19 are juveniles -- will be held in custody pending the investigation. Forensic experts, said the prosecutors, are collecting evidence at the scene. The Coptic Orthodox Church had yet to issue a statement as Al-Ahram Weekly went to print. Sources close to the Church told the Weekly that it sent a fact-finding mission to Bani Wellnems but, when approached by the Weekly, the Bishop of Maghagha declined to comment. According to the Minya Governor, Major-General Hassan Hemeida, efforts are underway to hold "reconciliation talks" between Muslim and Coptic figures in Maghagha and Al- Minya. Inside the Bishopric of Maghagha, a crowd of young Coptic men were gathered at the entrance, whispering amongst themselves. "Tell them what really happened, Hanna," a young man urged his friend. Hanna complied but would only say, "We've always lived in peace with Muslims. This whole thing has been blown out of proportion. We live peacefully," he told the Weekly as shouts from the dozens who surrounded Hanna silenced him. "No one but the Bishop will say the truth," they echoed. But the Bishop is "upset" and will not speak to the press. The village remains isolated. The whole thing could be a minor incident as the Interior Ministry's statement said. But who can verify this? "Denying the press access to the village is a mistake" the governor told the Weekly. The police's heightened sensitivity may have been a result of the bloody incident of sectarian strife that occurred over two years ago. On New Year's Eve of 2000, violent clashes erupted when a trade dispute went out of control in the mainly Coptic village of Al-Kosheh in southern Egypt. Twenty Copts and a Muslim were killed. A court in the Sohag governorate acquitted most of the defendants and issued light sentences on the rest. This triggered Coptic anger. The verdict was contested and a retrial was recently accepted. Muslim-Coptic relations have soured over the past two decades, particularly in Upper Egypt. Observers attribute this to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and to the fact that the south of the country remains underdeveloped and lacks basic services, such as electricity and fresh water, in many of its provinces. Critics argue that the official approach to the problem has focused on the security dimension -- such as tracking down Islamic militants -- at the expense of development. Will the disturbances and the social criticism implicit in them find a listening ear? "Nothing will damage Muslim- Coptic relations, in one week; everything will return to normal", the governor of Minya was quoted as saying. Bishop Aghathon of Maghagha on the other hand asserted that "our Muslim brothers stood by our side during the clashes." For Amm Hegazi, the important thing now is "to get those security people out of the village. We want everything back to normal so that we can watch TV and follow up on what happened to Bin-Laden, the man who shook America," he said with a wink.

Liberia

AFP 4 Feb 2002 Liberia reports fierce rebel fighting in six northern areas MONROVIA, Feb 4 (AFP) - Liberian rebels and government forces have been locked in bitter combat since Friday in six zones in the country's north and northwest, defence officials said here Monday. A defence official, quoting frontline government commanders, told reporters that fighting was raging in Belle Fassama and Belle Baloma in Belle District, Lower Lofa County, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) northwest of Monrovia. He said clashes were also ongoing at Geingbai in Gbarpolu County, some 120 kilometres (75 miles) from here. He said the two sides were vying for control of the northern provincial capital of Voinjama, as well as the towns of Masambolahun and Kolahun -- all some 300 kilometres north of Monrovia. Kolahun, which had been a rebel stronghold for several months, was wrested on December 25 from rebels of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) group. But the official could not say whether rebels had re-established a grip on Kolahun, which the Liberian government says is their main supply route to Guinea. The intensification of fighting comes in the wake of reports that LURD rebels were using VHF radios captured from government troops to intercept government military communications. An Armed Forces of Liberia captain from the embattled region told reporters that government troops had intercepted a rebel communication claiming they had launched 'Operation Spare No POWs'. Since 1999, forces loyal to Liberian President Charles Taylor have been fighting rebel factions in the north who had opposed Taylor during Liberia's bloody 1989-1997 civil war. Meanwhile, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) on Monday said in a statement issued in Abidjan that it had completed the delivery of emergency food rations to over 11,000 internally displaced persons in the region.

Reuters 12 Feb 2002 Citing Emergency, Liberia Rounds Up Youths By REUTERS ONROVIA, Liberia, Feb. 11 (Reuters) — In a roundup that it justified by a state of emergency, the government has put scores of street youths in jail, officials said today. The city, Liberia's capital, was frequently the scene of deadly street fighting during a civil war in the 1990's. It has been on edge since rebels struck 22 miles away on Thursday. Security forces have since driven the rebels back. But the police said they had locked up the youths for terrorizing residents and would keep them until their parents came. The human rights group Amnesty International accused President Charles Taylor's forces of using the emergency as a cover for rights violations, including forcible recruitment. Liberia's return to chaos has raised concerns in neighboring Sierra Leone, where Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, over the weekend, hailed efforts that ended a war by Liberian-backed rebels.

AFP 14 Feb 2002 Over 700 refugees flood into Sierra Leone from Liberia: UN FREETOWN, A total of 729 refugees have been brought across the border from neighbouring Liberia into eastern Sierra Leone within the past three days, UNHCR official Chris Hambrouck told AFP Thursday. According to the official, 356 refugees were moved from Gendema Town to Blama on February 12, and a "direct convoy" from Sinje to Blama in the south brought in 243 people the next day. She disclosed that a second convoy also brought in 130 people by truck on the same day bringing the total to 729 people. "We shall continue to bring in more refugees who are wishing to come," she said. Reports from the area reaching the capital say that the refugees appear to be "in relatively good shape." According to a State radio correspondent, the refugees speak of soldiers of the Liberian army terrorising camp dwellers, seizing their properties and demanding money. "We are grateful to be back on Sierra Leone soil and to reshape our lives once more," Brima Morovia, a refugee was quoted as saying.

SAPA-AFP16 Feb 2002 UN monitoring Liberian refugees Freetown - United Nations peacekeepers are "monitoring" the flow into Sierra Leone of refugees fleeing fighting between rebels and government forces in Liberia, the head of UN military operations in Sierra Leone (Unamsil) said on Saturday. General Daniel Opande, who heads Unamsil, said on a UN radio programme here that the peacekeepers were "prepared to assist and ensure that there are no security implications". "The concern for us now is the refugees and returnees coming to the border," Opande said. Liberian President Charles Taylor declared a state of emergency last week when rebel activity was reported near the capital, Monrovia. "We have not seen any major concern that will affect security," Opande said, adding: "The potential for weapons coming from any of our borders is very real so we have to take precautionary measures." Unamsil oversaw a sweeping disarmament programme under which more than 43 000 former fighters in Sierra Leone laid down their weapons between May last year and January 2002. The disarmament initiative was part of a peace accord signed last May between the government, Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels who unleashed Sierra Leone's brutal civil war in 1991, and the UN

Business Day (Johannesburg) 15 Feb 2002 OAU And UN Appeal for Peace in War-Torn Liberia February 15, 2002 Matthew Tostevin The Organisation for African Unity urged Liberia's warring factions yesterday to stop fighting and voiced concern for thousands of refugees in the war-torn west African country. OAU's plea came as Liberian authorities pursued their crackdown on suspected rebel sympathisers in Monrovia and revived exit visas to check who planned to "chicken out" and flee. In New York, United Nations Security Council members deplored the violence and said the government should take "effective actions to respect human rights and the safety of civilians". On Monday, UN SecretaryGeneral Kofi Annan called for an end to fighting, expressed concern for the stability of the west African nation and urged neighbouring countries to keep armed groups from using their territories to launch attacks. The capital, Monrovia, scene of bloody street fighting in a 1990s civil war, has been on edge since rebels struck just 35km from the capital last Thursday. Fighting is continuing and thousands of refugees are spilling into the capital and neighbouring Sierra Leone. 15 February, 2002, 11:39 GMT More unrest in Liberia Liberians are used to fleeing first and asking questions later By Mark Doyle West Africa correspondent Gunfire and unrest is continuing north of the Liberian capital, Monrovia. Latest reports say unidentified gunmen opened fire on Wednesday in the town of Tubmanburg, about 60 km north of the capital. The government says it is prosecuting a war with rebels known as Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD). Tens of thousands of people have been made homeless after fleeing gunfire in recent weeks. The residents of Monrovia are frightened and trying to work out what is going on. Sympathy? But the problem with pinning down what is happening in the Liberian war is that the government may have an interest in playing up the unrest. Liberia is under United Nations sanctions because of what the UN says is its illegal involvement in gun running and diamond smuggling with neighbouring Sierra Leone. The theory, circulating among some Monrovia residents, is that President Charles Taylor is using the humanitarian crisis caused by this war to get sympathy for the sanctions to be lifted. This theory is only half true. There is a real rebellion in Liberia - a rebellion which has caused thousands of people to flee their homes. Liberia's army can be ill disciplined However anyone who has spent time in this country knows that much of the unrest is caused, not by rebels, but by undisciplined government army soldiers. Ordinary people caught between a rock and a hard place are terrified of the rebels but wary of government troops as well. When the gunfire starts they very sensibly run first and ask questions later. Tens of thousands of them have done just that.

BBC 8 Feb 2002 Liberia declares state of emergency The Liberian army says it is poorly equipped Liberian President Charles Taylor has declared a state of emergency as armed rebels appeared to be gaining ground on the capital Monrovia. The president made the announcement hours after rebels attacked Klay, just 35km (22 miles) north of the city, although he made no reference to the fighting. Forces loyal to President Taylor have been fighting rebel factions in the north of the country since 1999. Earlier this week, Defence Minister Daniel Chea said the government army was fighting an unfair war because of an international ban on selling weapons to the Liberian Government. Last week, the rebels briefly captured the village of Sawmill just 80km from Monrovia, causing thousands of refugees to flee. Rebels poised "The arms embargo and the government's inability to fully cater to the economic and social well-being of its citizens warrant the declaration of a state of emergency," Mr Taylor said on state radio and television. Thousands of refugees have fled the latest fighting "The state of emergency will be lifted only circumstances which warranted this action are removed," he said. Rebel spokeman Charles Bennie told the BBC's Focus on Africa that they would soon be in control of Klay junction, on the main road to Monrovia. Information Minister Reginald Goodridge confirmed to the same programme that they were in the area. Rebels had earlier told Reuters news agency that thousands of rebel fighters were poised to strike Monrovia and could take the city in 72 hours. They said they wanted the president to resign and leave. Liberia has repeatedly accused neighbouring Guinea of backing the rebels, spearheaded by the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (Lurd). The defence minister has said that if the arms embargo was lifted, the army could defeat the rebels within a month. The international ban was imposed because Liberia was accused of selling diamonds on behalf of the rebel movement in neighbouring Sierra Leone. The government said in January that the sanctions should be lifted because the war in Sierra Leone has officially been declared over. Fractured forces Lurd is thought to be led by former chief of staff Charles Julu, who served in the former regime of president Samuel Doe, assassinated in 1990 after Mr Taylor launched an insurgency. Taylor won elections but now faces security problems The rebels gather many of the forces that fought Mr Taylor during the country's brutal civil war from 1989 to 1997. Rebels claim to be active in northern Liberia, and the government has sent military reinforcements there to deal with them. But the situation is also confused by a variety of pro-Liberian government militias in the region, some of which are reported to have clashed among themselves. Our West Africa correspondent says the conflict in Liberia is complex and fragmented, with no clear rebel front-line outside Monrovia. He says the rebels - if they exist as a coherent force at all - are a mixture of dissidents opposed to President Taylor and elements who would best be described as bandits.

Malawi

IRIN 25 Feb 2002 MALAWI: Party youths attack paper JOHANNESBURG, 25 Feb 2002 (IRIN) - Malawi's independent press is the latest casualty of political intolerance in the region, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) said in a statement. Youths allegedly affiliated to the ruling party abducted a reporter and assaulted the editor-in-chief and several other staffers of a privately owned Lilongwe newspaper, The Chronicle, the media watchdog said on Friday. Some of the assaults allegedly took place outside a police station. "Youths belonging to the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) Young Democrats and the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB), an official intelligence body ...(on) 22 February, literally broke into" the paper's offices. They abducted a reporter and fled with him in an unmarked Land Rover, MISA said. Publisher and editor-in-chief, Robert Jamieson, told MISA he and his son gave chase in his car. "We managed to contact the para-military police, the Police Mobile Force, who helped us to force the Land Rover into a police station," Jamieson was quoted as saying. MISA alleged the police looked on as "the party thugs assaulted Jamieson, his son who also works at the paper, and the reporter, Mallick Mnela. They accused them of writing ill of President [Bakili] Muluzi and the UDF". The Chronicle said of the incident. "Politically related violence has been given as one reason [why] Denmark has withdrawn all aid to Malawi and [why] Britain and the United States have withheld funding for budgetary support." The paper said it was not the first time that police had "stood helplessly by as UDF cadres openly attack people seen to be out of step with government". "Although this is not the first time that the Young Democrats [the UDF's militia] have targeted individual journalists in the country it is the first incidence of them visiting a newsroom to terrorise staff and threaten dire consequences (for) writing critically on government's performance." The paper warned that "political analysts have indicated that this behaviour by Young Democrats could see the death of critical and accurate reporting in the country and a return to repression and autocracy".

Niger

ICRC 21 Feb 2002 Press Release 02/15 . Niger: African conference pledges greater protection for civilians Geneva (ICRC) – The African Parliamentary Union's first Conference on International Humanitarian Law for the Protection of Civilians during Armed Conflict in Africa came to a close on 20 February with the adoption of a Final Declaration.* The Conference, held in Niamey, Niger, was attended by delegations of parliamentarians from the following countries: Algeria, Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Kenya, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Sudan and Tunisia. During the Conference, participants exchanged views on the protection of vulnerable people during armed conflicts and discussed possible parliamentary action to ease their plight. The Final Declaration highlights the concern of parliamentarians over the proliferation of armed conflicts and other forms of violence in Africa, which have caused immense suffering among civilians and violated the norms of international humanitarian law. It also stresses that there could be no better prevention than good governance, the rule of law and respect for human rights. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) urges parliamentarians to fulfil their pledges, in particular by playing an important role in bringing about accession by States to humanitarian law treaties and ensuring that those treaties are reflected in national legislation and fully implemented. The participants also committed themselves to paying particular attention to the plight of refugees and displaced persons and to preventing the recruitment for military purpose of children under 18 years of age. One of the Conference's aims was to encourage parliamentarians to use all the means at their disposal to facilitate parliamentary discussions on humanitarian law treaties and to ensure that States and all parties to armed conflict honoured their obligations, in particular to respect the rights of the victims of armed conflict and the dignity of all individuals. The participants also undertook to provide independent humanitarian organizations, in particular the ICRC, the National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and their International Federation, and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, with unimpeded access in times of armed conflict to civilians in need and to facilitate the free flow of humanitarian supplies. In order to keep up the momentum created by the Conference, the first of its kind, and to generate further debate on humanitarian law and related issues, the parliamentarians requested the African Parliamentary Union to set up a coordinating committee in charge of follow-up activities. * http://www.uafparl.org/, http://www.ipu.org/

Nigeria

AP 4 Feb 2002 Nigerians Flee More Ethnic Clashes By GLENN McKENZIE, LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - Thousands fled neighborhoods of Nigeria's largest city Monday during a third day of ethnic violence that has killed at least 55 people and injured 150, officials said. Fighters carrying machetes, swords, slingshots, bows and arrows vastly outnumbered police officers. There are long-standing hostilities between the mainly Muslim Hausas and the Yorubas, most of whom are Christians and animists. The Hausas dominate Nigeria's north, while the Yorubas are the main tribe in the southwest. The violence was the latest blow to the polluted and crime-ridden city of Lagos, which still is recovering from explosions at an army weapons depot that killed at least 1,000 people last week — many of them women and children who fell into a canal and drowned during a late-night stampede to escape the explosions. Nigerian Red Cross President Emmanuel Ijewere said his organization had counted 55 bodies by late Sunday and was helping care for more than 150 people with gunshot, machete and other serious wounds at area hospitals. But witnesses spoke of dozens more killed overnight in clashes in the streets of Idi Araba and Mushin, impoverished Lagos neighborhoods where the fighting between Yoruba and Hausa tribal fighters began Saturday. Residents said the violence spread overnight to the nearby neighborhoods of Fadeyi of Onipanu. Soldiers were deployed Monday to help contain the fighting. In the morning, an Associated Press photographer saw a mob of Hausas hacking to death a suspected Yoruba militant with cutlasses and machetes. The body of another man was lying outside the area's main hospital bordering the neighborhoods. Seventeen burned, mutilated bodies were counted by AP reporters Sunday. Plumes of black smoke rose from several square miles of slums Monday, and fleeing witnesses said thousands of homes were razed. Gunshots reverberated through nearly abandoned streets. Elsewhere, streams of residents carried on their heads whatever belongings they could. Hundreds of people — mostly Hausa women, children and elderly men — sought refuge at the Abalti army barracks, near Idi Araba. Officials said they would soon be transferred to a camp set up at the Ikeja police college to house thousands of people displaced by the deadly explosions last week. Some Hausa residents said members of a Yoruba militant group, Odudua, attacked Hausa homes and an Idi Araba mosque Saturday. The Yoruba fighters said the Hausas made the first move. Many others said the fighting began with a neighborhood squabble. Hundreds of police moved in Sunday to impose a nighttime curfew. But the violence resumed after midnight when some witnesses said Odudua members burned homes believed to be owned by Hausas, shot at residents and threw homemade petrol bombs. That could not be independently confirmed. "We carried my grandmother from my house while they were shooting at us," said 30-year-old Mohammed Gorlunu, a fleeing Hausa resident. "My neighbor's house was burning when we left and maybe mine is burning now, too." Police appeared to have retreated by Monday morning. The handful of remaining officers were vastly outnumbered by fighters toting machetes, swords, slingshots, bows and arrows. "Only the army can stop this now. The police are not helping us any more," said Lateef Alawsa, a 35-year-old Hausa collecting glass bottles to make petrol bombs. Africa's most populous country is riven with ethnic, religious and political divides. Thousands have been killed in periodic violence since President Olusegun Obasanjo won 1999 elections, ending 15 years of brutal military rule. Although a former military officer, Obasanjo is a Yoruba and the army traditionally has been dominated by Hausas. Thousands of people in the city of 12 million lost their homes in the explosions at the weapons depot. Authorities planned a mass burial of unclaimed bodies for Monday or Tuesday.

BBC 12 Feb 2002 Nigerian politicians 'inciting violence' Democracy has not brought stability Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has repeated accusations that politicians are orchestrating the violence that is threatening to tear his country apart. Mr Obasanjo has warned that the nation's fragile democracy has become a battleground for political opportunists backed by private armies who are exploiting ethnic and religious differences to gain power. Rioting since the return of democracy three years ago has left more than 10,000 dead. Just last week, riots in Lagos left 100 people dead. Our people are deliberately misled and galvanised to take up arms against each other President Obasanjo And "There is no large-scale violent activity in our nation today, communal religious, ethnic... that has no substantial political undertones," Mr Obasanjo told Nigerian leaders, in a speech released on Monday to journalists. He said Nigerians were being deliberately misled into taking up arms against each other thinking they are protecting dearly held values and interests. Cynicism "In fact they merely serve as the foot soldiers of cynical political strategists," he said. Obasanjo is expected to seek re-election in 2003 Nigerians lived under military rule for almost three decades, and our correspondent says there are already strong indications that the political campaigns for elections due to be held in early 2003 will be turbulent. After 15 unbroken years of military rule, it was hoped that a civilian government would bring greater social stability and a platform for sustained economic growth but this has not materialised. "Our nation is in danger of being caught in a vicious cycle where only those who have no respect for our laws or morality will find their ways into making laws for us and determining how we live our lives," Mr Obasanjo said. Parliament Mr Obasanjo's unhappiness with politicians, has also spread to taking action in the parliament. A senior MP said the president had ordered the suspension of salaries and allowances paid to members of the House of Representatives. Eziuche Ubani, spokesman for the speaker of the lower chamber, said the January and February allocations due to the House had not been paid. President Obasanjo is reported to have written to parliament last week demanding details of full payments. He is said to have requested urgent information about how the allowances were calculated. MP Dr Ahmed Lawan told the BBC that Mr Obasanjo's decision may be linked with a controversy surrounding a new electoral law. Mr Obasanjo is alleged to have made amendments to the draft without consulting parliament.

Rwanda

AP 3 Feb 2002 Understanding How Violent Mind Works By Rodrique Ngowi KIGALI, Rwanda –– Seven years after more than half a million people perished in the genocide that also shattered Rwanda's economy, the small central African nation is still trying to figure out how to deal with the aftermath and prevent a repeat of the horror. Survivors of the 100-day government-orchestrated slaughter recently invited Jews, American Indians, Aborigines, Bosnians and Armenians to their capital city to learn from their experiences. The Rwandans discovered that learning how to prevent genocide may, at least in part, come from insights gained from studies in public mental health. Genocide, the wholesale attempt to wipe out an entire people, is often preceded by such warning signs as delegitimization, dehumanization, scape-goating and devaluing of potential victims. Peering into the minds of potential perpetrators of genocide may help to prevent it, said Reva Adler, a public health specialist at the University of British Columbia in Canada. Strengthening the rule of law and democracy are the most effective safeguards against genocide, the foreign participants said at a conference organized by the New York-based Group Project For Holocaust Survivors and Their Children and IBUKA, a coalition of Rwandan associations of genocide survivors. Conventional methods of preventing genocide involve diplomacy, military intervention and mobilizing military allies. "But these are all very late-stage primary interventions," Adler said, "mobilized when things look bad." Public health scientists "believe that it is possible to study the minds of people before they commit genocide and understand what they are thinking and change it," she said. Adler proposes logging episodes of violence in societies at risk and analyzing what type of violence is being perpetrated, then interviewing people who commit violence to figure out what is on their minds when they do it. The next step is to "design intervention that would make it clear that although they think they are going to gain esteem, power and protection from violence, in fact something else is going to happen – they are going to get hurt, go to jail and will look stupid," she said. The approach has worked in prisons and schools in the United States, Adler said, and mental health experts have found that people's attitudes and behavior do change. By combining what was learned from studying perpetrators of genocide during World War II and interviewing individuals in societies at risk of erupting into mass killings, scientists expect to find a health intervention that actually changes public attitudes, Adler said. Rwanda is struggling to reconcile its society, reconstruct its shattered economy and bring to justice those involved in the genocide organized by the extremist government of the Hutu majority then in power. The slaughter of minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus was triggered by the mysterious shooting down of the plane carrying Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana to Kigali on April 6, 1994. The genocide ended July 4 when Tutsi rebels led by now President Paul Kagame captured Kigali and formed a government made up of both Tutsis and Hutus. At least 120,000 Rwandans are imprisoned in Rwanda awaiting trial on charges connected with the genocide. Another 51 have been detained by a U.N. tribunal in neighboring Tanzania on charges of masterminding the mass killings. A U.N. peacekeeping force in Rwanda when the genocide began was withdrawn by the Security Council despite pleas from its Canadian commander. Council members, including the United States, refused to call the mass killings a genocide until several months later. Promoting tolerance and mobilizing international public opinion are good preventive measures against genocide, said Jerry Fowler of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. "(But) building a society based on the rule of law and respect for human rights for all without regard for group identity is the best and first measure toward preventing genocide," he said. In an effort to foster good relations and prevent the country's Hutu majority from feeling that they are marginalized, the Tutsi elite that wields considerable power in the government has appointed Hutus to key posts. The government has also set up the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission and is seeking to encourage all Rwandans to heal by speeding up trials of genocide suspects through a traditional community-based justice system known as "gacaca."

Somalia

AFP 12 Feb 2002 -- Heavy fighting claims 19 lives in southern Somalia MOGADISHU, Feb 12 (AFP) - At least 19 people were killed and 28 wounded in heavy inter-clan fighting Tuesday evening in the southern Somali town of Bardera in Gedo region, an eyewitness and faction sources told AFP. Eight of those killed were civilians, the witness said. The fighting, which continued into the night, engaged gunmen of the Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC) -- a coalition of opposition warlords -- and gunmen allied to the Mogadishu-based Transitional National Government (TNG), Adan Haji Hussein Barale, a prominent elder told AFP. A source in the SRRC, who confirmed the fighting, said SRRC men briefly occupied Bardera but were pushed back. At least seven houses were burnt by the fighting, Barale said. One heavily armed vehicle was destroyed inside Bardera. In Baidoa, the SRRC headquarters town 250 kilometers (155 miles) northeast of Bardera, the opposition exhorted residents to show their support. "Come and support the SRRC, let us fight the TNG, we shall give a lesson to the Mogadishu government," blared loudspeakers mounted on cars. SRRC spokesman Mohamed Aden Ali Qalinle, who described the fighting as "very heavy", said more gunmen would be sent to Bardera later in the evening.

AFP 15 Feb 2002 -- Somali peace talks set for April in Kenya NAIROBI, Feb 15 (AFP) - A national reconciliation conference aimed at creating a broad-based government for strife-torn Somalia will be held in Nairobi in April, regional foreign ministers said Friday. The conference, bringing together Somalia's Transitional National Goverment (TNG) and other factions will be convened "during second half of April", foreign ministers from members states of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) said after a meeting that ended late Thursday. Somalia last had a fully recognised national government in 1991, when the regime of president Mohammed Siad Barre collapsed. The country plunged into factional bloodletting as rebel leaders who had waged war against Barre turned on each other to battle for territory and resources. Thirteen previous reconciliation conferences have failed to restore stability to the Horn of Africa country. The ministers described the situation in Somalia as "grave" saying that terrorists and extremist groups had taken advantage of the anarchy. "The committee (of ministers) observed that the absence of a central authority over the last decade in Somalia had created a situation whereby terrorists and extremists groups operate freely in Somalia thereby threatening the national security of neighbouring countries," they said. US officials have repeatedly expressed concern over the presence in that country of groups or individuals believed to be linked to al-Qaeda, the terror network allegedly responsible the September 11 attacks in the United States. The TNG came into being in 2000 after lengthy inter-clan talks in Djibouti, but has so far failed to exert its authority beyond certain areas of the capital, Mogadishu. The leaders of most armed factions in the country oppose the TNG under an Ethiopian-sponsored umbrella group known as the Somali Restoration and Reconciliation Council. Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia, whose foreign minister Seyoum Mesfin attended Thursday's meeting, will form a technical committee of three "frontline states" which will prepare the details of the planned reconciliation conference. The committee's task will be to "draw up the terms of reference for the conference, determine the criteria for participation, decide on the number of participants and monitor and guide the peace process," the communique said. It will also prepare the budget for the peace process, but the responsibility of looking for the money was left to the IGAD secretariat and the council of ministers. The ministerial commitee appealed to the international community and humanitarian agencies to continue providing aid to Somalia. "In particular, it appealed for the active involvement of the United Nations in the national reconciliation process, in the rehabilitation and restoration of peace and stablity in Somalia". IGAD groups seven east African states -- Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and Somalia. The transport minister in Somalia's transitional government, Abdi Mohamed, attended the meeting's opening ceremony on Thursday, but his presence was not acknowledged in the final communique. Leaders of the armed oppostion have always demanded that TNG be treated like any other faction and not a sovereign authority in Mogadishu.

Reuters 18 Feb 2002 -- U.N. evacuates some staff as Somali clans fight MOGADISHU, Feb 18 (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Monday it had evacuated international staff from a southern Somali town as a precaution after fighting among rival factions reportedly killed 36 people. Witnesses said gunmen from both sides were killed in the second outbreak of fighting this month in Bardhere district of Gedo region 400 km (250 miles) west of Mogadishu between factions using heavy machineguns. The witnesses said 36 people were killed. In Nairobi, a U.N. spokesperson said the world body was temporarily evacuating foreign staff from Baidoa town to neighbouring Kenya as a security precaution but was keen that they return as soon as possible to work on drought relief. The fighting pitted a faction friendly with neighbouring Ethiopia known as the Somali Restoration and Reconciliation Council (SRRC) against the Juba Valley Alliance, aligned to Somalia's fledgling transitional national government (TNG). The witnesses said the fighters of the Juba Valley Alliance took control of the Bardhere district at the end of several hours of clashes that began shortly after dawn on Monday. Some witnesses said the Juba Valley Alliance militiamen were expected to try to advance on Baidoa in the next few days, where the SRRC has its headquarters and where workers on several U.N. humanitarian projects are based. Eight people were killed in an outbreak of fighting between the two groups in Bardhere on February 12. ``We have relocated international professionals out of Baidoa and they will be moving via (the northeastern Kenyan town of) Mandera to Nairobi. This action was prompted by information about clashes this morning,'' the U.N. spokesperson said. ``We are concerned about regaining access as soon as possible due to understandable concern about a deteriorating humanitarian situation caused by drought.'' The spokesperson declined to say how many staff were being moved. U.N. international staff remain at work in other parts of the south, as well as in the centre and north of the country. Various U.N. agencies have 100 international staff and 400 local staff to help 750,000 of the country's most needy people in the chaotic Horn of Africa country of seven million.

IRIN 26 Feb 2002 SOMALIA: At least 12 killed in Mogadishu fighting NAIROBI, 26 Feb 2002 (IRIN) - Fighting erupted in Mogadishu's southwest Medina district on Monday morning, leaving at least 12 people dead and an unknown number of others wounded, local sources told IRIN on Tuesday. The fighting broke out at 1000 local time (0700 GMT) when militia loyal to Mogadishu faction leader Muse Sudi Yalahow attacked supporters of Umar Mahmud Muhammad Finish, his former right-hand man and deputy, a local resident said. Both Yalahow and Finish belong to the Da'ud subclan of the Abgal clan. The fighting died down on Monday evening, but resumed on Tuesday "when Yalahow forces supported by troops of [faction leader] Husayn Aydid attacked our positions", Abdullahi Shaykh Hasan, a spokesman for Finish, told IRIN. The fighting started when Yalahow's forces tried to recapture the Jazira airstrip, which is currently controlled by troops loyal to Finish, Abdullahi said. Yalahow lost the airstrip last December. According to other sources, Finish's forces destroyed a "technical" (pick-up mounted with heavy weapons) belonging to Yalahow and captured an unarmed pick-up. The same sources said the death toll was likely to be higher than the figure being reported "because many civilians are being buried where they died". Yalahow is the leader of the United Somali Congress/Somali Salvation Alliance and a senior member of the Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC), a grouping of southern factions opposed to the Transitional National Government (TNG) of Somalia. Finish, on the other hand, joined the factions which signed a peace deal with the TNG in the Kenyan town of Nakuru last year - he is now a TNG ally. There is a reported lull in the fighting, but "no actual truce has been agreed", Abdullahi said.

South Africa

News 24 South Africa 7 Feb 2002 PAC: Charge Mbeki with genocide Cape Town - The Pan Africanist Congress wants President Thabo Mbeki charged with genocide for his government's "shameful" response to the threat of HIV and Aids. "Only the dim-witted and those consumed by misguided loyalty or ideology will fail to realise that South Africa, and Africa's greatest challenge is the HIV/Aids epidemic," PAC health secretary Costa Gazi said on Thursday. He said of the more than 36 million people that were living with HIV/Aids, 75% were in sub-Saharan Africa, and with 1 700 to 2 000 new infections daily, South Africa had the highest rate of infection. "The South African government's response to this epidemic is scandalous and shameful. "Rather than continue to stand on the sideline, and remain prisoners of hope, we intend as the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania to bring charges of genocide, alternatively culpable homicide, against the President and the government of South Africa," Gazi said. The President's office brushed aside Gazi's threat. PAC wants a water-tight case "He is talking the kind of nonsense that is not worth responding to," Mbeki's spokesperson Bheki Khumalo said. Gazi - the former head of public health at Cecilia Makiwane Hospital at Mdantsane, East London - said the party was still discussing plans, but were determined to follow through with the charges. "We are still formulating an approach, we want to be sure of which is the best way to take up the point." Asked when these charges would be put before South African courts, he said: "As soon as possible... but we know the courts are slow, and we know government will appeal, so we have to present a water-tight case." Gazi threatened a similar charge against then Health Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma in early 1999, but it never reached the courts. The department of health slapped a R1 000 fine on him for bringing Dlamini-Zuma into disrepute, by suggesting she be charged with manslaughter for refusing to provide pregnant women with AZT. Later that year, Gazi requested the SA Human Rights Commission take Mbeki and new Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang to court over the AZT issue. Cemeteries are getting full Gazi said on Thursday that instead of prioritising the life of its citizens, South Africans had witnessed an unforgivable display of inaction from those entrusted with leadership. "We have been treated to discredited and pseudo-intellectual debates by President Mbeki. "These have proved to be nothing more than a pot pouri of misrepresentations, denials, half-truths, distortions, misreading of text, all spiced with frightening intellectual dishonesty. "While the political/scientific furore continues, cemeteries are getting full as large numbers succumb to the epidemic," he said.

Sudan

AFP 13 Feb 2002 -- UN protests bombing of village after food drop KHARTOUM, Feb 13 (AFP) - The United Nations office in Khartoum has issued an official protest to the Sudanese government against the aerial bombing of a southern Sudanese village in which two children were reported killed, a UN source said Wednesday. "A (verbal) protest was delivered to the foreign ministry (Tuesday)," the source said without specifying further. The UN World Food Program (WFP) said earlier that it would protest the weekend bombing in Bahr el-Ghazal state during a raid by a government aircraft, just after it had dropped food onto the village of Akuem. Sudan's embassy in Washington said the Khartoum government so far had no confirmation of the bombing.

AFP 13 Feb 2002 -- Sudan expresses "profound regrets" for bombing KHARTOUM, Feb 13 (AFP) - The Sudanese government expressed its "profound regrets" on Wednesday for bombing a southern village and killing two children, blaming the air strike on a "technical error. " The foreign ministry pledged in a statement that there would be no repeat of last weekend's bombing, which happened while villagers had gathered to receive aid from UN World Food Program (WFP). The bombing sparked protests from both the UN agency and the United States. "The government expresses its profound regrets for this deplorable incident which was the result of a technical error and was not a premeditated act," the ministry said, without elaborating on the "technical error. " It said that the government "expects to take all necessary measures to prevent a repetition of such regrettable incidents. " The WFP had said the plane dropped six bombs on the village of Akuem in the southern state of Bahr al-Ghazal, killing two children and wounding a dozen people, just as people gathered for one of its food airdrops. The United States on Tuesday strongly condemned the bombing. "The United States is outraged by the government of Sudan's aerial strike against a civilian target in the south of the country," US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in a statement. "This horrific and senseless attack indicated that the pattern of deliberately targeting civilians and humanitarian operations continues. " The south of Sudan has depended for years on food aid, as millions of people suffer from drought and forced displacement caused by fighting between the Sudanese army, various militias, and rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), engaged in an 18-year civil war against the Khartoum regime. Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail said on a visit to Nairobi earlier in the day that Khartoum has made an unconditional ceasefire offer to the southern rebels. The ceasefire offer, which has already been communicated to the SPLA, would be unconditional, and international observers would be invited to monitor the truce, Ismail said.

IRIN 27 Feb 2002 SUDAN: Anti-torture group expresses concern at amputations NAIROBI, 27 Feb 2002 (IRIN) - The World Organisation Against Torture (OMTC) on Tuesday expressed its urgent concern that the government of Sudan appears to have resumed the punishment of amputation of limbs, "and that it is beginning systematically to execute sentences of amputation given in 2000 and 2001". It said in a statement that it had received information from one of its partner organisations, the Sudanese Victims of Torture Group (SVTG), that 46-year-old Anthony James Ladou Wani had had his right hand amputated on 24 January after his conviction on charges of stealing motor-vehicle spares. Wani was sentenced in May 2000 after a trial in which he had no legal representation, because he was unable to pay for it, and had been detained since in Kober prison, in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, according to the Swiss-based organisation. It was being alleged that Wani - a Christian member of the Kakwa tribe in southern Sudan - had not received a fair trial, that there had not been enough evidence to convict him, and that judicial procedures had not been followed properly, it added. The punishment of amputation "is against the Government of Sudan's international obligations, with regards to Article 5 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 7 of The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights", according to the OMTC. The use of amputation as a punishment was also prohibited under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which has been ratified by Sudan, it said. In its statement, the OMTC called on Khartoum to "immediately stop the inhuman practice of amputation" and to abolish the use of amputation - enshrined in the Sudanese Criminal Act 1991 - as a method of punishment. It also urged the Sudanese authorities to commute all sentences of amputation, ensure access to legal representation and guarantee a right of appeal for all individuals. Muhammad Ahmad Dirdiery, charge d'affaires at the Sudanese embassy in Nairobi, told IRIN on Wednesday that amputations were among the punishments set out under Shari'ah law, and which are practiced through out the Islamic world, not just in Sudan. "The punishments are part of our religion. Amputation as a punishment occurs throughout the Islamic world, so why single out Sudan?" he asked. International human rights conventions to which Sudan is a signatory do not prohibit the Islamic interpretation of human rights, according to Dirdiery. "Because we are part of those conventions does not means we are denied our right to practice Shari'ah. There is a cross-cultural interpretation of human rights, and the Euro-northern hegemony of culture is not our interpretation," he said. He added, however, that such punishments were rare, and said they had only taken place twice since President Umar Hasan al-Bashir came to power in 1989. The OMTC statement on amputations came just days after another alert, on 19 February, in which it followed other rights groups in expressing concern for the pregnant, 18 year-old Abok Alfa Akok, who had reportedly received 75 lashes after sentencing by the criminal court in Nyala, Southern Darfur State, on 12 February. The court had originally sentenced Akok to death by stoning for allegedly being pregnant out of wedlock, but an appeals court overturned that and sent the case back to the lower court for fresh sentencing, Reuters news agency reported on 10 February. The original ruling was made in line with Shari'ah [Islamic] law, even though Akok - a member of Sudan's Dinka tribe, the largest ethnic group in the south - was Christian, according to Reuters. The US-based Human Rights Watch expressed its deep concern on 1 February, including in a letter to Sudanese President Umar Hasan al-Bashir, about "barbaric punishments" in Sudan. It specified Akok's sentence of death by stoning and the use of amputations as a punishment. [see http://www.hrw.org/africa/sudan.php] Sudan is committed to respecting the human rights of everyone under its jurisdiction and believes that this goal is compatible with the country's Islamic and African traditions, according to the Advisory Council on Human Rights of the Government of Sudan. It says it accepts information from any individual, nongovernmental organisation or governmental organisation considered relevant to improving human rights in Sudan, and invites such people or groups to bring alleged violations of human rights to its attention so that it can try to take action to end or prevent them. [see http://dcregistry.com/homepages/suahrc.html]

Tanzania

Reuters 5 Feb 2002 Rwanda Genocide Witness 'Walked Over 60 Bodies' ARUSHA, Tanzania - A witness at the U.N. tribunal for Rwanda described Tuesday how she walked over 60 bodies to escape militiamen during the 1994 genocide, the Internews agency reported. The prosecution witness, identified as GAG to protect her identity, described one attack in which Hutu militia separated women from other victims to rape them before killing them. ``We're going to rape you and taste Tutsi women,'' she said she heard the militiamen say. The witness was testifying at the trial of a former Rwandan minister charged with involvement in the genocide in which ethnic Hutu extremists slaughtered an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates. Former Higher Education Minister Jean de Dieu Kamuhanda, 48, has pleaded not guilty to nine counts including genocide, crimes against humanity and rape. GAG, who lost two of her seven children during the massacres, said she had been forced to pick her away over corpses strewn around a house owned by a pastor named Nkuranga, hoping he would protect her. She said the pastor had chased her and other refugees from the compound to be killed on Kamuhanda's orders. ``The God of Tutsi has abandoned you,'' she quoted the pastor as saying. GAG, who was left for dead during one attack, said she hid in a forest for 11 days before she was rescued by the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front that seized power after the April-July genocide. ``I was unconscious...I drank rain water to come to my feet...I was two months pregnant,'' she said. Kamuhanda was arrested in November 1999 in central France where he had been staying since March 1998. The trial continues.

BBC 6 Feb 2002 Rwanda priest leaves Italy for tribunal Father Seromba was based in Florence from 1997 A Rwandan Catholic priest has left Italy to face genocide charges at the war crimes tribunal in Tanzania, officials have said. Father Athanase Seromba has been sheltering in the diocese of Florence since 1997 despite calls for him to be handed over. "Father Athanase, who has always affirmed his innocence, wanted to go to the tribunal with the intention of demonstrating his innocence before the law," the diocese said. It said that Interpol officers would escort him to the tribunal building for his own safety. Massacre allegations According to the London-based human rights organisation African Rights, Father Seromba - who is a Hutu - is responsible for a notorious massacre at his church in Nyange in 1994. Survivors claim that the priest helped to herd people into his church before ordering the building to be bulldozed to the ground. The group says Father Seromba left behind mass graves filled with more than 2,000 bodies. Father Seromba was moved to Italy soon afterwards to study.

AFP 9 Feb 2002 ARUSHA, Tanzania: A Rwandan Roman Catholic priest held responsible for more than 2,000 deaths on Friday pleaded not guilty before a UN tribunal sitting in Tanzania to charges arising out of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. "Father Athanase Seromba, former Catholic priest at Nyange parish, Kibuye prefecture... pleaded not guilty to four counts charging him with genocide, or... complicity in genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and crimes against humanity for extermination," according to a statement released by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Seromba gave himself up to the tribunal on Wednesday, after flying into Tanzania from Italy. The 38-year-old priest has been living in the diocese of Florence since 1997 despite repeated calls by the ICTR's top prosecutor Carla del Ponte for Italy to hand him over. According to his indictment, Seromba "planned and organised (the) extermination of thousands of Tutsi (who) fled their homes in and around Kivumu commune and sought refuge at the Nyange parish to escape the attacks against them, which began on 6 April 1994. Over the 100 days that followed, between half a million and one million Rwandans were killed, most of them from the Tutsi minority, but also many Hutus opposed to the orchestrated slaughter. On the priest's orders, according to the charge sheet, the extremist militias who carried out the genocide "attacked with traditional arms and poured fuel through the roof of the church, while gendarmes and communal police launched grenades and killed the refugees." "The church was then bulldozed and its roof collapsed, killing more than 2,000 Tutsi refugees gathered inside," said the ICTR statement.

Internews (Arusha) 26 Feb 2002 "Hate' Radio Revived Killings in Kigali, Witness Tells Judges Mary Kimani Arusha The interim government in Rwanda had stopped massacres in Kigali by 9 April 1994 but the Radio Television Libre Des Mille Collines (RTLM) re-ignited the killings, a witness testifying for the prosecution in the so-called "Media Trial" today told judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). The prosecution alleges that RTLM was set up as a "hate" media and used to broadcast messages that incited ethnic Hutu to kill ethnic Tutsi during the April-June 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The prosecution witness -- identified only as "X" -- said he was a member of a pacification team sent round by the interim government to ask civilians and militiamen to stop violence. Violence erupted in Rwanda following the death of President Juvenal Habyarimana. Unknown assailants shot down Habyarimana's plane as it approached the capital Kigali on 6 April 1994, killing all on board. "The killings had stopped," X told the court. He alleged that Joseph Nzirorera, then secretary-general of the Movement of the Republic for National Development (MRND) party, told him bodies of those who had been killed would have to be removed and buried in a mass grave in Nyamirambo (a suburb of Kigali) because "members of the international community had began to arrive." According to the witness, killings resumed after a news item broadcast on RTLM stating that Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) soldiers were burning ethnic Hutu in the Kivugiza suburb of Kigali. However, X could not verify whether the news item was false or not. He maintains that RPF continued to deploy its soldiers despite a government announcement imposing a curfew on the city. The witness concluded his weeklong testimony against Ferdinand Nahimana, Jean Bosco Barayagwiza and Hassan Ngeze, the "Media Trial" defendants who are charged with using the media to incite ethnic hatred and massacres in Rwanda between April and June 1994. Nahimana and Barayagwiza were RTLM founding members while Ngeze is a former owner and editor of an alleged Hutu extremist newspaper 'Kangura.' All three have denied the charges. Witness X, who was granted special protection measures, has been testifying via satellite link from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague, Netherlands. He is a former senior member of the MRND militia wing, the 'Interahamwe,' and has been a prosecution informant since 1996. Under the special protection measures, X has received a new identity, and will soon receive new traveling documents. The prosecution, led by Steven Rapp of the United States, is expected to call Georges Ruggiu, a former RTLM journalist upon the completion of X's testimony. Ruggiu pleaded guilty to persecution and incitement to genocide in May 2000 and was sentenced to 12 years in prison in June 2000. The Media Trial is held before Trial Chamber I of the ICTR, comprising Judges Navanethem Pillay of South Africa (presiding), Erik Mose of Norway and Asoka De Zoysa Gunawardana of Sri Lanka.

Uganda

IRIN 28 Feb 2002 UGANDA: Army rescues 80 LRA abductees NAIROBI, An estimated 700 Ugandan soldiers rescued some 80 civilians who were captured by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in a weekend attack on a market in northern Uganda, according to a Ugandan army official. "The UPDF [Uganda People's Defence Force] pursued the rebels 10 or 20 kilometres inside the Sudan, freed 80 civilians, and have now returned to Uganda," the army spokesman, Maj Shaban Bantariza, told IRIN on Thursday. About 300 LRA rebels on Saturday 23 February attacked a local defence unit detachment in the Agoro Market area of Lamwo County, Kitgum District, and kidnapped around 100 people - mostly men between 15 and 25 years of age. Four people, two civilians and two soldiers, were reportedly killed in the attack. Bantariza confirmed reports that the LRA leader, Joseph Kony, had been involved in the incident, and claimed Kony's presence indicated the rebel group was now in desperate need of reinforcements. "The whole of last year they were not able to make any incursions into the north and have become desperate. The weekend incident was a kind of suicide attack," Bantariza said. The US in December included the LRA - as well as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) operating in western and southwestern Uganda - on its "Terrorist Exclusion List" under the US Patriot Act. "They are now on the terrorist list. They know the United States, Sudan, and everyone else is against them," Bantariza said. Kony has led the LRA in its guerrilla-style war against Ugandan government forces and the civilian population of northern Uganda since the late 1980s. Operating from bases in southern Sudan, and supported until recently by Sudan, it has waged a campaign of terror - brutalising, killing, and looting, destroying homes, and abducting people, particularly children, to act as fighters, sex slaves and porters for looted goods. However, it has become increasingly isolated in recent months, following the improvement of Ugandan-Sudanese diplomatic relations, as well as the Sudanese government's announcement last year that it had ended its support for the rebel group. According to Bantariza, the Ugandan army has been cooperating with Sudanese authorities to facilitate the pursuit of LRA rebels inside Sudan following incidents such as the one at the Agoro Market. "We are in contact with Sudan. We are cooperating with Sudan," he said.

IRIN 28 Feb 2002 ZIMBABWE: More political unrest reported Morgan Tsvangirai - court action over alleged television "smear" JOHANNESBURG, 28 Feb 2002 (IRIN) - Zimbabwean police arrested 31 members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in Harare on Thursday, and nine people were injured in the melee, the opposition party said. "Four truckloads with an unspecified number of police officers descended on the premises and started beating up people at random, while others surrounded the building where about 500 MDC supporters were undergoing polling agent training," the MDC said in a statement. The MDC said the 31 officials from the party's Harare provincial office were picked up as the police judged the meeting an illegal gathering under the terms of Zimbabwe's new public order law. The police were not available for comment, and international election observers could not at the time confirm the incident. Meanwhile, the MDC has begun legal action in Australia over the broadcasting of a secretly filmed videotape that appeared to show party leader Morgan Tsvangirai discussing the elimination of President Robert Mugabe. The MDC has described the film as "malicious propaganda" and an attempt to smear Tsvangirai before the 9-10 March presidential election. Zimbabwe's Vice President Joseph Msika on Thursday denied the government had charged Tsvangirai with treason over the alleged plot to kill Mugabe. "No treason charge has been levelled against him by the government, but by the press," Msika said after meeting with South Africa's Deputy President Jacob Zuma, news reports said. However, MDC spokesman Learnmore Jongwe insisted Tsvangirai had been charged with treason, when he was warned and cautioned by the police on Monday. He told IRIN that the government's denial was related to this weekend's Commonwealth heads of state meeting in Australia, and Harare's alleged desire to improved its international image. Zuma arrived in Zimbabwe for talks with Mugabe and to check conditions for a free and fair election, a statement said. He did not meet with the MDC "because it was a government-to-government visit", a spokesperson told IRIN. Based on the responses he had received from the authorities, Zuma was "confident" that legitimate polls could be held. In a related development, Zimbabwe's Supreme Court rejected revised electoral laws on Wednesday, which news reports said dealt a blow to the government. In a second setback, a High Court judge also delayed the implementation of recently passed citizenship rules that had disqualified tens of thousands of voters. The Supreme Court cancelled the General Laws Amendment Act that had given state election officers sweeping powers and contained restrictions on vote monitoring, identity requirements for voters, campaigning and voter education. Because the act was struck down by a majority in the Supreme Court, the government cannot appeal against the judgment. However, Mugabe could use his presidential powers to override the Supreme Court, as he has done in the past.

Zimbabwe, See 2002 News Monitor for Zimbawe: (News From 2001)

Americas

Bolivia

ICRC 7 Feb 2002 ICRC News 02/06 . Bolivia: ICRC team sent to Cochabamba following upsurge in violence The Bolivian government's campaign to eradicate by force the cultivation of coca leaves in the Chapare region of Cochabamba has met with resistance on the part of local farmers, leading to an upsurge in violence in recent weeks. In mid-January, clashes between farmers and security forces claimed several lives and left many injured. The authorities detained a large number of people accused of having been involved in the violence. A team from the ICRC regional delegation in Buenos Aires was sent to the region, where they carried out a survey of humanitarian needs from 28 to 31 January. In accordance with the ICRC's mandate, and on the basis of a permanent agreement between the organization and the Bolivian authorities, ICRC delegates visited 54 detainees, including six women. After assessing the living conditions in the various centres where they were being held, the delegates provided the detainees with material assistance. The delegates also met with local authorities, including the Governor of Cochabamba and the Director of the National Police. They spoke with leaders of farmers' groups in the region and with the President of the coca growers' unions, who was on hunger strike to protest his recent expulsion from the Chamber of Deputies. During the talks, the delegates stressed the ICRC's concern about the effects in humanitarian terms of the recent events. They underscored the need to ensure full respect for the principles of humanity applicable in such situations, especially those governing the use of force to maintain law and order, the treatment to which detainees are entitled and the respect due to the wounded and to clearly marked medical vehicles. The delegates also visited the local branch of the Bolivian Red Cross and its team of relief workers, who have brought assistance during demonstrations and skirmishes between farmers' groups and security forces.

Canada

Reuters 5 Feb 2002 Canadian forces not taking care of their own, according to report TORONTO (Reuters) - The Canadian military is not looking after some of its severely stressed soldiers within its ranks, much to the detriment of those who have witnessed genocidal slaughter in countries such as Rwanda, Canada's chief military watchdog said in a report released Tuesday. The report found that a macho mentality within the Canadian forces has discouraged some from seeking medical help for their problem, known as a post-traumatic stress disorder. "The situation will soon reach a critical point," said Andre Marin, the Canadian Forces ombudsman. "People have to realize this is a problem. Everything is not rosy." Marin's report comes as Canada begins sending 750 soldiers to Afghanistan to aid the U.S.-led coalition. Canada has also been active in a number of hotspots around the globe in a peacekeeping role, including in Africa and in the Balkans. The disorder is a psychological injury caused by the reaction of the brain to a very severe psychological stress, such as when one's life is endangered. "It's basically a problem of machoism within the forces," Marin said. "They are treated as though they are weak, as though they can't meet the demands put on them." In the report, Marin recommended the appointment of an official who would report directly to the chief of defense staff on progress in treating the disorder. "We think a coordinator is key, because a coordinator can bring all of this together," Marin said. "I expect all recommendations to be implemented." Marin said the military doesn't know how many of its soldiers suffer from the disorder and the report also recommends a databank to list soldiers afflicted by the disorder. Marin encouraged soldiers to get clinical treatment outside their bases, so as to avoid the stigma attached to suffers of the disorder. Some of those clinical treatments include medication and exposure therapy, which teaches sufferers to respond to traumatic imagery with neutral thoughts. In his report, Marin said the clinical procedures are largely successful but most important is identifying and treating those affected. The study was spurred by a complaint from a former corporal who had served in Rwanda and Croatia as a peacekeeper. The soldier, Christian McEachern, claimed he received inadequate treatment for the disorder. "We need to affect a cultural change to eliminate the stigma associated with PTSD, or any type of mental injury," said Defense Minister Art Eggleton in response to the report. "Failure to respect and properly treat our members who are suffering from these illnesses will not be tolerated."

Colombia

AP 5 Feb 2002 Groups: U.S. Should Withhold Aid WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States should withhold anti-drug aid to Colombia's military because it has failed to meet human rights conditions set by Congress, three leading rights groups said Tuesday. The criticism came a day after President Bush proposed expanding military aid to Colombia to help the country protect a major oil pipeline from guerrilla attacks. Military assistance to Colombia has been limited to the drug fight. ``In 2001, political violence increased, the massacre of civilians more than doubled in frequency, attacks on human rights defenders and trade unionists remained among the highest in the region and the perpetrators of human rights abuses continued to escape accountability,'' Alexandra Arriaga of Amnesty International said at a news conference. The State Department said it is looking into the activists' concerns and expects to decide within weeks whether Colombia has met the conditions for receiving aid. It said both the U.S. and Colombian governments have made human rights a high priority. There was no immediate comment from the Colombian government. Colombia is the main beneficiary of a $625 million package approved by Congress last year for military, police and social programs to fight drugs in the Andean region. About $100 million of the aid is military assistance for Colombia, according to the State Department. The package is a follow-up to Plan Colombia, the $1.3 billion program that provided helicopters and training to Colombian counternarcotics battalions. In both packages, Congress set human rights standards that Colombia would have to meet to receive military aid. Colombia did not meet some of the conditions under Plan Colombia, but President Clinton used a national security waiver to allow the aid to go through. In this year's package, the standards are less stringent, but the Bush administration wasn't given the option of a waiver. ``The administration is caught between a rock and a hard place, between being honest and disrupting the aid flow or misrepresenting the facts in order to keep the aid spigot open,'' Coletta Youngers of the Washington Office on Latin America said at a news conference. This year's conditions require the State Department to certify that Colombia is suspending soldiers linked to paramilitaries or rights abuses, is prosecuting those soldiers in civilian courts and is taking steps to sever all links with paramilitaries. None of the conditions has been met, said the report by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the Washington Office on Latin America. ``Certain military units and police detachments continued to work with, support, profit from and tolerate paramilitary groups, treating them as a force allied to and compatible with their own,'' it said. Paramilitaries are blamed for most of the massacres in Colombia. The State Department has listed the main paramilitary group as a terrorist organization. Rights groups met with State Department officials Friday, a meeting required by Congress under its conditions for aid. Charles Barclay, a State Department spokesman, said Colombia shares human rights concerns with the United States, noting that President Andres Pastrana and military leaders have condemned links between paramilitaries and Colombian security forces. ``The military has in fact dismissed personnel suspected of collusion with the paramilitaries,'' he said. ``The government is working to subject military personnel suspected of human rights violations to trials in civilian courts.'' If Colombia is certified as meeting the rights standards, it could receive up to 60 percent of the military aid allotted to it under the Andean package. The remaining aid would be subjected to another examination of human rights in June. On the Net: Human Rights Watch: www.hrw.org State Department: www.state.gov

AFP 10 Feb 2002 -- Weekend violence in Colombia leaves 22 dead BOGOTA, Feb 10 (AFP) - Violence left 22 dead around Colombia over the weekend, while rebel bomb attacks caused severe damage, Colombian authorities said Sunday. Five men died Saturday when armed assailants opened fire indiscriminately on a bar in the outskirts of Cali, according to the authorities. In another incident outside Cali, a rebel from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) died in fighting with army troops. And a civilian and a FARC rebel died Saturday when rebels attempted to launch an incursion on the town of Barbacoas, according to a military spokesman. Two civilians were killed and two others were kidnapped Sunday in a rebel attack on Salgar in northwest Colombia, police said. A FARC guerrilla was killed and two others were injured when a truck exploded as it was carrying four cylinder bombs intended to blow up an army training center outside Bogota. The 13th Brigade said the explosion occurred when soldiers discovered the vehicle and rebels sought to set off the explosives, causing one of the bombs to blow up, killing the truck's driver. Two rebels fled. Three more FARC rebels died in fighting with military at Acacias, army sources said. Nation