Africa

Burundi

IRIN 31 Oct 2002 UN humanitarian office launches new website NAIROBI The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Burundi launched a new bilingual website on Thursday, thereby facilitating a daily exchange of information on the humanitarian situation in the country. "This new website bridges the information gap between humanitarian partners in Burundi and external parties worldwide," Nicholas McGowan, the OCHA-Burundi information officer, told IRIN on Thursday. "Our objective is to provide a user-friendly (French and English) interface where accurate information can be accessed with ease. It is a vital tool for anyone who is interested [in] or observes Burundi and the Great Lakes Region," he added. The site features daily news briefs; weekly situation reports; monthly humanitarian situation updates; minutes of the weekly Contact Group Meeting; the 2002 Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal for Burundi; and the latest news on Burundi published by OCHA's Reliefweb and the Integrated Regional Information Networks, known as IRIN. The site is a Reliefweb and OCHA-Burundi initiative, building upon the earlier success of the Occupied Palestinian Territories website launched early this year. The site can be accessed at: www.ochaburundi.org

AFP 4 Nov 2002 - Grenade blasts in Burundi capital, opposition youths blamed BUJUMBURA, Nov 4 (AFP) - Young supporters of a Tutsi opposition party in Burundi let off grenades and tried to erect barricades in several areas of the capital Monday morning, the city's mayor told AFP. "They were youths, supporters of PARENA (National Recovery Party) who let off the grenades. They also tried to erect barricades but security forces intervened to restore order," said Mayor Potien Niyongabo. "They wanted to organise a dead-city protest. The party has been using these people since PARENA's chairman was summoned (before the chief prosecutor) and since four of its leaders who wanted to change the government by force were arrested," added Niyongabo. Five grenades went off in three different areas of the capital on Monday, the first exploding at about 6:20 am (0420 GMT), according to an AFP journalist in the city. Hundreds of police, some in riot gear, were deployed around Bujumbura and along its main roads. "We have been following them since Saturday. They wanted to close the shops, the banks and schools, but the security forces were vigilant. "We knew what was planned for Monday morning and so we were prepared," said Niyongabo. The head of PARENA, former president Jean-Baptiste Bagaza, who is accused of threatening the security of the state, was forced to appear Saturday before the state prosescutor. He was taken home after being questioned for three hours. Bagaza, a former army colonel, came to power in a 1976 coup. We was ousted in 1987 by Major Pierre Buyoya, who lost the country's first democratic election in 1993 but forced his way back to power in a 1996 bloodless coup.

IRIN 4 Nov 2002 Rebels step up war despite progress at ceasefire talks BUJUMBURA, 4 November (IRIN) - Burundian rebels have launched several fresh attacks against government forces despite progress at ceasefire talks between the two sides, being held in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam. Units of Burundi's main rebel group, the Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Force pour la defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD), lobbed 13 mortar bombs into Burundi's second-largest city, Gitega, on Sunday. "One shell fell near the school for the blind at Mushasha, another fell near the girls' secondary school, ENF, but it seemed many were directed at the Bragita brewery," a Gitega resident told IRIN on Sunday. "Thank God, no one was killed or wounded." Burundi's Net Press reported that the town's electricity supply was interrupted during the attack after a high-voltage line was hit. Elsewhere on Sunday, government troops killed 51 rebels heading for Zina, in the northwestern province of Bubanza, the army spokesman, Col Augustine Mzabampema, said. He made no mention of government losses or of the identity of the rebels. But the administrator of Buganda Commune, Emmanuel Bigirimana, said, "[There] were more than a thousand rebels, mostly Rwandan [Hutu] Interahamwe [militias]." He said thousands of people fled their homes. On Saturday, in the nation's capital, Bujumbura, the hardline rebel Parti de liberation du peuple hutu-Forces nationales de liberation attacked the western suburb of Buterere, killing two people and wounding 10 others, Mayor Pontien Niyongabo said. "They took all the medicines in the Buterere health centre," he added. Meanwhile, Radio Burundi reported that at the talks in Tanzania, "the technical teams [of the CNDD-FDD and the government] are working in perfect cooperation on the ceasefire preamble".

AFP 5 Nov 2002 Over 70,000 Burundians flee fighting between government and rebels BUJUMBURA, Nov 5 (AFP) - More than 70,000 people have fled their homes in central Burundi to escape fighting between the army and forces from one of two main rebel groups, local officials said on Tuesday. Fighting broke out last Friday between the Tutsi-dominated army and fighters from the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), on the same day that the government began talks with Hutu rebels on a possible peace accord. Nearly all of the estimated 45,000 inhabitants of Bugendana have fled and regrouped outside the town, according to Tharcisse Ntibarirarana, governor of the surrounding Gitega province. "Since this morning it's been fairly calm, whereas yesterday there were clashes between the army and rebels all afternoon," the governor said on Tuesday. No civilians had been killed, the governor said. "People got the message and fled as soon as the rebels arrived in the area." Sylvain Nzigamiye, the governor of neighbouring Muranvya province, said the 26,000 residents of Rutegama left the town on Tuesday morning as rebels arrived to find "large numbers" of government troops waiting for them. Army spokesman Augustin Nzabampema confirmed that the clashes had taken place but gave no information on their outcome or casualties. The rebels are understood to be on the retreat, heading for the FDD's Kibira forest stronghold in the country's centre west. Fifty-one rebels and 10 civilians were reported killed in the northern province of Cibitoke in clashes with the army last Saturday. Peace talks between the government and FDD in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, have made no progress after three days, a member of the Burundi delegation said on Tuesday. "We're still on the introduction to the ceasefire plan," the government delegate said on condition of anonymity. "We have not been able to agree on the first two articles." Burundi's second largest rebel group, the National Liberation Forces (FNL), has so far refused to join the talks. Inter-ethnic clashes descended into a full civil war following the 1993 assassination of Burundi's elected Hutu president, Melchior Ndadaye. The war has claimed the lives of more than 250,000 people, most of them civilians.

AFP 7 Nov 2002 Official killed by rebels in Burundi capital: witnesses BUJUMBURA, Nov 7 (AFP) - A local government official has been killed by Hutu rebels in the Burundian capital, witnesses to the slaying said Thursday. Emmanuel Ndereyimana, an administrator in the mainly Hutu neighbourhood of Ruziba, in the south of Bujumbura, was killed Wednesday by three rebels from the National Liberation Forces (FNL), according to the witnesses. Ndereyimana was riding a bicycle in Ruziba at around 6:00 pm (1600 GMT) when the rebels, who have accused him of collaborating with the predominantly Tutsi army and to have killed civilians who back the FNL, shot him. "The neighbourhood leader was killed by rebels, but he never had civilians killed," Ndereyimana's immediate boss, Jacques Bigirimana, said. Ndereyimana is the fourth official to have been killed by suspected FNL rebels since October in Bujumbura's outlying neighbourhoods.

AFP 12 Nov 2002 Burundi rebels threaten to attack the capital BUJUMBURA, Nov 12 (AFP) - Rebels of Burundi's main armed Hutu movement, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), said the army had attacked them on Tuesday morning and threatened reprisal raids on the capital Bujumbura. "We call on the population living near the military camps in the Bujumbura area to leave them as fast as possible, because we are going to attack these camps," FDD spokesman Lieutenant Gelase Daniel Ndabirabe told AFP. Ndabirabe charged that troops of the Tutsi-dominated army had launched an assault against the FDD on two fronts, in the central Muramvya province and in Kayanza province in the north. "Military planes are taking off from Bujumbura and dropping bombs on Bukeye and Teza (in the centre) and Muruta and Matongo (in the north), in support of several infantry battalions," Ndabirabe said by telephone. No confirmation of the rebel claim could be had from military or administrative sources. Burundi's President Pierre Buyoya on November 8 blamed FDD leader Pierre Nkurunziza for deadlock at a latest round of peace talks which had just ended in Tanzania, across the border from the central African country. But Nkurunziza accused Buyoya of delaying the discussions, mediated by South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma in a bid to reach a negotiated settlement in a conflict which has claimed at least 250,000 lives. The rebel military spokesman said that because government aircraft were coming from "Bujumbura, it is our duty to defend ourselves by attacking the departure point of the offensive -- Bujumbura." "We can strike at any moment, this isn't for the fun of it. If Buyoya doesn't halt this offensive, we'll react," Ndabirabe said. "Last time, we stopped shelling for humanitarian reasons, but this time, it'll be a major attack," he added. Late in July, five civilians were killed and 10 injured by rebel mortar fire on the capital.

AFP 18 Nov 2002 Grenade blasts wound 15 pupils in Burundi school BUJUMBURA, Nov 18 (AFP) - Fifteen schoolchildren were injured overnight when two grenades exploded close to a dormitory in southern Burundi, a local official said Monday. The first grenade at the Bururi Lycee went off at 1:00 am (1100 GMT Sunday) followed by another explosion fifteen minutes later, Bururi Provincial governor Anicet Niyongabo told AFP by phone. "Pupils ran out of their rooms prompting a stampede. Some preferred to jump from the first floor windows," he said. "About 15 pupils, including three who are seriously wounded are in hospital. Two were wounded by the grenade blasts while the others were hurt when they jumped out the windows or were trampled on in the crush," said Niyongabo. "There was tension of an ethnic nature among the students. Some even fled the school before the explosions," he said. He added that these students were both Tutis and Hutus. The two ethnic groups are on opposite sides of a long-running civil war between Hutu rebels and the Tutsi dominated army.

AFP 14 Nov 2002 - Fighting in Burundi undermines refugees repatriation: UNHCR DAR ES SALAAM, Nov 14 (AFP) - The number of Burundian refugees returning home from camps in northwest Tanzania has dropped dramatically following a recent upsurge in fighting in the central African country, the UN refugee agency said Thursday. "We have the capacity of helping up to 1,500 refugees return home every week by sending two convoys, but in the last eight weeks, the exercise slowed down to as low as 70 a week," UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokeswoman Ivana Unluova told AFP. Unluova said, however, that the numbers of those repatriated started picking up again last week, when up to 691 refugees returned to Muyinga in Burundi. The UNHCR official said some 27,000 refugees out of about 100,000 who have volunteered to return to Burundi have been given assistance to go home since April. Tanzania hosts about 400,000 Burundi refugees in camps located in the northwestern regions of Kigoma and Kagera. Unluova also said more refugees were still arriving in western Tanzanian regions to escape continued fighting in Burundi, pointing out that an influx of 17,000 refugees from Burundi had entered Tanzania in October. "That was the biggest influx into Tanzania, but we understand there are many more people who are internally displaced due to the current situation in Burundi ... some of these people cannot get over the border," she said. "It is possible that armed rebel groups and the Burundi army have blocked them from fleeing into Tanzania," Unluova added. The war in Burundi has claimed more than 250,000 mostly civilian lives since 1993.

IRIN 20 Nov 2002 Main rebel group fails to show for ceasefire talks BUJUMBURA, 20 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - A new round of ceasefire talks to end Burundi’s nine-year old civil war failed to get underway on Tuesday, as rebels of the Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces pour la defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD) said they did not get the invitation to attend. "We have not received the invitation. And even if we would receive it today, it would take days for us to report to Dar es Salaam," Gelase Ndabirabe, spokesman of the CNDD-FDD, told IRIN. He said the CNDD-FDD had asked the South Africans facilitating the talks to send the invitation "at least two weeks before" the start of the meeting. "The invitation must also clearly state whether we are going to discuss or to negotiate because if it was to discuss we would not go," Gelase said. However, the Burundi government’s chief negotiator at the talks, Ambroise Niyonsaba, told IRIN that a member of the South African facilitation present in Dar es Salaam - the Tanzanian venue of the talks - told him that they had sent the invitation to the CNDD-FDD. "We are waiting for clarification, and if there is no chance to meet the other side, we will return to Bujumbura," Niyonsaba added. Before leaving for Dar es Salaam on Sunday, he had told IRIN that his team hoped that a ceasefire agreement would be reached before 25 November, when regional heads of state are due to meet again on the Burundi situation. On 12 November, the chairman of the regional initiative for peace in Burundi, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, gave the warring sides in Burundi another two weeks to reach a ceasefire agreement with the transitional government in Bujumbura. A previous deadline of 30 days expired on 7 November.

IRIN 20 Nov 2002 Rebels shelling densely populated areas of Bujumbura NAIROBI, 22 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - Burundi rebels started shelling a densely populated suburbs of the Burundi capital, Bujumbura, on Friday, putting panic-stricken residents to flight, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported. "There is widespread confusion," Antoine Gerard, head of OCHA-Burundi, told IRIN. He said the neighbourhoods of Kiriri, Kamenge, and Mutanga were being hit the hardest, with shells falling in the vicinity of King Khaled Hospital in Kamenge. "OCHA is very concerned for the victims of these attacks, and given the level of insecurity, neither UN agencies nor NGOs can reach these populations," he said. He said that the city centre had, so far, remained untouched. OCHA also reported that heavy fighting between rebels and government forces was ongoing near Kibira Forest, in Mpanda Commune of Bubanza Province, causing an estimated 10,000 civilians to flee. Meanwhile, Radio Publique Africaine reported that shells landed near the Munarira centre in Rutegama commune, Muramvya Province, where those wounded by earlier fighting had sought shelter. The total number of people dead or wounded remains unknown. Efforts at reaching a ceasefire in Burundi were ongoing in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

AFP 21 Nov 2002 Alarm as 40,000 flee Burundi fighting MUSENYI, Burundi, Nov 21 (AFP) - Fighting in an area near Burundi's capital has prompted almost 40,000 civilians, mostly women and children, to flee their homes, a local government official told AFP on Thursday, warning they were in dire need of food and shelter. Earlier reports put the number of those displaced at around 10,000. "Nearly 40,000 people have fled very heavy fighting that has raged in Butakuna since Saturday, Fidele Niyonkuru, and advisor to the mayor told AFP. Butakuna is in Mpanda commune, some 24 kilometres (12 miles) north of Bumumbura. The fighting pits Hutu rebels against the Tutsi-dominated army. "They are now holed up in Musenyi (the main town in Mpanda) and in Nyambare," Niyonkuru said. An AFP reporter in Musenyi saw thousands of people camped outdoors. Most had fled their homes on Saturday, when fighting broke out. On Thursday clashes were still going on in the village of Masha, a stronghold of the Forces for the Defence of Democracy rebels. Witnesses said they had seen dozens of trucks carrying soldiers and heavy weapons to the front every day since the weekend. "If this goes on for two or three more days, there could be a catastrophe because people have nothing to eat and we have nothing to give them," said Niyonkuru, who called for urgent help from aid agencies. Efforts to reach a negotiated settlement to Burundi's civil war, which has killed more than 300,000 since 1993, have not yet been successful.

Boston Globe 24 Nov 2002 Violence grows, hope fades in Burundi Ethnic conflict now seen as fight for power, wealth By Declan Walsh, BUJUMBURA, Burundi - On a hillside above this capital city, neat rows of red roses thrive in the warm African air. The buds remain closed until shipment to Europe, where romantics will give them as tokens of affection. But in Burundi, similar flowers of love grow in an environment of hate. Thierry Nzohabonayo's rose farm is caught in the crossfire of his country's civil war. In the green hills that rise above his property are the ethnic Hutu rebels, who sparked the war nine years ago. They press their advantage by attacking the city below, where the Tutsi-led government's army holds sway. The conflict is low intensity but relentless. At night, the city air is filled with the crackle of gunfire or the thump of mortar fire. ''I never know if the farm will still be there when I get to work in the morning,'' said the 29-year-old entrepreneur. In recent weeks, as political talks have stalled, the tempo of violence has increased. A two-hour blitz of rebel mortar fire Friday resulted in four civilian deaths and forced 20,000 people from their homes. Workers at Nzohabonayo's rose farm dropped their tools and ran. It was a prudent move. In previous attacks, stray bullets whizzed through the compound and a stray bomb destroyed a plastic shed. ''My friends tell me I'm crazy to continue. But what can I do?'' Nzohabonayo said. But when he started the business a year ago, he said, it didn't seem like such a bad idea. Under the guiding hand of former South African president Nelson Mandela, Hutu and Tutsi politicians hammered out a deal to end the conflict, which has claimed at least 200,000 lives, mostly civilians. The enemies agreed to a three-year transitional government to be led for the first half by a Tutsi, followed by a Hutu. South Africa cemented the power-sharing pact by sending 700 troops to protect about 30 Hutu politicians returning from exile. Since then, however, progress has been dismal. Beset by political strains, the transitional government looks increasingly brittle. Human-rights abuses by soldiers from both sides continue unabated, and the fighting has increased. The problem lies within the peace deal itself. It failed to include the National Liberation Front and the Force for the Defense of Democracy, the two main Hutu rebel groups doing the fighting. Last week, Lieutenant Gelase Ndabirabe, spokesman for the Force for the Defense of Democracy, told the Associated Press his group would continue attacking government troops ''right up to their barracks.'' Frustrated regional leaders, led by Vice President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, are trying to remedy the situation through cease-fire talks in neighboring Tanzania. But progress is slow, and in the war-weary nation, hopes for peace are waning. ''Everyone, Hutu and Tutsi alike, is sick of this war,'' Nzohabonayo said, ''but it doesn't look like it will end anytime soon.'' Ethnic divisions are at the roots of the conflict. Minority Tutsis have clung to power almost continuously since independence in 1962, and both sides have carried out mass killings - the Tutsis in 1972, the Hutus in 1993. In September, army troops massacred 173 mainly Hutu civilians in central Itaba Province. Two officers are being disciplined. But now, many Burundians contend that power and money have overtaken ethnicity as the driving force behind the conflict. They blame their leaders for leading comfortable lives while the rest of the country is miserable. The statistics are appalling: 1 in 6 Burundians have been forced to live away from home, 1 in 5 die before age 5, and the average life expectancy has plummeted to 41. The United Nations ranks the country as the world's third most undeveloped. Human-rights abuses often are perpetrated with no apparent ethnic linkages. Two weeks ago, a poor Tutsi family took shelter from the seasonal rains to mourn their daughter, Jeanine Ndayishimiye, who had been shot the night before. ''A soldier demanded to see her ID card,'' explained a cousin, who was standing by a puddle stained with the girl's blood. ''She handed him the Bible and said that was her identity. He got angry and started shooting.'' An overhaul to the army is a major sticking point in the current talks. The war started in 1993, when Tutsi paratroopers assassinated Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu and the only democratically elected president. The rebels say they will continue until democracy is restored. ''Tutsis killed our president. And those same soldiers are still in charge of the army,'' Yusuf, a wounded fighter for the National Liberation Front who would give only his first name, said at a clinic on the edge of Bujumbura. The three men beside him, one missing half his foot, nodded in agreement. The army does not serve any ethnic group, and the Hutu rebels are ethnic extremists ''fighting to obtain power through genocide,'' said Colonel Augustin Nzabampema, a government army spokesman. However, there was agreement on the need for more Hutu soldiers, he said, but the dispute centers on how to bring about those changes. Analysts say the transitional government will be lucky to last until May, when President Pierre Buyoya is due to hand over power to his Hutu vice president, Domitien Ndayizeye. A collapse could fan the flames of extremism. Last year, Buyoya survived two coup attempts led by Tutsi hard-liners. In recent weeks there have been rumors of a third. This story ran on page A4 of the Boston Globe on 11/24/2002.

IRIN 29 Nov 2002 Rights body says risk of civilian deaths rising NAIROBI, 29 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Friday there was a growing risk of more civilian deaths in Burundi, judging from recent army actions and rebel bombardments of the capital, Bujumbura. The New York-based rights body called on international donors and regional leaders, to "apply maximum pressure" on the Burundi government to protect civilians and to reach a ceasefire with rebels in the nine-year war. A weekend regional summit on Burundi's peace process is due to convene in Tanzania, hard on the heels of a donors' conference on Burundi that ended on Thursday in Geneva, Switzerland. HRW's warning was contained in a new report entitled "Escalating Violence Demands Action", released on Friday. Produced in the form of a briefing paper, the rights body documents army killings of civilians since July, the worst of which, it said, accounted for 174 deaths in Itaba Commune, Gitega Province. "Although the largest slaughter since July, it was only one of a number of deliberate killings of civilians carried out by government troops in the last four months," it reported. It also recalled the rebel bombardment - most likely by the Forces nationales de liberation - of heavily populated suburbs of Bujumbura on 22-23 November, in which five people died and others were wounded or put to flight. "Both government army officers and rebel commanders must hold their troops accountable for these deliberate attacks on ordinary people who have no place to run," HRW said.

Pan African News Agency (PANA) 29 Nov 2002 Britain sues recalcitrant Burundi faction leader Bujumbura, Burundi (PANA) - The British government has an international arrest warrant underway for Agathon Rwasa, the recalcitrant leader of Burundi's second main rebel movement -- the National Liberation Front (FNL) -- a local radio reported here. Rwasa is accused of masterminding the December 2000 attack against a passenger bus that killed about 20 persons, including a British citizen. The bus, named Titanic express, was ambushed north-east of Kigali near the stronghold of the FNL while travelling on 28 December 2000 to central Rwanda. Ms. Charlotte Wilson, a British volunteer, who taught Biology at Gitarama secondary school in Central Rwanda, was killed in the ambush. The assailants sprayed the bus with machine gunfire that also killed Charlotte's Burundian boyfriend Ndereyimana Richard. Meanwhile, the rebel leader said he was ready to answer any international court injunction once he is provided with irrefutable evidence of his guilt, Bonesha FM quoted Rwasa as saying. He has denied being involved either overtly or covertly in the ambush of "Titanic express," arguing that the whole affair is only "framed to discredit his movement." The affair came as a twist amid strong international pressure meant to bring FNL and its leaders to the negotiation table to discuss permanent cease-fire in Burundi's nine-year-old civil war that has left over 250,000 persons dead and displaced about one million others. FNL demands encampment of the loyalist army before accepting any cease-fire talks.

Central African Republic

IRIN 31 Oct 2002 UNHCR Warns of Possible Ethnic Tension Among Refugees From Bangui Kinshasa Officials of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees warned on Wednesday that ethnic tensions in the troubled Central African Republic could spill into the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo with the arrival of refugees fleeing a failed coup in the CAR capital, Bangui. Armed forces loyal to Gen Francois Bozize, former chief of staff of the CAR army, launched an offensive against government forces on 25 October. Many Central Africans have been gathering at the shore of the Oubangui River in an effort to cross to neighbouring DRC. "We fear that the inter-ethnic fighting between the Kaba, the ethnic group of present Central African President, Ange-Felix Patasse; and the Yakoma, the group of former President Andre Kolingba, could carry over to Central African refugee camps in the DRC," Fatoumata Kaba, the UNHCR spokeswoman in Kinshasa, told IRIN. At least 3,400 Yakoma refugees from CAR, who fled during previous uprisings, are still living in the Mole refugee camp near Zongo, DRC, along the Oubangui. Former soldiers of the CAR military belonging to the Yakoma, who have been disarmed, are located in a camp some 135 km farther south in the DRC. "These people are exiled because they have been persecuted by the present regime. If groups of Kabas cross over together, there may be problems," Kaba warned. However, although many Kabas have gathered at the river's edge, few have made the crossing so far. The UNHCR said most find themselves lost in a mass of other ethnic groups, unable to cross due to harassment from the CAR army. Only 42 people have been able to cross since fighting erupted in Bangui on Friday. "A couple arrived late in the evening on Wednesday, complaining of having to pay 7,000 CFA [about US $10] for the crossing," Kaba said. The sum would be beyond the means of most Central Africans. "Many people would be prevented from crossing by the Central African presidential guard, who insist on payment of 1,000 CFA for the crossing," she added. The Ugandan-backed Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC) rebel movement of Jean-Pierre Bemba, which controls much of the northern regions of the DRC, has been sending its troops to Bangui to fight alongside the CAR government forces. As at Thursday, the MLC-army alliance, which also includes some 200 soldiers from Libya, had succeeded in pushing the rebels out of Bangui. UNHCR representatives have been dispatched along the banks of the Oubangui to monitor the arrival of refugees and to negotiate with CAR government forces to allow asylum seekers to cross to the DRC.

VOA News 01 Nov 2002 CAR Denies Massacre Of Chadian Civilians A top Central African Republic official has dismissed allegations that as many as 120 Chadian civilians were massacred by government troops. Prime Minister Martin Ziguele was responding to a statement released by the government of Chad on Thursday. In it, Chad said that between 80 and 120 of its citizens were killed on the outskirts of the capital, Bangui, after government troops drove rebels out of the city. The CAR government has accused Chad of backing the rebels' attempt to overthrow President Ange-Felix Patasse. Chad has denied the accusation. The movement's leader, former army chief Francois Bozize, fled to Chad last year after being dismissed from the military. On Thursday, the State Department ordered all U.S. government personnel to leave CAR. The United States also said it was suspending operations at its embassy in Bangui and warned U.S. citizens not to travel to the country. A small U.S. military team arrived in the capital on Wednesday to help with a possible evacuation of several hundred American residents. The rebels began their uprising last Friday. Although there has been no word from President Patasse since the conflict began, government spokesman Gabriel Koyambounou says the president has remained in the capital throughout the conflict. He has survived repeated coup attempts since coming to power in 1993.

IRIN 1 Nov 2002 Thousands of civilians caught between retreating and advancing forces - The human toll of the failed coup attempt remained difficult to ascertain on Friday. BANGUI, 1 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - Humanitarian organisations in the Central African Republic on Friday expressed concern for the safety of thousands of civilians caught between retreating rebel forces of former CAR army chief of staff, Gen Francois Bozize, and Congolese rebels pursuing them in the direction of the northern border with Chad. Although relative calm had returned to the capital, Bangui, by Friday, the situation near the town of Damara, located some 80 km north of Bangui, was called "very worrying" by one aid worker, as no humanitarian access was available to thousands of civilians fleeing a possible military confrontation between Bozize loyalists and forces of the Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC), a rebel group from neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that came to the aid of besieged CAR President Ange-Felix Patasse. CAR military forces, however, were not reported to be part of the pursuit because of concerns that they would not want to fight or perhaps even defect to the side of Bozize, who remains a very popular figure among many Central Africans, local sources told IRIN. Many soldiers of the CAR army have not been paid for the past 18 months. Central Africans displaced from northern neighbourhoods of Bangui told IRIN that while they had no fear of Bozize's forces, who were widely reported to have behaved in a civil manner toward residents during their six-day siege of the capital, they were afraid of the Congolese forces, who were reported to have pillaged "everything in sight" and raped many women. In response, government forces set up checkpoints around northern neighbourhoods of Bangui to stop Congolese fighters from fleeing with looted goods. "We invited them in, but we won't let them leave with stolen goods," one CAR soldier told IRIN. "Government troops should do their best to take back the stolen goods and return them to their owners," one displaced elderly woman told IRIN. Even though a general coordination meeting among relief organisations had been held on Friday under the auspices of the Ministry of Social Affairs, the human toll of the failed coup attempt still remained difficult to ascertain, with many of the wounded afraid to seek medical assistance for fear of being accused to be rebels, one humanitarian worker told IRIN. Residents of the Gobongo neighbourhood of Bangui told IRIN that at around noon local time on Friday they witnessed a CAR soldier gun down a man in the street suspected of belonging to Bozize's forces. Raquel Ayora, country director for the international humanitarian relief organisation, Medicos Sin Fronteras (MSF-Spain), told IRIN that its main priority at present was canvassing neighbourhoods in an effort to identify those afraid to seek medical assistance. She said they were also calling for an end to looting by foreign troops, and for access to displaced people along the northern road to Damara and the southwestern road to Mbaiki. Ayora noted that in contrast to Damara, the situation in Mbaiki was not presently a major source of concern because most displaced people had found food and shelter with family and friends there, and it was far from the current field of battle. She added that in addition to supplies already on hand, MSF had ordered a wide variety of medicines and medical equipment that had already reached Yaounde, in neighbouring Cameroon, and was due to arrive in Bangui next week in order to provide medical assistance to civilians. Although life in the capital was said to be returning to normal - electricity and telephone service had been largely restored, and two-thirds of vendors had returned to hawk their goods at the city's largest market, located in the Kilometre Five section of Bangui - the threat of a resumption of hostilities remained. Speaking to Radio France Internationale on Friday, a man claiming to be a Bozize spokesman said "we are at the gates of Bangui and we will return". "We control many sites up-country," he added. Bozize's forces withdrew along the same road by which they had approached Bangui on 25 October, leading northwards to Chad. According to military sources, they had maintained control of that route throughout their six-day assault on Bangui. Meanwhile, a pair of fighter jets on loan from Libya, which has had a contingent of some 200 soldiers in Bangui since a previous coup attempt in May 2001, continued their flight patterns at a low altitude over the city. On Thursday, Africa No 1 Radio reported that 100 Gabonese troops were being trained at a French military base in Libreville, and were expected to arrive in Bangui within a week. It added that France would be providing logistical and materiel support. As for the whereabouts and well-being of Patasse, who had not yet appeared in public or spoken on the radio, government officials assured reporters that he and his family were safe at home. The fate of Patasse's spokesman, Prosper Ndouba, however, remained unclear, as he had not yet been released by Bozize's rebels, who abducted him from his vehicle at the beginning of the coup last Friday. Bozize and an unknown number of his supporters fled to neighbouring Chad in November 2001 after leading an armed resistance against Bozize's arrest for questioning in relation to the failed May 2001 putsch. As for Bozize, who has claimed responsibility for the latest attempted coup, Chadian and French sources confirmed on Tuesday that he had returned from the Chadian capital, Ndjamena, to Paris. Since the election of Patasse in 1993, the CAR has suffered repeated internal armed crises. Additionally, repeated clashes attributed to Bozize's supporters based in Chad and to the alleged Chadian rebel leader, Abdoulaye Miskine, based in CAR, have taken place along the two nations' common border since Bozize and soldiers loyal to him fled to Chad.

IRIN 2 Nov 2002 Preliminary Civilian Toll: 22 Dead, 98 Wounded, Says CAR Government Bangui The government of the Central African Republic announced on Friday a preliminary toll of 22 dead and 98 wounded among civilians, although sources in Bangui told IRIN that this figure was expected to increase significantly as additional assessments were conducted in the coming days. A humanitarian assessment mission was conducted on Saturday morning to some of the worst-affected northern neighbourhoods of Bangui, which had served as the stronghold of rebel forces of former CAR army chief of staff, Gen Francois Bozize, during their six-day siege of the capital. The mission was comprised of representatives from United Nations organisations such as the UN Office in the CAR (BONUCA), UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the World Food Programme, as well as international humanitarian relief NGOs such as Medicos Sin Fronteras (MSF-Spain) and Cooperazione Internazionale (Coopi) of Italy. Massimiliano Pedretti, head of Coopi, told IRIN that the overall situation "was not as serious as we expected", but said that the assessment mission was concerned about a lack of access to areas still deemed to be insecure by CAR military authorities. In response, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's Representative to the CAR, Lamine Cisse, met with government authorities on Saturday afternoon in an effort to negotiate for increased access to all areas. Pedretti said that the mission had decided to make its first priorities the identification and burial of bodies, in order to avoid the outbreak of disease, and the assessment of the needs of the population in order to appeal to donors with precise figures. Meanwhile, church parishes and local health centres were serving as the primary conduits of humanitarian aid. During their tour, the mission found two corpses on the street, said to be Congolese soldiers killed during battle. The local population said they were refusing to bury the corpses because of widespread looting and rape committed by the Congolese forces during the joint CAR-Congolese counter-offensive that drove Bozize's forces out of the capital, retreating northward along the road to Chad. Hundreds of Congolese forces of Jean-Pierre Bemba's Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC) came to the aid of CAR government forces, reportedly at the request of the CAR government. Bangui residents expressed concern that the results of government investigations into crimes allegedly committed by Congolese forces would not be fully revealed out of embarrassment for having called for their assistance. In related news, the Observatoire Centrafricain des Droits de l'Homme (OCDH), a local human rights NGO, announced that it would be organising assessment missions of its own in order to investigate reports of pillaging, summary executions, and rape. Speaking to government-owned Radio Centrafrique on Friday, CAR Prime Minister Martin Ziguele announced that CAR forces had recovered many documents from vehicles abandoned by Bozize's forces, including an itinerary for the assault and lists of names and to which battalions they were assigned. According to Ziguele, the documents, which were made available to foreign diplomats, provided proof that six-day battle was, in fact, an attempted coup backed by an "exterior" agent. Responding to Chadian allegations of a massacre of 120 Chadians by CAR government forces, Ziguele led a group of foreign diplomats to the northern neighbourhood of PK 13, where the incident was said to have occurred, in an effort to prove the allegations false. Ziguele also announced that the Bangui-M'Poko Airport was scheduled to reopen on Saturday afternoon, and that schools and government offices would reopen on Monday. Meanwhile, as at Saturday, CAR President Ange-Felix Patasse had still not appeared in public or spoken on the radio, although government officials assured reporters that he and his family were safe at home. The fate of Patasse's spokesman, Prosper Ndouba, remained unclear, as he had not yet been released by Bozize's rebels, who abducted him from his vehicle at the beginning of the coup on 25 October. Bozize and an unknown number of his supporters fled to neighbouring Chad in November 2001 after leading an armed resistance against Bozize's arrest for questioning in relation to the failed May 2001 putsch. As for Bozize, who has claimed responsibility for the latest attempted coup, Chadian and French sources confirmed on Tuesday that he had returned from the Chadian capital, Ndjamena, to Paris. Since the election of Patasse in 1993, the CAR has suffered repeated internal armed crises. Additionally, repeated clashes attributed to Bozize's supporters based in Chad and to the alleged Chadian rebel leader, Abdoulaye Miskine, based in CAR, have taken place along the two nations' common border since Bozize and soldiers loyal to him fled to Chad.

IRIN 4 Nov 2002 Regional Peacekeeping Force to Arrive "Early This Week" Bangui The first soldiers of a 350-man regional peacekeeping force are due to arrive "early this week" in Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic (CAR), Gen Lamine Cisse, the Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General in the CAR, told IRIN on Sunday. "A dozen Gabonese military officers will be in Bangui early this week, and will be followed by 177 Gabonese soldiers, whose training concluded yesterday [Saturday 2 November]," Cisse said. He added that contingents from the Republic of Congo and Equatorial Guinea would be sent in as soon as they finished their specialised training. Mali has also promised troops. However, Cameroon said it could not commit forces but that it would be willing to train CAR troops. Cisse noted that in the wake of the 26-31 October incursion into Bangui by supporters of Gen Francois Bozize, the former chief of staff of the CAR army, the UN was appealing for donor funds to support the regional force, whose deployment was scheduled to begin on Monday under an accord signed in the Gabonese capital, Libreville, on 2 October aimed at ending tensions between CAR and Chad. "We are still within the time limit, and the UN has launched an appeal for funds to the donors," Cisse said. The regional force is to replace a Libyan contingent of some 200 men that has been stationed in CAR since the failed 28 May 2001 coup by former President Andre Kolingba. It will be responsible for protecting President Ange-Felix Patasse, restructuring the CAR's armed forces, and monitoring the CAR-Chad border zones. Bozize's forces were driven out of Bangui late last week by CAR forces supported by the Libyan contingent and forces of Jean-Pierre Bemba's rebel Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC) from neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo. CAR Defence Minister Pierre Angoua told IRIN on Monday that Bozize's forces had now retreated about 300 km north of Bangui, toward the Chadian border. The situation in Bangui was continuing to return to normal on Monday, with Prime Minister Martin Ziguele calling on Central Africans to return to work. However, the casualties of the six-day battle remain unclear and MLC soldiers were reported to be continuing their pillage of Bangui's northern suburbs. RFI reported on Saturday that Bemba was in Bangui on Saturday, and promised to punish any MLC soldiers involved in criminal activity. His forces have been widely accused of rape and theft.

IRN 14 Nov 2002 Ruling party accuses opposition of complicity in rebel attack BANGUI, 14 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - The ruling party in the Central African Republic (CAR) has accused an opposition alliance of 13 political parties of complicity with former soldiers who invaded the capital, Bangui, in October, in an unsuccessful attempt to oust President Ange-Felix Patasse. In a statement read over state radio on Sunday, the administrative secretary-general of the ruling Mouvement pour la libération du peuple centrafricain, Jean Joseph Tchendo, condemned the alliance - the Groupe des partis d'opposition (GPO) - for issuing a communiqué on 7 November criticising Patasse. The communiqué accused him of "violating his constitutional oath by allowing foreign air and land forces - namely Libya - to bombard the northern suburbs of Bangui". Some 200 Libyan troops were sent to CAR, in the wake of a failed coup bid launched in May 2001 by former President Andre Kolingba, and are still in Bangui. The ruling party's executive board said the alliance's statement was proof of its sympathy for and complicity with the attackers, whose leader was the CAR's former army chief of staff, Gen Francois Bozize. "The parties gathered under the GPO have finally unmasked themselves. They are accomplices and intellectual authors of all the coup attempts that the country has suffered since 1996, and particularly the one planned by Chad and executed by Bozize," Tchendo said. He added that his party was particularly indignant over the opposition's claim that Chad had had nothing to do with what was essentially an internal crisis in the CAR. Through its spokesman, Paul Bellet, the opposition alliance denied involvement in the coup. However, he told IRIN on Thursday, "Patasse's refusal to hold political talks could only lead to what is happening." Apparently in no way intimidated by Patasse's expressed intention to prosecute some opposition leaders, Bellet said: "We are an opposition and we are not here to applaud the regime." He said Patasse had used the Chad ruse to divert the attention of the international community from the country's social and economic problems. Meanwhile, the government remains suspicious that Chad is keen to annex the CAR's oil deposits in the north of the country. In an attempt to head off a widening and deepening crisis between the two countries, the Economic and Monetary Community of Central African States (known by its French acronym CEMAC) has decided to send a monitoring force of between 300 and 350 soldiers to the CAR. They are expected to be deployed this week.

Cote d'Ivore - Ivory Coast

IRIN 19 Oct 2002 Peace advocates join together to avert civil war ABIDJAN, 29 Oct 2002 (IRIN) - Civil society groups in Cote d'Ivoire have come together to avert civil war with the support of the international community. The Collectif de la Societe Civile pour la Paix (Civil Society Collective for Peace), inaugurated on Tuesday, plans to "conduct a vaste campaign of sensitization, throughout the national territory, to prevent and curb ethnic or religious conflicts", the group said in a peace declaration. Hundreds of people have died, material damage has been considerable and the economy has slowed significantly as a result of the worst socio-political crisis in Cote d'Ivoire's history, the Collectif noted. It warned, however, things could get much worse "if nothing decisive is done now to stop the beginnings of ethnic or religious clashes observed in certain areas of the country". Lessons could be learnt, in this regard, "from the unfortunate example" of other African countries such as Burundi, Rwanda and Somalia, the group said. A rebel war in Cote d'Ivoire broke out on 19 September, when a force including former members of the Ivorian military failed in bid to overthrow President Laurent Gbagbo but took over the towns of Bouake and Korhogo in the centre and north of the country respectively. A ceasefire agreement signed by the insurgents and mediators from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) entered into effect on 17 October, paving the way for talks last week in Abidjan between Ivorian and ECOWAS officials followed by negotiations this week in Lome, Togo, between the rebels and representatives of the state. The rebels' representives at the talks, which were scheduled to start on Wednesday, included the secretary-general of their political arm, former student leader Soro Guillaume, along with Tuo Fozie and Cherif Ousmane, two of the rebels’ most visible commanders. A senior military official, Col Michel Gueu, was also reported to be on the rebel delegation. The state will be represented by a team led by the chairman of the government’s Economic and Social Council, Laurent Dona Fologo. The delegation also includes officials of all parties represented in Gbagbo's coalition government, along with the National Assembly armed forces, gendarmerie, police, and civil society. Addressing the team on Monday before its departure for the Togolese capital, Gbagbo explained the state's preconditions for negotiations. "You represent the entire people of Cote d'Ivoire," he said "tell them what Cote d'Ivoire is saying ... The assailants must lay down their weapons. We want the integrity of our territory to be respected. We want our sovereignty to be respected. Then, and only then, everything can be discussed, everything can be negotiated." Pending the cessation of fighting between the two sides, civil society aims to prevent an even deeper rift from developing in the society. War between armies, whatever the atrocities committed, can eventually be controlled, but a civil war between ethnic and religious groups is uncontrollable and its sequels remain engrained in people's psyches, said the spokesman of the Collectif, Honore Guie. The Collectif includes the local chapters of two international organisations that promote democracy - the Groupe d'etude et de recherche sur la Democratie et le Developpement social en Afrique (GERDDES-CI) and Association internationale pour la democratie (AID-CI). Its other members are religious leaders representing Christians, Muslims and Buddhists, and the country's two main human rights organisations, the Ligue ivoirienne des droits de l'homme (LIDHO) and Movement ivoirien des droits de l'homme (MIDH). According to its spokesman, Honore Guie, it will send delegations comprising six persons - one Christian and one Muslim priest along with a representative each from LIDHO, MIDH, GERDDES-CI and AID-CI to various parts of Cote d'Ivoire, starting with areas under government control. Each team will hold separate sensitisation meetings with the administrative authorities of the area, chiefs of ethnic and religious communities followed by general meetings in which elected local representatives will also take part. A follow-up committee made up of community representatives would then pursue the sensitisation with a view to avoiding any ethnic or religious conflicts. The committee is being supported by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), European Commission, Canada and Belgium. Speaking on their behalf, UNDP Resident Representative Mostafa Benlamlih said they were happy to back the initiative since "above and beyond the political solutions, real peace will be built within communities and individuals". "While contacts are being pursued for a peaceful solution of the crisis, your effort will create the conditions for lasting peace," he said.

AFP 31 Oct 2002 26 Malians killed in Ivory Coast cocoa town: consulate BOUAKE, Ivory Coast, Oct 31 (AFP) - Men dressed in fatigues killed 26 Malians in mid-October in Ivory Coast, after loyalist forces recaptured the cocoa town of Daloa, a source at the Malian consulate in the rebel stronghold of Bouake said Thursday. "One of our diplomats returned Wednesday from Daloa, and that's the latest count that he made," the source said. "Our compatriots there are still in shock. Before our diplomat arrived, they were hiding at home," he said. He described Daloa as being in a state of "psychosis." During a parliamentary debate Tuesday in Bamako, Foreign Minister Lassana Traore said that 16 Malians have been confirmed dead in Ivory Coast -- 10 in Daloa, three in Bouake, and three in the main city Abidjan -- since the military uprising began on September 19. Rights watchdog Amnesty International said in a report Monday that 22 Malians were among dozens of victims in Daloa. "These people were Ivorians with Muslim names or expatriates from countries in the sub-region -- especially from Mali and Burkina Faso -- suspected of supporting the forces of the Ivory Coast Patriotic Movement (MPCI)," the rebels' political wing, the report said.

Reuters 1 Nov 2002 West African rivalries threaten Ivory Coast force By Silvia Aloisi ABIDJAN, Nov 1 (Reuters) - Regional rivalries and funding concerns have raised questions about a West African peacekeeping force in Ivory Coast even before troops have been deployed. West African countries have agreed to send a 2,000-strong force to replace troops from former colonial power France monitoring a two-week-old truce in the world's top cocoa producer. Hundreds of people died in a month of fighting that followed a failed September 19 coup against President Laurent Gbagbo. The truce has split the rebel-held Muslim north from the mostly Christian south. The so-called Ecomog force is meant to be on the ground in the next 10 days or so. But behind-the-scenes negotiations on the composition and command of the force do not appear to be moving any faster than peace talks in Togo, where little has come from three days of wrangling between rebels and government negotiators. Senegal, whose soldiers have a good reputation, effectively ruled itself out as leader of the force this week by refusing to increase its commitment of 250 troops and contribute the biggest contingent. Senegalese officials say Togo's criticism of Senegal's high-profile role in securing the truce is behind the snub -- a clear setback given that Senegal chairs the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which is behind the force. "We will just stick to our original pledge and let Togo or Guinea Bissau take the leadership," Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio told Reuters. Regional giant Nigeria, which led interventions in the civil wars of Liberia and Sierra Leone, says it might not contribute because of possible confusion arising from its English-speaking soldiers being deployed in a French-speaking country. Privately, Nigerian officials are fuming that Gbagbo spurned an earlier offer for help in the war and made West African mediators look silly by rejecting their first truce proposal. UNCERTAIN COMMAND Given that Guinea Bissau's offer of 380 troops is the biggest so far, command of the force should on paper go to the tiny state. But Guinea Bissau is suffering from years of instability and Togo now seems a more likely candidate. There are also big questions about how the force will be funded. ECOWAS has asked nine contributing countries to advance money for the first month's operations until Western donors can kick in with support. Despite Western pledges of help, the only countries to come up with cash so far are Britain and France, which one West African official said was "itching to leave". But French Lieutenant Colonel Ange-Antoine Leccia said: "We will not leave until the West African force is fully deployed." Whatever its composition and leadership, the force will struggle to shake off a far from distinguished reputation acquired during missions to end messy wars in neighbouring Liberia and nearby Sierra Leone. In both countries, large Ecomog contingents ended up staying for years, got sucked into heavy fighting and were accused of summary executions, looting, illegal diamond mining, drug dealing and various other forms of criminal activity. Particularly on the government side, Ivorians are distinctly reluctant to see a West African force deployed and even Gbagbo was at first opposed to the idea. Anti-Ecomog placards are a feature of every pro-government march. "Experience has shown that ECOWAS forces have not always been successful in resolving crises and that is something we are aware of," said one Ivorian official.

BBC 4 Nov 2002 Ivorian rebels warn of talks pull-out The two sides have agreed an amnesty Rebels in Ivory Coast have warned that they may withdraw from the latest round of peace talks, due to resume in neighbouring Togo on Tuesday. Rebel leader Guillaume Soro told a news conference in the stronghold of Bouake that they would not travel unless their political demands were met. The government last week agreed to a deal which would grant an amnesty to the rebels, and reintegrate mutineers into the army. But this ignored the key demands of both sides - fresh elections for the rebels and the government's insistence on disarming those behind the uprising. Ivory Coast has been divided into the rebel-held north and the government controlled south for the past six weeks. Opposition death Hundreds have been killed and tens of thousands displaced in the fighting. French troops are currently deployed in a buffer zone between the two forces and they are due to be replaced by a West African force within the next two weeks. "We will not set foot in Lome unless it's accepted that we can discuss all problems without any taboos," Mr Soro said. "It is not ruled out that we could be in Lome tomorrow, as long as we are allowed to discuss all of our demands," said the secretary-general of the Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast (MPCI). The talks were initially scheduled to restart on Monday but were postponed at the rebels' request. Meanwhile, an opposition leader has been found shot dead in the main city, Abidjan, according to officials from the Ivorian Popular Movement. Emile Tehe was arrested by paramilitary gendarmes on Friday and found on Saturday with five bullet holes in his body. Retaliate On Sunday, Mr Soro told thousands of supporters in Bouake that they would not lay down their weapons. "We took up arms to demand the departure of [President Laurent] Gbagbo. If not for that, we would not have started fighting," he said. President Gbagbo has refused to step down "If our political demands are not met at the negotiations, we are ready to resume the war," Mr Soro said. "If Gbagbo breaks the ceasefire, we have the means to retaliate... We will go all the way to Abidjan," he said. "If it weren't for the French presence, we would already be there." For the Ivorian Government, Mr Soro's remarks were "further proof the rebels are against peace". "You can't promise one thing in Lome, and another thing in Bouake, in front of a crowd that has been forced to demonstrate," presidential spokesman Toussaint Alain told AP news agency. Surprised The negotiations in Togo have been organised by the West African regional body, Ecowas, and follow a truce in the fighting, which has held for two weeks. The mediators in the crisis said they were surprised by Mr Soro's earlier comments. The rebels want President Gbagbo to step down "That's not what he was saying during the negotiations last week," said Ecowas executive secretary Mohamed Ibn Chambas. The conflict has intensified ethnic tension between the country's mostly Muslim north - now controlled by rebels - and largely Christian south. Both sides agreed last week to allow humanitarian aid to reach rebel-held regions and to grant "the immediate release of all civilian and military prisoners of war".

IRIN 20 Nov 2002 Man arrested in Belgium with gold worth $500,000 from South Kivu BRUSSELS, 20 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - Belgian police have arrested in Brussels a Canadian carrying gold bullion from South Kivu worth US $500,000 and charged him with money laundering, the city's police force announced on Wednesday. Zulfa Karim Panju, 60, was carrying five gold bullion bars each weighing 10 kg. Police displayed the bullion at a news conference on Wednesday. The Brussels prosecutor's office said the gold originated from Bukavu, a town in the South Kivu Province of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The metal was transported in plastic boxes bearing the seal of the [Rwandan-backed Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie rebel movement] RCD-Goma", Glenn Audenaert, a director of the police, said. The boxes were concealed in a backpack. Police said that Panju had for four years, every two weeks, carried fake corporate invoices, along with 50 kg of gold, destined notably for Belgium, UK, USA and Switzerland. The gold was then sold and laundered through non-resident bank accounts, such as at the BBL bank in Belgium. The gold was smelted in Antwerp before appearing on the international market. The profits of the transactions were then sent to Rwanda, where they were used to buy arms, clothes and vehicles for the RCD rebellion, the prosecutor's office in Brussels said. The arrest occurs in the wake of an investigation into the business affairs of Aziza Kulsum, alias Mrs Gulamali, 50, who headed the Societe Miniere des Grands Lacs (Somigl); a company that from November 2000 to April 2001 organised a coltan monopoly for the benefit of RCD-Goma. On 4 November, police in Brussels arrested Belgian businessman Jacques Van den Abeele for forgery and money laundering. He is accused of involvement in a major operation to smuggle coltan. However, Belgian judicial authorities said Van den Abeele was only an intermediary for a highly complex network headed by Gulamali, who is being sought by Belgian authorities. In both the Van den Abeele and Panju cases, Belgian judicial authorities froze the accounts used for transactions, "representing several millions of US dollars", they said. Accounts in other European countries, notably Switzerland, have also been frozen. Since the Van den Abeele case, the DRC government, through a Congolese lawyer established in Belgium, has elected to associate itself as a plaintiff in court action by the Belgian public prosecutor against money laundering of proceeds from the plundering of minerals originating from DRC.

IRIN 21 Nov 2002 - Côte d'Ivoire: Rebels dismiss referendum proposal ABIDJAN, 21 November (IRIN) - Cote d'Ivoire's insurgents on Wednesday dismissed a promise by President Laurent Gbagbo to hold a constitutional referendum next year, news organisations reported. "Our demands are a whole. There must be complete and far-reaching solutions," Reuters quoted rebel leader Guillaume Soro as saying. "They speak of a referendum, but that is only one step." Gbagbo had said on Tuesday in a televised speech that he was ready to hold a referendum "to ask the people, 'do you want to change the constitution, yes or not?'" "It is just a first step. Our requests regard an overall revision of the administration of power, for which complete solutions are necessary," the Missionary News Agency (MISNA) quoted Soro as saying. According to BBC, Gbagbo's promise came after the rebels dropped their original demands for his resignation and fresh elections at ongoing talks in Lome. The demands do not figure in their latest proposals to the mediator of the talks, Togolese President Gnassingbe Eyadema. The mediator and his team are currently going through the proposals presented by the two sides.

PANA 29 Nov 2002 - Monitors say Ivorian govt forces crossed cease-fire line Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire (PANA) - Côte d'Ivoire National armed forces (FANCI) on Thursday launched an offensive against the city of Vavoua which has been under rebel control since 19 September, French military sources revealed in Abidjan. Commander Frédéric Thomazo, of the information and communication service of the French Forces monitoring the cease-fire in Côte d'Ivoire, told PANA in a telephone interview on Thursday that government forces crossed the cease-fire line held by French troops, and headed for Vavoua, 439 km north-west of Abidjan. He said the troops comprised two columns of about 300 men, including "several English-speaking black and white mercenaries," who took the direction of the locality controlled by Sergeant Koné Zacharia's men, a warlord most hated by the FANCI. Asked about why French forces allowed the loyalist troops to cross the ceasefire line, Thomazo explained that French troops were not "an intervention force." "We are here simply to monitor the cease-fire agreement. If one of the warring sides decides to resume hostilities by crossing the cease-fire line, we can only note the act," he added. The government repeatedly broadcast a communiqué for 13 hours on national television on Wednesday, citing an attack against its "positions on the Man-Séguéla road," and vowing "to take action." Some 620 French troops coming from the 43rd BIMA (Maritime Infantry Battalion) based in Abidjan have been monitoring the cease-fire line since 17 October between loyalist forces and Ivorian military rebels who control more than 40 percent of the country. The cease-fire agreement was signed in Bouaké (379 km north of Abidjan), between the revel movement and Senegalese mediators, sent by President Abdoulaye Wade, current chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

Human Rights Watch 31 Oct 2002 - UN must prevent "ethnic cleansing" in Ituri (New York, October 31, 2002) The U.N. Security Council must increase its peacekeeping force in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to protect civilians against slaughter, Human Rights Watch said in a backgrounder released today. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has asked that the United Nations Organization Mission in Congo (MONUC) be expanded to 8,700 troops, and the U.N. Security Council is considering the matter today. As Congolese rebel groups as well as Ugandan and Rwandan government forces continue to fight over control of eastern DRC, hundreds of civilians have died in the provinces of South Kivu, Ituri and Orientale during the last few weeks. Some victims have been targeted for their political loyalties and others have been killed because of their ethnic affiliation. According to U.N. estimates, some two million people are now displaced in the region, most of them without access to humanitarian assistance. In mid-October, a coalition of local Mai-Mai and Banyamulenge combatants drove the Congolese Rally for Democracy-Goma (RCD-Goma) from the town of Uvira and surrounding areas of South Kivu province. RCD-Goma, a rebel movement opposed to the DRC government, is strongly supported by Rwanda and Burundi. It was defeated after Rwandan government troops withdrew from eastern DRC under the terms of a July 30 treaty between Rwanda and the DRC. On October 19, RCD-Goma retook Uvira and much of the region with the assistance of Rwandan and Burundian government troops. Their forces have killed, raped and arbitrarily arrested civilians. In early September, another branch of the RCD, the RCD- Liberation Movement (RCD-ML) and militias of the Ngiti ethnic group attacked the town of Nyankunde, about 20 kilometers west of Bunia in Ituri province. A survivor of the attack said, "Thousands of Ngiti came down in groups to loot: men, women and children, all armed with machetes, axes, knives, arrows and bows, spears and fire arms." The attackers killed members of the Hema ethnic group and others said to have collaborated with them. They killed patients in their hospital beds, medical personnel of the Nyankunde hospital, and a local official. Some 200 people are estimated to have died in this attack and one several weeks earlier carried out by the largely Hema Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC) against RCD-ML supporters and the Ngiti. Until recently, Ugandan army troops occupied much of this part of northeastern DRC. Most have now left, but hundreds of Ugandan troops continue to occupy Bunia under a September 6 agreement between Uganda and DRC. When the UPC attacked the RCD-ML, some Ugandan soldiers stood by and watched as civilians were killed. "The slaughter of civilians in the last few weeks shows that neither the Ugandans in the north nor the RCD-Goma in the south can effectively protect civilian lives", said Alison Des Forges, senior advisor to the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch. "The Security Council gave MONUC the mandate to protect civilians at risk. Now it must give the peacekeepers the numbers needed to carry out the mandate." The conflict in eastern Congo stems in large part from competition to control the area's rich natural resources, such as coltan (columbite-tantalite, used in the manufacture of cell phones) gold, diamonds and timber. A special investigative panel of the U.N. Security Council last week issued a report condemning high-ranking Rwandan and Ugandan army officers for enriching themselves through illegal exploitation of Congolese resources. The panel concluded that various foreign actors encouraged local conflicts as a way to maintain their own control and ease their extraction of local wealth.

IRIN 5 Nov 2002 Ethnic violence ceases, refugees "trickling back" NAIROBI, 5 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - The 17,000 Sudanese refugees who fled ethnic violence two weeks ago in a refugee settlement, about 80 km west of the town of Aru on the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, are "trickling back" to their settlements, Kitty McKinsey, regional public information officer with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, told IRIN on Tuesday. Since 31 October, fighting between the Congolese Patriotic Union/Popular Rally (UPC-RP) rebels and the Lendu community around the refugee settlement in Biringi and Kandoi, 45 km west of Biringi, had ceased, she said. The refugees were returning, but remained cautious, she added. The UPC force commander in the area was encouraging them to return to their settlements, and had encouraged local authorities to reassure both them and the local Congolese to resume their daily activities, she added. Local authorities had also been instructed to mount an information campaign next week to encourage their return. The UN agency remained concerned, however, about the overall security situation in the region, and said there was need to assure the refugees' safety.

IRIN 6 Nov 2002 Access "impossible" to 900,000 IDPs in the east NAIROBI, 6 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - Access to at least 900,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) remains "impossible", according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Of this total, some 500,000 IDPs are in the Ituri District, fleeing ongoing fighting between the Lendu and Hema communities. The number of IDPs was expected to rise as instability was continuing in the region, the international relief NGO, World Vision, reported on Wednesday. The group reported that many of these IDPs were leading "wretched lives" in camps, churches, warehouses and with relatives in a string of towns along a 200-km stretch between Bunia and Beni. Most of the IDPs are living in Eringeti, 50 km north of Beni, with others in Mayi-Moya, Mbau, Mavivi, Ngadi, Mutwanga and Beni, according to World Vision. They need food, clean water, shelter, medicine, clothing, blankets, kitchenware and utensils. Meanwhile, another 400,000 IDPs are scattered throughout South Kivu Province, many as a result of recent fighting between Congolese Mayi-Mayi militias and the Rwandan-backed Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie rebel movement, in the wake of a large-scale withdrawal of Rwandan forces as agreed under the 30 July peace accord signed in the South African administrative capital, Pretoria. Negotiations are said to be "ongoing" by humanitarian organisations with authorities of Mayi-Mayi factions and RCD-Goma, for access to the patchwork of areas under their respective control.

Reuters 21 Nov 2002 Congo Govt. Troops Kill 100 Civilians -Witnesses KINSHASA (Reuters) - At least 100 civilians were killed by government troops in a town in the southern Democratic Republic of Congo , witnesses and a human rights group said on Thursday. The killings took place after an argument broke out between soldiers and militiamen known as the Mai Mai on November 10. Tens of thousands of residents have since fled Ankoro, in Katanga province near the frontline with rebel-held territory. "The army accused the population of supporting the Mai Mai. They burned down their houses and started to massacre them," a resident of Ankoro who has fled to the regional capital Lubumbashi, and asked not to be named, said. Congo's Minister of Defense Irung-A-Wan said he was not aware of the killings in Kitanga, which is split in two by a frontline dividing government and rebel-controlled territories. The Ankoro resident added that people have also fled their homes in nearby Kabongo and Malemba N'Kulu. "The people are caught between two fires -- the army and the Mai Mai," he said. "The situation is still tense and we are waiting for the authorities to do something about it." A human rights organization in Lubumbashi asked the Kinshasa government to open an enquiry into the reports of the massacre. The Congo-based Human Rights and Development Commission (CVDHO) said that more than 1,200 houses in Ankoro were burned down, 39 bodies were found in the ashes and others are still being pulled out of the Congo river, where the corpses were thrown. The rights organization said more than 75,000 people have fled toward the town of Manono in rebel-held territory. "The military and civilian authorities knew about this drama, but instead of trying to calm it down, airplanes flew in reinforcements from Kamina and Lubumbashi," CVDHO said in a statement. The spokesman for the United Nations peacekeeping operation in Congo, Hamadoun Toure, said the mission received reports of clashes between government soldiers and militiamen, but could not confirm reports of casualty figures. The Mai Mai militias are traditional warriors, armed by Kinshasa to fight in its war against Rwandan and Ugandan-backed rebels controlling the eastern third of Congo. But throughout eastern Congo they have been accused of grave human rights violations and the resident of Ankoro said one group enjoyed cannibalism. "There is one group who kills people and then eats their flesh," the resident said. The killings come as the main Congo rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) holds talks in Pretoria, South Africa, to come up with a power-sharing deal with the government of President Joseph Kabila to end years of war. An estimated two million people in the central African nation have died during the war, mainly from war-induced hunger and disease. War broke out in Congo in August 1998 when Rwanda and Uganda backed Congolese rebels sought to oust then-President Laurent Kabila. Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia sent troops to support the government.

ICRC 21 Nov 2002 ICRC News 02/47 Democratic Republic of the Congo: Aid for displaced people in northern Katanga The ICRC has launched a fresh relief operation for people who have fled their homes owing to the fighting in northern Katanga. In late October and early November, delegates distributed blankets, soap and tarpaulins to 3,100displaced families (some 16,000people) in Kaboto, 45kilometers north of Kabongo. These items will offer protection during the rainy season. Some 800families who have always resided in Kaboto and have extended their hospitality to the displaced people, also benefited from the distribution. ICRC staff regularly visit the upper Lomami area and the organization is planning to open an office in Malemba-Nkulu in order to maintain its presence among the victims of violence in a region about which there is great humanitarian concern. Commission says fewer than 45 died in Ankoro clash © IRIN KINSHASA, 29 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - About 45 people died earlier in November during clashes between the pro-government Mayi-Mayi militia, regular soldiers and residents of Ankoro, a village in the northern Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Human Rights Minister Ntumba Luaba told reporters. This assessment contrasts with the 104 dead and 1,200 homes burnt a local human rights body, the Commission de vulgarisation des droits de l'homme et de developpement, had reported. "The number of homes burnt was about 100 and not thousands," Ntumba told reporters on Thursday. He was speaking in the southeastern city of Lubumbashi, four days after leading a government commission of inquiry into the clashes. The government also said 14,000 had been displaced, compared to the 75,000 the rights body had reported. The rights body had also said on 10 November that the fighting erupted when government forces began burning and pillaging homes and shops in the area. Ankoro is the birthplace of the late President Laurent-Desire Kabila, assassinated on 16 January 2001 by a bodyguard.

AFP 24 Nov 2002 16 civilians killed in eastern DR Congo KIGALI: At least 16 civilians were killed overnight near the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) city of Bukavu, several sources said Sunday. A local development association and witnesses said Hutu extremists from Rwanda and local inhabitants attacked and looted the town of Chazi, 15 kilometers (nine miles) northwest of Bukavu, capital of South Kivu Province, bordering Rwanda. Eight people were burned alive in a house torched by the assailants, and another eight including women and children were shot dead as they tried to hide from the attackers outside the village, the sources said.cked Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), a rebel movement controlling the area, for failing to intervene. A variety of people live in the Bukuvu area including Rwandan Hutu extremists, refugees, pro-government militiamen, and other armed groups. The Rwandan Hutus extremists have been in the DRC since the 1994 genocide for which many are held responsible. The Rwandan army backed the RCD's insurgency, which began in August 1998. It withdrew under a July 30 peace deal signed by the Kigali and Kinshasa governments, whereby Rwanda agreed to pull out its forces while the DRC pledged to disarm and repatriate Rwandan fighters and refugees.

IRIN 28 Nov 2002 Rival militias to meet, says UN NAIROBI, 28 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - Rival militias in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have confirmed, in writing, their willingness to take part in a planned meeting to solve their differences peacefully, Namanga Ngongi, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, said on Wednesday. He told reporters at a briefing in the capital, Kinshasa, that the venue of the meeting had not yet been decided. The meeting would involve the leaders of the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie-Kisangani-Mouvement de liberation (RCD-K-ML), the RCD-National, and the Mouvement pour la liberation du Congo. Bunia, a town in Ituri District, is controlled by the Union des patriotes congolais of Thomas Lubanga - a breakaway faction from the RCD-K-ML of Mbusa Nyamwisi. Ngongi deplored the persisting insecurity in Ituri, northeastern DRC, where some of these groups are fighting each other, saying that the situation was being driven by "belligerents' thirst for power and winning a few more square kilometres or gaining control of one more village". Efforts to improve the climate for peace in the troubled area received a boost recently when the presidents of the DRC and Uganda, Joseph Kabila and Yoweri Museveni, said they were ready to launch a pacification committee for Ituri, after consultations with their stakeholders. Referring to the recent fighting between Mayi-Mayi militia and government troops in Ankoro, Katanga Province, Ngongi said: "These minor conflicts among Congolese should stop a at time when foreign troops have pulled out of the DRC. Congolese should work together, hand-in-hand, to guarantee peace and security to their populations." Peace talks in the South African administrative capital, Pretoria, aimed at setting up a transitional power-sharing government are to be reconvened there on 9 December. However, the leader of RCD-National, Roger Lumbala, has said his movement had withdrawn from the talks.

IRIN 29 Nov 2002 Commission says fewer than 45 died in Ankoro clash KINSHASA, 29 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - About 45 people died earlier in November during clashes between the pro-government Mayi-Mayi militia, regular soldiers and residents of Ankoro, a village in the northern Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Human Rights Minister Ntumba Luaba told reporters. This assessment contrasts with the 104 dead and 1,200 homes burnt a local human rights body, the Commission de vulgarisation des droits de l'homme et de developpement, had reported. "The number of homes burnt was about 100 and not thousands," Ntumba told reporters on Thursday. He was speaking in the southeastern city of Lubumbashi, four days after leading a government commission of inquiry into the clashes. The government also said 14,000 had been displaced, compared to the 75,000 the rights body had reported. The rights body had also said on 10 November that the fighting erupted when government forces began burning and pillaging homes and shops in the area. Ankoro is the birthplace of the late President Laurent-Desire Kabila, assassinated on 16 January 2001 by a bodyguard.

Ethiopia

IRIN 8 Nov 2002 Local NGO closed down by authorities ADDIS ABABA, 8 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - A local NGO has been closed and its director jailed after being accused of corruption, sources told IRIN on Friday. Mahmud Abdi Ahmad, the head of the Ogaden Welfare Society (OWS), was arrested and being held in the federal jail in Jijiga, sources close to the case said. The charity, along with another local NGO, Guardian, had been at the centre of a row with the Ethiopian government after being accused of "threatening national security". Their offices in the Somali Regional State were raided by police in May and closed down after being banned from operating by the justice ministry. After initially winning the right to continue operating, pending a court case, the OWS was eventually banned from operating in August. Mahmud was arrested a month later. An appeal by the OWS has now been lodged with the High Court, but no date has been set for the hearing. The OWS was contending that it was the victim of a recent power struggle within the regional state’s ruling political party, saying its lawyers would fight the case all the way, the sources said. "We do not hold out much hope. I don’t think the government wants to reverse this decision. The court has approved the decision from the ministry of justice," one of them told IRIN. The OWS, which receives funding from international organisations like Christian Aid, employs more than 300 people, who are feeding up to 1,000 children a week. The charity cares for some 500,000 people in the Somali State, which suffers from one of the harshest environments in Ethiopia. It also looks after 12,000 internally displaced persons in Gunagadao, southeastern Ethiopia. Staff at the OWS regional office were told not to remove anything when the premises were raided. All the charity's property was subsequently confiscated. A petition signed by 200 elders and chiefs was delivered to the prime minister, appealing to him to reverse the justice ministry's decision. The Christian Relief and Development Association, which lobbies on behalf of NGOs in Ethiopia, has expressed concern over the case. Guardian has been providing 6,000 people with food in Gode, an area hard hit by the 2000 famine. Its chairman, Dr Korfa Garane, who is a member of the country's Council of People's of Representatives, has lobbied on Guardian's behalf. The charity was unavailable to confirm whether or not it was still closed down.

IRIN 8 Nov 2002 Drought Stimulates Outbreaks of Violence At least 20 women have been shot dead in northeastern Ethiopia, humanitarian sources told IRIN on Friday. The women, all ethnic Afars, were killed as they were on their way home from a market, the sources confirmed. The shooting, which took place in late October, is believed to be part of increasing tensions in the Afar Regional State sparked by a severe drought affecting many parts of the country. In a separate incident, at least 11 ethnic Ittus were killed in a shoot-out on Tuesday in Fentale, Oromiya Regional State, also hit by the drought. Fierce clashes have occurred in Afar, particularly in Zone Five, between ethnic Afars and Issas competing for scare water resources. The zone is currently off-limits to UN staff. Skirmishes between Afars and Issas have been gradually escalating over the years with the Afars accusing the Issas of persistently encroaching on their territory from the southeast. "If the [current] conditions continue, tensions will only increase," one source told IRIN. "Depending on the drought and the rains, if you can't move freely it's going to heat up. There is a drought and there is a lot of fighting." The recent clashes, which took place near the Somali Regional State, are believed to be revenge attacks by Issas after Afars raided them for cattle earlier this year. "The rains started, the Issas left, rearmed and came back to reclaim their cattle," the source said. Regional government officials have been in talks with the Issas in an effort to resolve the tensions and calm the situation. A humanitarian source said the situation had been exacerbated by the nomadic Afar having been squeezed into a tiny area with little or no water. The sources said they did not know who was responsible for the massacre of the Afar women near the town of Shewa Robit, about 280 km north of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. But they said violence among rival clan groups had been increasing and that rival ethnic groups had been blamed. The area has also seen an increase in weapons, with AK-47 assault rifles allegedly being smuggled in from Djibouti. According to one humanitarian source operating in the area, the guns had been arriving in the town of Gewane before being distributed.

Ghana

IRIN 4 Nov 2002 At least nine killed in communal clashes TAMALE, 4 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - At least nine people died and several others were injured in communal clashes last week in Ghana's eastern Volta Region and northeastern Upper East Region. Eight of the victims were killed in fighting sparked by a disagreement over a hoe between two people belonging to the Nawuri and Konkomba ethnic groups. The clashes took place at Kotaki-Zongo in the Volta region. The town was later deserted by both communities. News organisations quoted Volta Region's police commander, Kofi Atta, as saying the regional security committee had dispatched 66 armed police and 13 soldiers to restore law and order in the area. Five bodies had been discovered by 30 October, he added. Atta appealed to elders of the two groups to ensure that the conflict did not spread to other areas. He also said a number of arrests had been made and the suspects were assisting with investigations. Later in the week, one person was killed and several others wounded in a clash between Kusasis and Busangas in Bawku East District. Military personnel brought the situation under control. The conflict broke out when Kusasis accused Busangas of stealing their goats, which the Busangas denied. A policeman told IRIN the denial did not convince the Kusasis and the clashes ensued. He said guns were used in the fight and that people had fled the affected village, Dega, for fear of reprisal attacks.

IRIN 6 Nov 2002 Over three hundred displaced TAMALE, 6 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - At least 336 people were displaced by last week's communal clashes between the Konkomba and Nawuri ethnic groups at Kitare in Nkwanta district in the eastern Volta region of Ghana, the district coordinator of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Bernard Mensah said. Briefing the Volta regional security committee who were assessing the situation on Saturday, Mensah said 226 of the displaced persons had been registered at Nkwanta and 110 at Nyambong. Five people were killed and several others wounded. He said the incident was characterised by shooting, looting and destruction of property including foodstuff worth several millions of cedis. A number of arrests had been made and the Volta regional minister, Kwasi Owusu Yeboah, who is also the chairman regional security committee, directed that the suspects be transferred to Ho, the regional capital, to be prosecuted in courts for conspiracy to murder, murder and causing damage. A dispute between two members of the opposing ethnic groups escalated into communal clashes early last week in Kitari area. News organisations reported that eight people had been killed. Police said only five bodies had been recovered so far. In a similar event, one person was killed and several others wounded in a clash between Kusasis and Busangas in Bawku East District in the Upper East region, northern Ghana.

Liberia

The NEWS (Monrovia) 19 Nov 2002 Human Rights Center Wants Massacres Investigated - Equate Allegations to "Breach of Peace" Moses M. Zangar, Jr. Monrovia In the face of growing controversy over the cause of the death of five Catholic nuns in 1992, a consortium of nine human rights organizations, the National Human Rights Centre of Liberia, is calling for the setting up of an "independent commission of inquiry" to determine the perpetrators of all massacres that were meted out against unarmed and innocent people during the nearly eight years of civil war in Liberia. The Centre's call for the setting up of an independent inquiry commission to investigate all massacres during the war was contained in a release circulated in Monrovia at the week-end. On the criminal allegations by Representative Sando Johnson that Catholic Archbishop Michael Francis masterminded the murder of the five Catholic nuns, the National Human Rights Centre of Liberia said the statement by the lawmaker against the Archbishop and others is tantamount to what it termed, "breach of the peace." Additionally, the consortium of human rights groups said such statement warrants Representative Sando Johnson being "stripped" of his legislative immunities to face justice as provided for under Article 42 of the Liberian Constitution. Article 42 of the Constitution stipulates that "no member of the Senate or House of Representative shall be arrested, detained, prosecuted or tried as a result of opinion expressed or votes cast in the exercise of the functions of his office. Members shall be privileged from arrest while attending, going to or returning from sessions of the Legislature, except for treason, felony or breach of the peace. All official acts done or performed and all statements made in the chambers of the legislature shall be privileged and no legislator shall be held accountable or punished therefor." But the human rights groups in the release contended that the lawmaker's statement was made outside of his official functions and thus cannot be protected by Article 42 of the Liberian Constitution. The Centre further intimated that the effects of such an "inflammatory" statement coming from a lawmaker does not only render the Catholic Bishop vulnerable to "heartless, ill-guided and anti-democratic forces" in society, but also has the propensity to derail the current efforts by peace loving citizens to reconcile "our" war-ravaged society. Moreover, the release furthered that Representative Sando Johnson's utterances remind the groups of a previous accusation he once made against Clls. Tiawon Gongloe and Benedict Sannoh, which led to what they termed the "eventful and infamous arrest and torture of Cllr. Gongloe early this year." As a result of the lawmaker's allegations against the Catholic Archbishop, the Catholic Church last Friday suspended all of it's activities and operations, except for its media and emergency medical relief, nationwide. Further, the allegations have drawn the Bomi County Representative at the center of a controversy.

Kenya

WP 3 Nov 2002 Scarcity Makes Rivals of Neighbors Farmers and Herders in Kenya Wage Age-Old Battle Over Water and Land By Emily Wax, Page A18 NGAO, Kenya -- First there is the endless mooing, then the parade of hundreds and hundreds of cattle swimming across the Tana River, their heads bobbing above the brown water. The bulls and cows keep coming in wave after wave for about an hour. Draped in red cloth and carrying long sticks, herdsmen lead the cattle up the riverbank and into this drowsy farming village, where women are shucking corn and men are surveying their crops. The herders try to be mindful of the crops and houses as they lead their livestock both around the village and along a path that winds among the farmers' homes. The farmers just shake their heads. "Why are they here again?" asks Emma Gwinyo, 27, as she watches the cattle stomp over the muddy earth. "Their animals are going to eat all of our crops. They never go away. We don't want to share with them." Here along the Tana River, and in countless other places across Africa, farmers and herders are in conflict. Their ways of life, as old and familiar as any on Earth, differ in almost every way imaginable, yet they have one thing in common: They depend on water and land for their livelihood. Often these natural rivals live side by side, competing for the same resources. Sometimes the rivalry turns violent, as it did here on March 7, 2001, when a fight over one patch of land near the Tana River ended with 100 people being slaughtered. "This is our wealth and nothing else," Kolde Abashora, 58, said while herding his cattle out of the river. "We know there are tensions. But we can't graze in the air." All over the developing world, the struggle for scarce resources causes disputes that sometimes lead to well-documented wars and sometimes to skirmishes that never make headlines. Last month, for example, fighting broke out in northeastern Congo between the traditionally pastoral Hemas and the Lendus, who are mostly farmers. Violence between the two groups has cost hundreds of lives over the past four years. The same week as the Congo violence, eight people were killed in Nigeria when a group of gunmen identified by locals as Muslim Fulani herdsmen attacked the Christian farming village of Maza. Not quite a decade ago, one of modern Africa's bloodiest episodes erupted from similar causes. Hatred between Rwanda's Tutsi and Hutu tribes, stemming from colonial rulers' preferential treatment of the pastoralist Tutsis over the agriculturalist Hutus and from their competition for land and water in the tiny country, erupted into genocide in 1994. A state-sponsored campaign of killing by Hutu extremists led to the slaughter of more than a half-million Tutsis in 100 days. Here in Ngao, the people are thankful that violence has been absent for more than a year. But "the tensions are here and will be here," said Abraham Daniel Mabombe, the chief of the area, who toured the village one recent day, supervising the reconstruction of houses burned in the clash last year. "The farmers want land and water to grow crops," Mabombe said. "The herders want land and water to raise their cattle. Does that make conflict hard to solve? Well, yes. Very. But we try anyway. We are aware of the problem." Some of the tensions stem from the fact that the herders and the farmers have completely different economies. Many of the farmers grow food only to feed their families. They usually settle on plots of land for generations. They have strong communal responsibility, rarely selling what they grow to the outside world. In contrast, cattle herders are nomadic. They are driven to different regions by where they can best feed and water their animals. They operate as capitalists, selling their cattle for around $300 each when they need cash. They are unattached to the land, ready to move around the country to earn a living. Culturally and physically the groups are also stunningly different. Most cattle herders are from Nilotic tribes, descended from the tall, slender, narrow-featured peoples of the Nile Valley. Farmers typically are shorter and stockier because their roots extend from the Bantu tribes that migrated from western Africa to almost every part of the continent below the Sahara. In a village called Sare B, herders of the Wardei tribe are regally draped in colorful gold and red locally made cloth. They are Muslims, and the women cover their hair with shimmering scarves that flow over their long bodies. The children wear bright silver hoops in their ears, and the women wear beaded bracelets. The men wear used wingtip shoes with no laces and walk with perfect posture as they herd their animals. The women collect water in gallon jugs from a murky stream, about a 20-minute walk from the village. In neighboring Sare A, the short, muscular farmers of the Pokomo tribe are dressed in ripped, secondhand T-shirts and pants from the United States. Some are barefoot. Although many herders are aloof, the farmers are talkative, even effusive. Unlike the herders, who speak only their native language, the farmers speak English. They are Christian, and missionaries built a school for their boys and girls, and a health center for the farmers; the herders, who are building a mosque in their village, have no health center or schools for girls. The farmers say the herders are unclean because they deal with animals. The herders say the farmers are too aggressive and loud, and the women are too chatty with men. But with all their differences, "both groups want the same things: water and land," said the Rev. Sampson Maliwa, who has worked on a reconciliation project in the area. Maliwa said that the weather played a part in exacerbating tensions here. A lack of rain has dried up smaller streams and forced herders to rely on the river more than ever. At the same time, the government started deeding land to the farmers, who had never held land titles. The herders complained that they were losing access to good grazing land. On March 7, 2001, a 56-year-old schoolteacher named Ephriam Kiokomo went to farm his government-issued parcel of land along the Tana. A herder also showed up to graze his cattle. The two men argued, according to local officials, and Kiokomo was found dead, killed with a spear. "That very day the violence spread all over the Tana River," said Mabombe, the chief. "The farmers came with machetes. The herders had bullets." Now the herders say the fighting is over. They don't want to talk about it. "The only thing that bothers us is they got more help from the government rebuilding their huts then we did here," said Dende Wachu, a herdsman and village elder. Hostility simmers on the farmers' side as well. "We will not buy their milk," said Peter San Umur, a farmer in Sare A. "We can't share anything with them." Aid workers and a local government chief say they are hopeful that community talks and several projects will ease tensions. The Kenya Red Cross and the Swedish Red Cross are working on a project to build 35 wells to lessen both tribes' dependence on the river. In the villages, the wells are welcome, because the resource that everyone is fighting over is in fact a murky brew of brown water that causes diarrhea and other waterborne illnesses. "Clean water means health here," said Erik Pleijel, a well project manager with the Swedish Red Cross. "We are hoping the wells will really ease some of the tensions." Aid workers said the two groups would not have to share any of the new wells.

East African Standard (Nairobi) 6 Nov 2002 OPINION Muslims Deserve the Recognition Ahmad Khatif Muhammad - Nairobi Constitution of Kenya Review Commission has done a great job in laying down the foundation for good governance in Kenya, but it should be pointed out from the outset that the mere drafting of a new constitution is not going to solve all our problems. The notion that the new constitutional order will eliminate all the problems facing Kenya at the moment is simply not true. In the new draft constitution, there are many grey areas, contradictions and anomalies that still need clarification, definition, explanation and redrafting. One example of an area in the draft constitution that requires clarification is clause 32 (1) of the Bill of Rights (Chapter Five), pertaining to the right to life. In that particular clause, the word "life" is not clearly defined. This could give rise to various interpretations of the meaning of the clause, including the liberal and licentious permutation that would allow abortion. "Life" should be defined as starting from the time of conception. The definition of is "life" of great importance since an unborn child developing in the womb of the mother already constitutes a life. The new constitution should not give licence to those who wish to terminate the life of the unborn child. Part (2) of the same Clause 12 seeks to abolish the death penalty. This is again a big mistake since it would give free reign to habitual criminals and serial killers to do whatever they want. It has been proved time and time again over the history of mankind that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to those who would commit serious crimes such as homicide. If a person commits a serious crime such as murder or genocide, society has a collective duty to mete out appropriate punishment. The liberal notion that the death penalty militates against the right to life, simply does not take the interests of the victim(s) into account. There is simply no justice in a system in which a serial killer or a genocidal maniac receives a non-penal prison sentence just like a petty thief. I also have a major quarrel with Clause 38 (3) (a) of the Bill of Rights under the title "The Family," which states that, "Every person who is at least 18 years of age has the right to marry, based upon the free consent of the parties." Once again, this clause does not define "marriage" as being between two adult persons of opposite sexes. If this clause is left as it is, it would give rise to various unnatural unions under the guise of marriages, for instance between homosexual men or lesbian women. Such unions go against the tenets and teachings of almost every major religion. Marriage should remain a sacred union between two adults of opposite sexes as was intended by God. Even nature does not support or sustain unions of living beings of the same sex. In extreme cases, the Clause could also lead to "marriages" between human beings and animals or inanimate entities such as robots and computers, provided that both parties are above the age of eighteen years, Where "consent" would be the only contentious issue open to different interpretations. In order that the draft constitution wins wide acceptance, especially from politicians (Members of Parliament) who have to pass it into law, I feel strongly that Clause 112 pertaining to the Recall of a Member of Parliament in the Chapter on the Legislature, should be deleted. Not only will this clause prove unpalatable to most MPs, but it will also prevent them from performing their duties and fulfilling the mandate given to them. In any given parliamentary constituency, there will be at least 30 per cent of the voters who do not like MP. If a political opponent manages to gather the signatures of at least 30 per cent of the registered voters in a particular constituency, then he can wreak havoc on the life and tenure of the MP. This is a sure recipe for making our MPs extremely insecure and solely intent on self-preservation rather than legislation. Once a person has been elected MP , he or she should be left to fulfil that mandate for the given five years. If the majority of voters no longer support their MP, then they have the chance to remove him or her at the expiry of the given tenure and not before. While the draft constitution by the CKRC presents the people of Kenya with the first solid foundation for building a well-governed, prosperous and just society, it is of vital importance that every clause be thoroughly scrutinised for any anomalies that might create problems in the future. It is in our national interest that we must guard against the insertion of inappropriate foreign values in our new constitution. The new constitution for our country must be based on values and principles that are clearly recognisable as our own while importing those ideas that enhance our collective well-being. Of particular interest and great importance to those of us who are Muslims, is the issue of the Kadhis Court system, which has been included in the new draft constitution (Clauses 200 to 202). In Kenya, the Kadhis Court System has been in existence for the more than 1,000 years that Islam has been in this country. Even the current Constitution gives recognition to the Kadhis Court system, but does not give it the kind of independent structure it requires to serve the Muslim community. It has been argued in some quarters that the Kadhis Court system is irrelevant and that it gives special recognition and treatment to Muslims, against the essence of the new draft constitution on equality, and especially provisions of the Bill of Rights. According to critics of the Kadhi Court system, the new draft constitution contradicts itself by providing for the existence of a Kadhis Court hierarchy and that from the jurisprudence point of view, such special Islamic judicial system would be inimical to the proper operation of the new constitution. As mentioned earlier, there is nothing new in the operation of the Kadhis Court system alongside the secular judicial system. The Kadhis Court system has been in existence in Kenya for more than 1,000 years and received unqualified recognition from the British colonial administration and the post independence government of Kenya in dealing with Islamic personal law on matters such as marriage, divorce, inheritance and succession. While Kenya is, and shall remain a secular state, even under the new constitutional order, the Kadhis Courts system is a matter on which the Muslim community cannot compromise because it deals with matters of great importance to them. There is nothing new about the operation of the Kadhis Courts in Kenya except that the new draft constitution gives it more autonomy. Contrary to the views of some critics, there is absolutely no disagreement among the different Muslim denominations regarding the existence and jurisdiction of the Kadhis Court system over matters of personal law. The Kadhis Court system is a matter that binds the entire Islamic faith. It touches on the core of Islamic beliefs and practice as contained in the Holy Quran. Anyone who believes in and practises Islam has the obligation to submit to the Kadhis Court system for the interpretation of personal law in accordance with the Holy Quran. Whoever opts for any other legal or judicial system, cannot claim to be a Muslim. Given that the whole essence of a constitution is to provide a firm foundation for good governance and to bind together all the diverse peoples, interests and groupings that form a nation it is important that such document be all-inclusive and cater for all citizens. The constitution must recognise and respect the diversity of a nation in its cultural, ethnic, political, religious, and other spheres even as it engenders the unity of purpose, goals and aspirations of its people. Any constitutional order that fails to recognise and respect the diversity of the people in a nation inevitably fails in its most fundamental role of providing a platform for unity. While Muslims constitute only around a third of the total population of Kenya, it should be remembered that they occupy more than half the country's land mass. Muslims cannot feel that they are an integral part of this nation unless they are allowed to practise their religious faith freely under the constitution, especially on matters of personal law The writer is secretary general of the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims, and former MP for Wajir West.

BBC 7 Nov 2002, Attempt to bridge Kenyan rift - Forty schools have now been built in the area A former BBC News Online journalist now working for the International Committee of the Red Cross, visits a project seeking to heal a long running Kenyan dispute. By Mark Snelling Valley of Hope From a distance, the Kerio Valley looks, quite simply, like paradise. The road from Eldoret, the nearest city, winds through the fertile highland farms of the Cherangani Hills before plunging 3,000 metres down the vast Elgeyo escarpment to the wooded valley floor below. But up close, it is a fractured and traumatised region. By keeping everybody busy, it had an incredibly quick effect on the level of conflict Vincent Nicod, ICRC For decades now, farmers of the Marakwet farming community and their semi-nomadic cattle-herding neighbours, the Pokot, have effectively been at war over the valley's scarce resources, particularly water. A generation ago, such clashes were fought with bows and arrows. But the proliferation of small arms since the mid-1990s has made a whole new terror widely available - the AK-47 assault rifle. It is the type of brutal forgotten conflict that is repeated across sub-Saharan Africa. In the Kerio Valley, however, a series of ambitious projects have given the two communities hope that they may be able to share their future together. Intervention Backed by its mandate under the Geneva Conventions to assist the victims of armed conflict, the ICRC first began work here in 1998 with an emergency distribution of basic aid to some 14,000 people. It may not have been a full-scale civil war, but the level of violence was such that locals nicknamed the road running between Pokot and Marakwet areas "Kosovo". The issue of water has fuelled the conflict "This was one of the most violent areas in Kenya," says Vincent Nicod, head of the ICRC's regional delegation in Nairobi. He explains that following the initial emergency response, an agreement was struck in 1999 with the American Red Cross to collaborate on a series of longer-term projects. With the active participation of both communities, some 65km of roads have been built, more than 70 wells have been dug, some 40 schools have been rebuilt and a health centre has been set up. And while conflict resolution was not an official aim, the projects have had a dramatic effect. "By keeping everybody busy, it had an incredibly quick effect on the level of conflict," Mr Nicod says. The total number of deaths in the fighting is unknown, but the number of clashes has dropped radically - the last fatality was in August - and a new optimism pervades the area. Access to health "You know, these people are very happy," says Rev William Lopeta, the Lutheran pastor in Annet, a Pokot village perched on the escarpment, where the primary school has been rebuilt and there is now access to clean water. Families became closely involved in the school reconstruction, providing one rock per pupil for the reconstruction of the buildings, as well as sand, gravel and labour. Hundreds of villagers also took part in the construction of a remarkable road, which was carved 1,000 metres past Annet up the escarpment. In the absence of heavy digging equipment, workers laid fires overnight around the bigger boulders, which were then cracked open by pouring cold water over them. A similar road was built in the nearby Marakwet area. Both roads then allowed Ministry of Health officials to access the areas to conduct vaccinations, the Ministry of Agriculture launched training programmes, trucks were able to take produce to market, and materials for the school reconstructions could be brought in. Joyous ceremony It appears the thirst for learning was almost too much to bear for the children. "As soon as there was a roof, even before the last coat of paint was put on, the classrooms were full," said Jean Vergain, the head of the ICRC's Nairobi-based Regional Water and Habitat department. Workers had to chase pupils out so the buildings could be finished, he said, as a ceremony to inaugurate eight schools in the area got under way. The ICRC has worked in the area for four years Hundreds of Pokot villagers, as well as local chiefs, elders and administrators, had converged on Annet for the ceremony, which included songs from the school choirs and traditional dancing. As the coloured ribbon was cut outside the main school office, what had started as a slow rhythmic clapping from the crowd erupted into a joyous cacophony of singing, whistling and bursting of balloons. There were moments of sadness as villagers remembered the American Red Cross engineer, Alfred Petters, who was killed in a car crash in February. Alfred, who had devoted his life to the Kerio Valley since the project was launched, was widely loved by both communities, and will be sorely missed. Families were closely involved in the school reconstruction Amid the celebrations, tensions can still run high in the Kerio Valley. Marakwet farmers still flee their lowland farms each evening for the relative safety of hide-outs further up the escarpment. But they too have received extensive support and are said by local officials to welcome the Pokot projects. Both sides agree that education is by far the most powerful weapon against tribal hatred. Whatever uncertainties the future may hold, the message from the Annet primary school choir was clear: "The time to be happy is now, the place to be happy is here, and the way to be happy is to make a friend," they sang.

BBC 9 Nov 2002,Mau Mau rebels threaten court action Fifty years on, and Kenyan anger is boiling over By Mike Thompson BBC, London Kenyans who fought in the Mau Mau rebellion against colonial rule in the 1950s say they are preparing to take the British Government to court for alleged human rights abuses. More than 13,000 Africans were killed in the fighting - including Mau Mau guerrillas, troops and civilians - and about 100 Europeans. Now a welfare group with more than half-a-million members, the Mau Mau Trust, claims many veterans were tortured and illegally detained by the British. It is hoping to win compensation. Slave labour The Mau Mau Trust claims that many of its fighters were regularly beaten and tortured by British forces throughout their fight for independence. Some were alleged to have been battered with rifle butts, stabbed with broken bottles and forced to do slave labour. This treatment is said to have left many mentally scarred and unable to walk again. Last year, the Mau Mau Trust tried to take legal action in Kenya, but failed to win the Kenyan Government's backing. Now, they have hired English lawyer Martin Day, who recently won compensation for British prisoners of war detained by the Japanese, as well as for some Jews who were forced to work for the Nazis. Mr Day predicts that victory in the British courts could win many thousands of Mau Mau veterans six-figure sums in compensation. Should they fail, the trust's chairman is threatening to campaign for a boycott of all British products in Kenya.

East African Standard (Kenya) 10 Nov 2002 Church threatens to expose parties buying cards By Biketi Kikechi and Clare Barasa The Catholic Church yesterday threatened to expose political parties engaged in the buying of voters and identity cards. The church cautioned Kenyans against selling their cards to political parties that are scared of losing the elections. Archbishop John Njenga of the Diocese of Mombasa spoke on behalf of his colleagues who attended prayers for the General Election at the Holy Family Basilica. “To political parties and your agents who are buying voters cards, we know you. We also know that you are taking advantage of people’s poverty. Kindly stop it,” Njenga cautioned. He said those buying the cards want to win the elections, to perpetrate poverty and appealed to the people of goodwill to vote them out. The Bishops, who included Archbishop Ndingi Mwana a’Nzeki of the Diocese of Nairobi, said they can not separate the Church and politics, because people have political, economic and social needs. They cautioned politicians against use of abusive language during their political campaigns. Njenga urged Kenyans who have sold their voter cards to collect replacements from the Electoral Commission of Kenya. The Bishops asked Kenyans not to accept bribes or be influenced to vote in favour of particular candidates. They also cautioned Kenyans against voting along ethnic lines, but instead look for qualities which the church outlined on Friday. “As your shepherds in Christ, we also ask you to shun violence, which will only deny Kenyans their God-given rights,” said Njenga. Njenga said the country needs Kenyans who will stand up and say no to violence so that citizens can exercise their voting rights.

The Nation (Nairobi) OPINION 20 Nov 2002 Investigate the Maasai Rapes John Kamau Nairobi Weeks since the story about the rape of Maasai women by British troops first appeared in a British daily, there has been a deafening silence. Though some of the alleged rapes happened some 24 years ago, the lack of any follow-up to The Observer story is worrying. There has been no word from the Kenya Government, civil society or the British Government on the allegation. Yet some of the Maasai women interviewed gave birth after the ordeal. Where do we go from here? Women can survive rape ordeals if they are believed, if others are outraged on their behalf, and if others denounce the atrocity. But it is quite upsetting if the "good" people fail to act. So why the silence? Or is the story too embarrassing to be told? The story was filed this month from Dol Dol, the same area where British soldiers were accused of leaving hundreds of unexploded ordnance that injured many Maasai herdsmen, women and children. The bomb case led to a legal tussle that was finally settled out of court and the injured Maasai compensated. Sexual assault is a crime of violence and power and in order to get over the trauma, if at all, the survivors need to assert control over their lives once more. It is still not too late for the Dol Dol survivors to do that. Most of the rapes occurred in the 1970s and 1980s when British troops were training in Kenya. One of the victims - their names were published by The Observer - says the soldiers, "smelling of booze", forced their way into her house some 24 years ago, when she was 24. "There were six of them [and] it was about 7pm - they had been drinking in a nearby pub. They were big men and, once in, they offered me and my friend money for sex. When we refused, three raped my friend. The other three raped me." Another survivor says the soldiers were in uniform. "I was injured, but I never went to hospital or told anyone. It was a terrible shame to be raped and, back then, who would have believed our story?' The good thing is that many years later, the story is at last being told, and this must lead to a new investigation into this horrific chapter. It is not too difficult to trace who committed the rapes since some of the victims bore children. One of the victims even alleges she was raped when the soldiers were building Dol Dol Primary School. Of course, some people will dismiss as nonsensical these allegations since they come shortly after locals at Dol Dol who were injured by explosives left behind by the same troops won the £4.5 million compensation. But that episode should not stop Impact, the local non-governmental organisation which has been investigating the rape allegations against filing a case against the British Ministry of Defence. This must be supported by all people of goodwill who want to get to the bottom of the story. The co-ordinator of Impact, Mr Simon ole Kaparo, "believes the women's allegations are just the tip of the iceberg". But some quarters say the case may be complicated: "Most of the victims do not know their exact age. No one possesses a calendar or clock. The women time the rapes in reference to "eclipse of the moon", the "time of the great rains" or "after the birth of my fifth child", said the British daily in a sceptical tone. But the paper agrees that it found some Maasai children traumatised and discriminated against because they have a "light skin and tight blond hair . . . a permanent reminder of [their] biological fathers". In one case, a survivor says his son was borne out of a June 1979 rape. They too have undergone traumatising experience. "In primary school, no one wanted to sit with me- . Teachers would tell the others that I was a human being like them and that I would not eat them, but they taunted me. I didn't have a friend until I was 15. My mother did not tell me she had been raped, but the community said the British man who built my school was my father", the now 23-year-old man told the paper. Rape is one of the gravest abuses, with consequences that can last a lifetime. The survivors remain broken, intimidated, withdrawn, crying, and afflicted with nightmares, insomnia, depression, panic disorders and inner agitation. These survivors need to be recognised and compensated. Another survivor tells about her traumatic experience: "To be raped at all is shameful- yo be raped by an outsider is worse and to be raped by a Mzungu is worst of all." Many survivors of rape, torture, or even genocide say that the most lasting and haunting harm resides not only in the atrocity itself, but in how others, afterwards, have dealt with it. They are traumatised by those who minimise, or exaggerate, or merely misunderstand what rape is about. Mr Martin Day, the lawyer who handled the ordnance claim against the British ministry, is willing to examine the rape allegations, though he warns that "the lapse of time and lack of evidence could present difficulties". The lawyers also say that the Ministry of Defence's responsibility for rape by a soldier may be harder to establish than responsibility for unexploded bombs. So what do we do? Whine and forget? The sexual violence on the Maasai women should not be pushed under the rug and full investigations should be opened. Any silence could end up trivialising the alleged rapes and hurting the victims more. Furthermore, Kenyans do have a right to know what happened. Only then can reason, sanity, and justice prevail. E-mail: rightsfeatures@alphanet.co.ke Mr Kamau is editor of Rights Features Service

IRN 28 Nov 2002 Twin attacks target Israeli tourists NAIROBI, 28 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - Twelve people died on Thursday morning in a bomb attack on a Kenyan hotel, just as two missiles narrowly missed a civilian aircraft as it took off from Mombasa airport, news agencies reported. Israeli tourists were widely thought to be targeted in the attacks, which took place at around 08:00 local time (05:00 GMT) on Thursday morning. The Paradise Hotel, located on the Kenya's Indian Ocean coast at Kikambala, some 16 km north of the port city of Mombasa, is frequented mainly by Israeli tourists, and the blast coincided with the arrival at the hotel of a group of Israeli holidaymakers. Three men reportedly drove a four-wheel-drive vehicle into the lobby of the hotel before detonating the bomb, causing extensive damage to the building. At Mombasa airport, an aircraft operated by the Arkia charter company and bound for the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, was fired on shortly after takeoff by two surface-to-air missiles, both of which were reported to have narrowly missed their target. The BBC quoted airline officials as saying the pilots saw two streaks of light on the left side of the aircraft. The plane, carrying about 260 passengers, was able to continue to its destination, and touched down safely at Tel Aviv airport on Thursday afternoon. Those killed in the hotel bomb attack were thought to include six Kenyan hotel employees, three Israeli tourists, and the three suicide bombers, news agencies reported. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem reported that some 17 Israelis were among 80 people wounded in the blast. Israel Radio quoted Kenyan police as saying that two men had been arrested in connection with the attacks, and that they were currently undergoing interrogation. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks. However, Islamic radical Usama bin Laden, or "another extremist Islamic group" were suspected of being behind the attacks, the ministry reported. In 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were attacked in coordinated car bombings that killed 219 and 12 people respectively. The US sentenced four men, whom it accused of having links to Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, to life in prison for their role on the attacks. At least one of the men was a resident of Mombasa, local sources told IRIN.

IRIN 28 Nov 2002 Government pledges to curb electoral violence NAIROBI, 28 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - Authorities in Kenya are preparing to deal firmly with the recent upsurge of political violence that has rocked many parts of the country ahead of presidential, parliamentary and civic elections slated for 27 December. Several people have reportedly been killed and scores injured, especially in the past week, during which a number of political parties had been conducting nominations of candidates expected to contest parliamentary seats. Much of the violence has been attributed to unfair voting practices, ranging from alleged bribing of voters to outright rigging. At a joint press conference on Wednesday, Police Commissioner Philemon Abong'o, Attorney-General Amos Wako and Electoral Commissioner Samuel Kivuitu regretted that so far efforts by the Kenyan police to curb the tide had failed to bring the situation under control. They said the violence was undermining democracy, and warned that it could easily drive the country into anarchy. "From the time it became evident that general elections will be held on time, the country witnessed a slow upsurge of political violence. Indeed, the situation is getting worse," they said in a joint statement. "Political violence in all its forms and manifestations is offensive. It is destructive and degrading. It stirs up more violence. In many countries it has led to a complete collapse of law and order, civil wars and anarchy," the statement added. The police commissioner said his force was now preparing to prevent further violence, especially during the crucial electioneering period in the coming month. He said more police officers would be deployed, particularly in the most politically volatile regions. Much of the violence has been reported in western Kenya, Rift Valley Province and parts the capital, Nairobi. "There are laws in this country which can be put into use in dealing with political violence. We will to hesitate to do so. Indeed a number of people have already been charged in law courts with committing such acts," Abong'o told Journalists.

Liberia

The Perspective (Smyrna, Georgia) 4 Nov 2002 "Warlords Must Face War Crimes Tribunal" By a correspondent "Liberia's warlords must all be tried and persecuted for war crimes," Co-founder and President of Freedom and International Justice Foundation, Charles Kwalonu Sunwabe told participants of a youth empowerment workshop in Philadelphia over the weekend. "The warlords, Charles Taylor, Alhaji Kromah, Prince Y. Johnson and all the others, abused and destroyed the youth of Liberia," Sunwabe said, adding "Taylor used the youth of the Mano and Gio tribes as foot soldiers, Alhaji Kromah used our Mandingo brothers and sisters as fighters. The warlords exploited and ruined our country and must therefore be persecuted." Sunwabe served as a panelist alongside Dr. E. Lama Wonkeryor and Human Rights Lawyer Tiawan S. Gongloe on the Politic and Good Governance panel. The Workshop organized by the Association of Liberian Youth in Pennsylvania brought together panelists and participants with diverse backgrounds. Sunwabe in his presentation said Liberians should not be persuaded to believe that the Abuja Accord and or Cotonou Agreement granted Liberia's warring factions amnesty for crimes committed during the war. "Not only does ECOWAS not have legal jurisdiction over Genocide but the clause in the [Cotonou Accord] was intended to persuade the warring factions to cease the hostilities. That clause was not a blanket amnesty, moreover, the warlords failed to adhere to the Abuja Accords and Cotonou Agreements," Sunwabe said. He said the view that a clause in the Cotonou Agreement granted amnesty to all combatants and warring factions for acts committed during the war or in combat is a propaganda intended to create disunity among Liberians and ease off any attempt to hold warlords and combatants accountable for crimes committed during the 1989- 1997 civil war. Sunwabe said the present government of Liberia under Charles Taylor is a direct continuation of the rebel National Patriotic Front (NPFL) of Liberia in its destruction of the youth and violations of tenets of good governance. "Democracy is about institutions," Sunwabe said adding, "The Leadership in Africa and particularly Liberia use these institutions to strengthen their positions and empower themselves." He suggested that in order for democracy to take root in Liberia, the Judiciary must be funded through International aid so as to be removed from government's influence and the local media be privatized. Sunwabe also recommended that military and para-military institutions be reformed to reflect ethnic diversity and trained by international groups. He was quick to point out that his proposal for international trainers did not include Nigeria or ECOWAS member states, adding, that Nigeria and ECOWAS were not symbols of democracy. He urged Liberian youth in the United States to build a coalition with youth in Liberia in order to maintain an awareness of the trends of national and global issues. "The old political players should leave the political scene," Sunwabe said. He said the present politicians have not lived to the confidence and aspiration of Liberians and have not contributed to the development of the country. "They have failed miserably and should leave the stage to allow the younger generations steer the affairs of the nation." Human Rights Lawyer, Tiawan S. Gongloe said the lack of respect for human rights, greed for power and the unfriendly political environments created by leaders in various African countries gave rise to conflicts and civil wars. Gongloe, presently in the United States for medical treatment as a result of torture by police officers, said the greed for power by African leaders and warlords are exhibited by their displayed of wealth in the presence of extreme poverty and human sufferings. He said though Liberia's history is replete with the violations of the rights of the indigenous Liberians by freed American slaves (Americo-Liberians), the prevailing situation in that country cannot be exclusively attributed to Americo-Liberians or the natives. Gongloe suggested that Liberians must not engage in guilt by association but examine individual on the basis of their track record. "The personal evaluation approach is a catalyst for promoting proper behavior in national life," he said. "If Liberians had been more careful and used the personal evaluation approach, they would not have elected a government that has no respect for the separation of powers as defined by the Constitution of Liberia. If Liberians had been more careful, they would not have elected a government that could be linked to the destabilization of other countries and has no respect for internationally accepted standards for governance," Gongloe said. He said the lack of critical evaluation by Liberians resulted in the election of a government that has institutionalized the "politics of opportunism, mediocrity, nepotism, bigotry, dishonesty and disregard for human rights and the rule of law". Gongloe said he believed that the youth of Liberia particularly those in the United States should adopt the American culture of governance; especially the culture of tolerance of opposing views in the process of governance and establish such practice in Liberia. Dr. E. Lama Wonkeryor supported the statements made by Sunwabe and Gongloe that the contribution of the Liberian youth was crucial to the development of the Liberian society. Dr. Wonkeryor, Coordinator for the New Jersey Railroad Project said in order for Liberian youth to reclaim their position, they must actively engage in politics. He urged youths to desist from doing things that bring the wrath of the laws upon them wherever they reside. The workshop ended with participants and panelist still eager to continue discussion on issues raised. Some participants were still signaling to make comments or ask question when the organizers announced that the time allocated to use the hall was long over. While panelists and participants were leaving the hall, Bai Gbala took the microphone and announced that it was "not fair" that they were not given the opportunity to comment on some of the views expressed. Bai Gbala worked in the late President Samuel K. Doe's government, the Interim Government of National Unity headed by Dr. Amos Sawyer, and also served as Advisor to President Charles Taylor. Attendants of the conference left the hall but formed small groups outside of the building where heated exchanges on presentations and views expressed during the workshop were held. Among those present at the workshop were, Geologist and Politician, Cletus Wotorson, Accountant, Garrison Togba, Jr., New Jersey Railroad Project Coordinator, Dr. E. Lama Wonkeryor, Dr. James Guseh, Dr. Al-Hassan Conteh, formerly of the University of Liberia and presently with the University of Pennsylvania served as Keynote Speaker.

Madagascar

IRIN 4 Nov 2002 Close to 200,000 in need of food aid JOHANNESBURG, 4 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - The World Food Programme (WFP) on Monday said close to 200,000 people in southern Madagascar were facing serious food shortages due to a severe drought and the aftershocks of the recent political crisis. WFP's Country Director for Madagascar, Bodo Henze, said: "We have identified 13 communities in the southernmost province of Toliary in need of urgent food assistance. "The areas most affected in the province are traditionally drought prone but it is particularly bad this year because many of them have not recovered from previous droughts." Also, the recent political dispute, which ended in July, had pushed up the price of basic foodstuffs. "The already weak coping mechanisms of the poor were eroded during the political crisis leaving them extremely vulnerable. The prices of basic commodities had increased and as yet they have not come down, making it difficult for the poor," Henze told IRIN. At the height of the crisis, the cost of rice rose by 375 percent, pushing it beyond the reach of many families. The food agency said it was hoping to provide 3,250 mt of maize and 538 mt of pulses to beneficiaries under a food-for-work programme. "We have already made some interventions into the situation through our existing development projects in that part of the country. An emergency operation is in the pipeline and we hope to get aid to these people as soon as possible," Henze said. WFP said the operation is expected to cost the agency US $1.7 million. Earlier this year, a power struggle for the presidency destroyed the economy resulting in thousands of job losses.

Malawi

IRIN 1 Nov 2002 Protests against third term turn violent BLANTYRE, 1 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - What started out as a peaceful demonstration against a proposed third term for President Bakili Muluzi turned violent on Friday when police clashed with protestors in Blantyre, the country's commercial centre. Shops remained closed as armed paramilitary police fought running street battles with demonstrators, barring them from continuing with a protest against a proposed third term for Muluzi. Demonstrators also accused the police of firing live ammunition at them. While Muluzi has maintained an official silence on the third term issue, Justice Minister Duncan Phoya has said government plans to table a bill soon to amend the constitution in order to allow president Muluzi to run for another term. A similar bill was defeated in parliament in early July. The president of the opposition Malawi Democratic Party (MDP) Kamulepo Kalua told IRIN: "We were marching peacefully. They [police] started blocking [our way]. They started throwing teargas at us. We told the people to be peaceful and calm. Not to be responsive to whatever they [police] were doing. But they kept on shooting at us. At one time they were using live ammunition in order to assassinate some of us. But this is not what we fought for. We fought for multiparty democracy and peaceful transition and even the freedom to march." He said police had earlier assured the demonstrators that they would be protected. Church organisations, human rights groups and some opposition political parties had planned a peaceful demonstration against the proposed third term. The activists alleged that police had allowed ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) supporters to disrupt the peaceful demonstration. "The UDF people are hooligans, people who have been bribed to disrupt this peaceful demonstration," alleged Robson Chitengo of the Church and Society NGO. The High Court in Blantyre last week reversed a presidential decree banning all demonstrations against or in favour of a third term for Muluzi. He had also instructed the police and army to "deal" with anyone who defied his order. Judge Edward Twea said in his ruling that "the president has no powers to make laws" and that Muluzi's ban and his directive to the security forces encroached on citizens' rights. At Mzuzu, in northern Malawi, a similar demonstration was stopped by police before it began. One of the organisers, Daire Kumwenda, told IRIN that police had said they did not want a repeat of the chaos in Blantyre. "They're fearing the same can happen here ... but the people want to exercise their right [to demonstrate]," he complained. The third term issue has divided the ruling party. Last month, Muluzi fired Jan-Jaap Sonke from his cabinet. "I begged him to withdraw [his bid for a third term] before a lot of damage was done," Sonke told IRIN. Sonke feared the UDF could lose the 2004 election if Muluzi stood again and that donors would halt aid to the country. According to Sonke, at least 10 other UDF MPs would not support the bill if introduced in the national assembly, but were too scared to declare this publicly.

Mauritania

IRIN 8 Nov 2002 Government asked to take steps to end slavery ABIDJAN, 8 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - Amnesty International has asked the Mauritanian government to take "practical steps" to end slavery, saying that it still existed despite its legal abolition 20 years ago. In a report titled 'Mauritania: A future free from slavery', Amnesty said Mauritania's government "must stop violating its own laws and urgently end slavery, which is an abominable attack on human dignity and freedom." The report was published on the eve of the 21st anniversary of the decree which officially abolished slavery. "Mauritanian laws and international human rights obligations prohibit slavery, but anyone escaping slavery has no legal protection. There is considerable discrimination against former slaves," the organisation said. No government official was willing to take the necessary remedial action to fully eradicate slavery and put an end to impunity for the perpetrators, it added. "Not only has the government denied the existence of slavery and slavery-like practices and failed to respond to cases brought to its attention, it has hampered the activities of organizations which are working on the issue, including by refusing to grant such organizations official recognition." Anti-slavery activists and other human rights defenders work under constant threat of arrest and imprisonment, it said. In 1998, five human rights defenders, including Boubacar Messaoud, President of SOS Esclaves and Fatimata M'baye, Vice President of the Association Mauritanienne des droits de l'homme (AMDH), were sentenced to 13 months' imprisonment for running unauthorized human rights organizations campaigning against slavery. "Action against slavery and continuing human rights abuses based on slavery is long overdue. It is time for the government to approach the problem proactively, rather than denying its importance and hoping that a focus in education, literacy and agrarian reforms will be enough to eradicate the vestiges of slavery and address its consequences," the organisation urged. The report contains a series of detailed recommendations for the abolition of slavery directed to the Mauritanian government and the international community. It said the government must acknowledge that slavery remains a problem in Mauritania and establish an independent and impartial enquiry to investigate practices over the past 20 years. It should also take steps towards complete eradication of slavery and related discrimination. Special emphasis must be given to awareness raising, support of NGOs and civil society working on the issue, legal change and development of means of redress, it added. The organisation urged the international community to encourage the Mauritanian government to confront the issue openly and support the work of human rights organisations working on slavery and slavery-like practices in Mauritania.

Nigeria

IRIN 5 Nov 2002 Tension mounts in Delta over troop deployment ABIDJAN, 5 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - Tension is mounting in Nigeria’s oil region Delta state over recent deployment of troops amid allegations by residents that they were subjecting several ethnic Ijaw communities to harassment. Residents of villages including Diebiri, Batan, Ajuju, Ewerigbene and Kumusi said scores of heavily armed naval personnel have been deployed in their riverine communities since an oil spill last month, which affected their farmlands and fishing areas. They accused oil giant Royal/Dutch Shell, which admitted rupture on a major pipeline at its Batan facility at the time, of inviting the troops following a dispute over compensation and the procedure for cleaning up the spill. "The soldiers have been arresting people indiscriminately and intimidating the communities to accept an unfavourable settlement for damages caused by the oil spill," Dickson Orubebe, a resident of Batan, told IRIN. However, Captain Titus Awoyemi, the commanding officer of the Nigerian Navy base in the oil town of Warri, on Monday denied the allegations. He told reporters that the navy had launched an operation to recover weapons seized from some naval men and dislodge pirates he said were active in the delta waterways. He said armed militants operating in speedboats had on two occasions in recent weeks disarmed naval personnel and policemen guarding oil operations, taking away their weapons. In the latest incident he said, a band of armed youths using two speedboats attacked a boat belonging to Chevron-Texaco and seized weapons from three soldiers aboard on escort duty last week. "The navy, in collaboration with soldiers, policemen and the State Security Service launched an operation to recover the arms seized by the youths," Awoyemi said. He said some of the weapons were recovered with a number of arrests made. The rest and those who took them were still at large, he added. In the past decade militant youths in Nigeria’s impoverished oil region have established a record of frequently disrupting oil operations to protest perceived neglect by government and oil transnational. The government has responded in the past three years by deploying troops to oil facilities, leading to increasing cases of confrontation between them and the militants.

IRIN 6 Nov 2002 Lobby groups urge Obasanjo to forgo re-election LAGOS, 6 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - Two main lobby groups in northern and southeastern Nigeria said on Tuesday President Olusegun Obasanjo should give up his bid for re-election in 2003 in the interest of national unity. The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), which represents northern interests, and Ohaneze Ndigbo, which groups the political and business elite of the southeastern Igbo, in a joint statement said Obasanjo’s ambition for re-election was unpopular and raising political tension to dangerous levels. "What Nigeria needs now is a leader who is dedicated to reviving the economy, one who respects the rule of law...one who is caring and sensitive to the yearnings of the downtrodden...a man who is a true democrat, amenable to advice and able to accommodate dissenting voices," the statement said. "We are sad to conclude that President Obasanjo is not such a leader," it added. The groups claimed Obasanjo manipulated votes in the national assembly and electoral processes in the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), saying these were signs that he "cannot and will not organise or conduct a credible presidential election". They therefore asked him "as a solemn duty" to give up his second term bid to avoid pushing "the country into calamity". Tension has been mounting in Africa’s most populous country of 120 million people ahead of general elections the electoral commission said would be held in March and April 2003. There has been widespread political violence with cases of political assasinations on the rise. Both the ACF and Ohaneze Ndigbo were instrumental in the massive victory Obasanjo scored in northern and southeastern Nigeria in 1999 elections that ended more than 15 years of military rule. Obasanjo swept to the presidency despite winning scant votes in his southwest ethnic Yoruba homeland, where he was perceived as a stooge of northern political interests. Late last month a group of prominent Nigerians known as The Patriots - including Abraham Adesanya, leader of the pro-Yoruba lobby, Afenifere - had issued a statement calling on Obasanjo not to run for the presidency again. They recommended a constitutional amendment for a single five-year presidency as a way out of the "second-term syndrome" which they said was heating up the polity. Last week the Nigerian Bar Association, the umbrella lawyers’ body, supported the move by writing to the federal legislature requesting the start of a process of a constitutional amendment for a five-year, single term presidency. Neither Obasanjo nor his aides have responded directly to these demands. But in picking up the PDP presidential nomination forms last week, the president has indicated his intention to forge ahead with his political ambition.

IRIN 11 Nov 2002 No deaths by stoning, government official says LAGOS, 11 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - Nigeria's government has said it will not allow people to be stoned to death on the order of Shari’a courts. Junior Minister of Foreign Affairs Dubem Onyia said in a statement on Friday that the government was aware of widespread international concern over recent death sentences imposed by Islamic courts and would "use its constitutional powers to thwart any negative ruling which is deemed injurious to its people". "We restate that no person shall be condemned to death by stoning in Nigeria," he said. Nigeria has come under severe international pressure for the sentences, especially after a 31-year-old mother, Amina Lawal, was condemned to be stoned to death for adultery. This year’s Miss World beauty pageant, scheduled to be held in Nigeria in December, has faced boycotts by many would-be contestants in protest against the sentence. A total of 12 states in Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north have adopted Islamic law in the past three years. Two other people have appealed against death sentences for adultery and one for rape. Nigeria’s federal government has repeatedly condemned the sentences as unconstitutional but had declined to intervene in deference to the country’s federal system. The latest statement is the strongest indication yet that it is ready to stop the sentences from being carried out.

Reuters 13 Nov 2002 Nigeria Leader Cancels Meeting with Beauty Queens By John Chiahemen ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has canceled plans to receive contestants for this year's Miss World pageant in Abuja in an effort to avoid offending Muslims, organizers said on Wednesday. The event has already been overshadowed by fears of a mass boycott over stoning death sentences passed by Islamic courts on Nigerian women convicted of adultery. Muslim groups in Nigeria have called the pageant "a parade of nudity" and threatened to disrupt the contest. "The girls were initially due to worship with the president in the presidential chapel yesterday, but this was put off to today," a pageant official who asked not to be named said. "Today's meeting has also been canceled. We understand the president's chief of staff, who is a Muslim, categorically ruled out any chance of the girls coming to the state house," the official added. "He said that as a Muslim he was opposed to the whole idea of the pageant," said the official, recounting a meeting between pageant organizers and presidential officials. A presidency spokesman could not comment on the account of the pageant organizers. More than 80 contestants who have been in Abuja since Monday were flown on Wednesday to the southeastern city of Calabar for a program of pre-pageant video shoots. The main contest will be held in Abuja on December 7. All engagements ahead of the main event have been set in the predominantly Christian southeast and the oil-producing Niger Delta. Abuja, the inland capital, is close to Nigeria's Muslim heartland in the north. The main event was shifted from November to December after Muslims complained it would fall during their holy Ramadan fast. NO REVEALING DRESS The cabinet minister responsible for the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja took the trouble of assuring Muslim groups that the contestants would not wear revealing clothes while in Abuja. The girls remained in their Abuja hotel until they flew to southeastern Calabar on Wednesday. Obasanjo's presidency has been dogged by clashes between Muslims and Christians, mainly over the adoption of Islamic sharia law by about a dozen northern states. Non-Muslims oppose sharia because of its tough sanctions, including amputation of hands for theft and the stoning of convicted adulterers to death. No one has been stoned to death, but stoning sentences hanging over two men and two women nearly wrecked this year's pageant. Scores of beauty queens threatened to stay away, citing in particular the death sentence passed on 31-year-old mother, Amina Lawal Kurami, for bearing a child out of marriage. Many later withdrew their boycott threat, saying they were satisfied with assurances by the Nigerian government that it would not allow anyone to be stoned to death. The government sees the staging of the Miss World pageant in Nigeria as a potential boost to tourism in Nigeria, which is trying to diversify its foreign earnings from crude oil exports.

IRIN 14 Nov 202 Seven shot in clash with security forces ABIDJAN, 14 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - Seven people were shot dead this week in a clash with security forces in Nigeria's central Plateau State, news organisations reported. According to the BBC, they were the first victims of a shoot-on-sight policy introduced two weeks ago by the state governor in an attempt to curb ethnic and religious violence that has lasted in the state for a year. BBC quoted a police official in the state capital, Jos, as saying that the deaths occurred after persons yet to be identified fired on a patrolling police officers, who then retaliated. Jos State’s longstanding reputation for peace was shattered in September 2001 by a major eruption of violence between Christian indigenes and Muslim settlers. More than 1,000 people died in a week of violence. Since then the state has been the scene of a low-intensity conflict, in which more than 200 people are estimated to have died.

IRIN 14 Nov 2002 Obasanjo pardons former secessionist soldiers LAGOS, 14 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has pardoned 80 ex-soldiers who fought against the federal government during the 1967-70 Biafra War. The decision was announced on Tuesday at the end of a meeting of the National Council of State, which comprises the president and governors of the country 36 states. The main beneficiaries were soldiers who had left the Nigerian armed forces to join the army of the shortlived republic of Biafra. "This pardon wipes out the stigma of dismissal," said Ogun State Governor Segun Osoba, who briefed reporters at the end of the meeting. The soldiers were also restored to their former ranks, making them eligible for retirement benefits 32 years after the end of the civil war. Southeastern Nigeria, then governed by Col Emeka Ojukwu, declared itself an independent state called Biafra following massacres in northern Nigeria in which tens of thousands of people, mainly Igbos from the southeast, lost their lives. Thirty-six months of fighting followed and more than one million people, mostly Igbos, died in what was then described as Africa’s worst modern war. Ojukwu himself was pardoned in 1981. That enabled him to return to Nigeria after a 10-year exile in Cote d’Ivoire.

Daily News, 14 Nov 2002 Government vows to arrest banned citizens if they return By Luke Tamborinyoka, Political Editor The government warned yesterday that expatriate Zimbabwean citizens working for private radio stations who were last week included on a list of people banned from visiting the country, would be arrested once they set foot in Zimbabwe. In the same vein, the government said it was closely monitoring the activities of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which it said were supporting the opposition MDC and the independent Press in trying to unseat the government. Speaking in Parliament yesterday, Patrick Chinamasa, the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, said Zimbabweans who were included on a list would be allowed back, but they would be arrested. Asked what the government would do to banned Zimbabweans who held only Zimbabwean passports, Chinamasa said: "They are free to come back, but they will be welcome in our prisons. Those citizens with other foreign passports are not Zimbabwean citizens because we cannot have these people demonising the government every day on the radio. Every Zimbabwean has a right to be in Zimbabwe and has a right to come back to this country. It is a right guaranteed by the Constitution, but we cannot allow dual citizenship - our people travelling with British and Dutch passports but who engage in acts of broadcasting information that denigrates the country." Chinamasa was responding to a question by Harare North MP, Trudy Stevenson, on whether it was government policy to ban Zimbabwean citizens from visiting the country. Last week, in a retaliatory move following the decision by the European Union to slap travel bans on the Zanu PF elite, and another decision by Britain to introduce visas for Zimbabweans, the government published its own list of banned visitors. The list included British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government ministers, as well as Zimbabweans working for the independent SW Radio Africa (SWRA), which broadcasts from London, and the Voice of the People (VoP), which broadcasts from the Netherlands. The SWRA workers were named as John Matinde, Gerry Jackson, Georgina Godwin, Simon Parkinson, Mandisa Mundawarara, Violet Gonda, Tererai Karimakwenda and Graeme Counsel, while Lodewijk Bouwens was named as being employed by VoP. In another crack-down on NGOs, July Moyo, the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, told Parliament that Amani Trust was not properly registered and its leadership risked being arrested. He said the organisation had only registered its constitution with the Deeds Registry Office, but had not regularised its registration in accordance with the Private Voluntary Organisations Act. In another response to a question read on his behalf, the Minister of State Security, Nicholas Goche, said the government was monitoring the activities of NGOs. He said NGOs were used by foreign powers to unseat governments in small countries and to force a regime change. Goche said most NGOs were disguising their nefarious activities with semantics such as support for democracy and human rights. He again cited Amani Trust and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) which he said was involved in supporting several projects for the opposition MDC and helping plan its election strategy. Goche said in 2000, the WFD provided the MDC with money, which he said was still flowing into the party’s coffers. He also cited the Zimbabwe Democracy Trust and the Southern Africa Media Development Fund (SAMDEF). Goche said when The Daily News was facing financial problems, it received US$526 000 (Z$28,93 million) from SAMDEF.

IRIN 18 Nov 2002 Human Rights Watch testifies on Benue killings LAGOS, 19 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - Human Rights Watch, the US-based international human rights group on Monday began testifying in Nigeria on the massacre of hundreds of civilians by the military during ethnic clashes last year in the country’s central region. The group’s Nigeria researcher, Carina Tertsakian, appeared before a government commission in the capital, Abuja, to defend its report holding the military culpable for reprisal attacks against unarmed civilians after 19 soldiers were killed by a local militia. The commission, headed by Okwuchukwu Opene, a judge of Nigeria’s federal high court, was appointed by President Olusegun Obasanjo to probe the causes of the ethnic conflicts which have wracked Benue, Taraba, Nasarawa and Plateau states in the last two years. Tertsakian defended the rights group against suggestions by the counsel to the security forces, Bello Fadile, that its report blaming soldiers for killing over 200 civilians of the Tiv community was full of "fabrications" and "half-truths". "The operations in Benue State were well planned," she said. "All the witnesses we interviewed confirmed that the military operatives came in large numbers and the command structure of those who executed the killings was perfect, showing that the authorities gave their blessings." Despite overwhelming evidence that soldiers carried out the killings, the military authorities in Nigeria have yet to officially accept responsibility for the massacre. Obasanjo initially defended the deployment of the soldiers to the region where Tivs and their Jukun neighbours were locked in conflict over land disputes. But last month he apologised to a delegation from Benue State on a courtesy visit to the presidential residence for the killings. The Benue killings and a similar attack also ordred by the government in Odi town, in the southern oil region in 1999, were among reasons given by federal legislators for their move to begin impeachment proceedings against the president. The testimony of Human Rights Watch is expected to last two days.

Vanguard (Lagos) 20 Nov 2002 Ohaneze's Push to Actualise Igbo Presidency Princewill Ewujuru OHA-NA-EZE NDIGBO Lagos forum has re-echoed the issue of addressing the Igbo relevance in the Nigerian polity and its resolve to produce the next President of the country [....]. Mr. Oke Okeke, secretary of the forum at a press briefing to commemorate the First National conference billed to hold in November for All Igbo Political Aspirants in Nigeria (AIPAN) as well as the N2.5 billion Ndigbo political empowerment foundation, weekend in Lagos said that the Igbo agenda was borne out of the long years of marginalisation as a recurrent tune on the lips of Ndigbo. Marginalisation of Ndigbo in National life according to him rose because at a point in history Ndigbo and Eastern Nigeria lost faith in the polity called Nigeria and opted for a new Nation which led a war during which the Biafran dream was quashed and the popular slogan by the Nigeria government to keep the country one was achieved. Despite the promise of the then government of 'No Victor, No Vanquished' and the 3R's of Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Reconciliation Eastern Nigeria and especially the Igbo Nation by successive Governments have criminally, deliberately and maliciously neglected and hindered Ndigbo from attaining the highest positions in decision making process of th Nation. In addition, Okeke pointed out that careless and unmindful statements were credited to some highly respected leaders siting example he said that President Obasanjo insinuated that Igbo as a conquered people should pay for over 300 years before expecting full integration into the affairs of the Nation. He stated however in Igbo adage, Onye ajuru ana ha aju onwe ya meaning that some rejected by the society do not reject himself . Despite the genocidal annihilation of its people during the war, in spite of barriers Ndigbo's spirit have refused to be enslaved. In furtherance to his speech, Okeke noted that aside the setbacks encountered by the Igbo extraction "the Onyigbo embraces the Nigerian project deeper and more seriously than his Nigerian Brothers" drawing that the Igbo man fully adopts his new environment by living, working and investing anywhere he finds himself maintaining that Ndigbo have invested far more in other parts of the nation than in Igboland. Continuing, he pointed out that the "world Igbo summit in 2001 was a step to a higher level form that of a cacophony of complaining voices to a level of setting the Igbo agenda and positively addressing the issues that affect Ndigbo as a nation within a nation.Today we want to bring to your knowledge that through our programme initiative, we want to set into action the next level of addressing the issue of Igbo relevance in the Nigerian polity. This is the level of well defined and well articulated strategy, plans of action and programme of events to assist us in realising the Igbo agenda within the Nigerian context" This level Okeke explained is a departure from mere rhetorics and expressions of wishful thinking to the arena of marshalling out positive, purposeful and well envisioned plans of action to fulfill the yearnings of the people as this level demands that Igbos get their acts together and right too. He went on to say that the level needs defining, redefining the Igbo agenda, promoting and encouraging teamwork and team spirit in pursuit of Igbo agenda among Igbo political actors and activists, setting up structures and strengthening the existing ones by a programme of periodic interactions he stressed. At this juncture, he reminded Ndigbo that to make any impact in Nigerian politics there should be a balance of the three variants of personal, Igbo and the Nigerian agenda. Advising further, Okeke said that in pursuit of their personal agenda or national agenda shoud not negate the importance and the realisation of the Igbo agenda in the Nigerian political system. Warning, He noted that the current judgement by the Supreme court of Nigeria voiding INEC's conditions and guidelines for registration of political parties further justifies Ndigbo's idea, Stating that Ndigbo should not permit political affiliations to becloud their pursuit for Igbo agenda in Nations political arena.

Vanguard (Lagos) 20 Nov 2002 2,483 Lives Lost to Odi Armed Invasion AN Environmental rights group, Environmental Rights Action Friends of the Earth (ERA) has alleged that the military invasion of Odi in Bayelsa State claimed 2,483 casualties comprising of 1,023 females and 1,460 males. In an extract from a report entitled "Blanket of Silence: Images of the Odi Genocide. ERA in a statement signed by Doifie Ola wondered that despite President Olusegun Obasanjo's acknowledgment, while on a visit to Odi, that the soldiers went beyond their brief, the president as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces has failed to offer apology or even order compensation to the community. The NGO faulted official claims that the invading soldiers were in Odi to arrest a band of lawless elements accused of killing law enforcement officers. "The world now knows that the killing of the policemen was never the reason for the onslaught on Odi. "The idea was to contain the agitation of the peoples of the Niger Delta for resource and environmental control, political autonomy and a democratic federal Nigeria. Obasanjo and the social forces he represents perceive this agitation as a major threat to the status quo. They therefore want to conquer the Niger Delta by force of arms, the easier way to sustain the rape on the people and their resources". ERA quoted Nigeria's Minister of Defence General Theophilus Danjuma as telling the Economic Committee of West African States (ECOWAS) ministerial conference on November 25, 1999 that: "This Operation HAKURI II, was initiated with the mandate of protecting lives and property-particularly oil platforms, flow stations, operating rig terminals and pipelines, refineries and power installations in the Niger Delta". Odi is an oil community with three capped oil wells controlled by Shell Petroleum Development Company Ltd. A blanket of Silence contains ERA reports from Odi, testaments from the local people and the sick graffiti which Nigerians soldiers left on Odi, the statement said. The group gave five reasons for the human rights record of the Obasanjo regime in the Niger Delta; lto draw attention to the human rights record of the Obasanjo regime in the Niger Delta; lto highlight the sorry fact that oil, not human security, motivated the attack on the oil-bearing community of Odi; lto support the legitimate demands of the Odi people for reparations; lto campaign for an independent inquiry into the Odi massacre and the punishment of all those responsible for the genocide attack lto contribute to our active history. The group recommended that the Federal Government set up: lAn independent judicial commission of inquiry to look into the immediate and remote causes that led to the invasion, destruction, killings and maiming in Odi. l Identify persons, groups, concerns or entities who took part, encouraged, instigated, approved or perfected the invasion of Odi and have them prosecuted. l Provide relief, succour, rehabilitate and rebuild Odi town. lCompensate all those who have suffered one way or the other in the Odi invasion. l Apologise to the Odi people for this unwarranted assault on their communal sanctity. * Cause to be published a detail report of the independent judicial commission of inquiry. It also recommended that the international community should set up international war crime tribunal to try and punish all those who in one way of the other perpetrated the atrocity in Odi.

This Day (Lagos) 23 Nov 2002 Group Set to Sue Government Over Odi Bombing Lagos Human rights group, Environmental Rights Action (ERA), affiliated to the friends of the Earth, has said it had documented enough evidence to lodge a case against the Federal Government at the International Court of Justice over the November 20, 1999 bombing of Odi in Bayelsa State. Speaking at the third anniversary of Odi bombing, the group said President Olusegun Obasanjo, who ordered the attack, General Victor Malu - who was army chief at the time - and soldiers who participated in the attack on Odi were guilty of crimes against humanity. Odi was destroyed in the attack, ordered in response to the killing of 12 policemen by local militants. According to the ERA report titled 'A Blanket of Silence: Images of Odi Genocide', 2,483 people from 109 families were killed in the raid, after which only a bank and a church were left standing. The report was presented by the group's at a commemorative rally in the town. The statement said, "we have come to the conclusion that what happened in Odi was a crime against humanity," Douglas said. "The Geneva Convention and other such international instruments do not condone crimes against humanity. We have documented and compiled a justification to bring those who visited the atrocities on Odi before the International Criminal Court." Nigeria's Minister of Defence, Lt. Gen. Theophilus Danjuma, had defended the Odi invasion as aimed at protecting oil operations in the southern Niger Delta region. Over the past decade militants have routinely attacked the operations of international oil companies to back demands for access to more oil wealth and amenities for their impoverished communities. A year after the attack on Odi, Obasanjo visited the town and acknowledged that the soldiers had gone "beyond their brief". But, ERA said, he offered neither an apology nor compensation to the community. The group said it would start a case against Malu, who was retired last year, and the soldiers who participated in the mission. It said it would await the end of Obasanjo's tenure in office to sue him. Obasanjo has also been blamed for ordering a similar attack in central state of Benue last year after a local militia killed 19 soldiers sent to halt ethnic clashes there. Hundreds of people were killed and scores of houses destroyed, including that of Malu.

Daily Trust (Abuja) 18 Nov 2002 Miss World Pageant: Sharia Council Calls for Media Blackout The Supreme Council for Sharia Implementation in Nigeria has urged the 12 Northern states that introduced the Sharia Legal System to ensure a total media blackout on the current Miss World pageant holding in Nigeria. Speaking through its National President, Dr. Ibrahim Datti Ahmed, the body described the event as an abomination. It also called on other states in Nigeria where Muslims are in the greater majority to bar their radio and television stations from carrying stories on the event as a mark of respect to both Islam and Christianity which abhor nudity and promiscuity. "All Muslims should boycott it, we will not urge violence, but we Muslims will use our vote next year to oust all those who supported this immorality which goes against the teachings of the major religions," Dr. Datti Ahmad told Daily Trust in Kano. The president of the SCSN also lamented the insensitivity of the present administration to the majority, saying Muslims North and South constitute over 70 per cent of the Nigerian population and the government was turning a deaf ear to their wishes on the hosting of the event. "Now Nigerians can see the type of people they elected to be their leaders, fortunately we are in a democracy, fortunately we are going into election next year, so Muslims and those who support our stand against this immorality like the decent Christians and even those who follow African traditional religion, we should all unite and vote this irresponsible government out from Obasanjo right down to anyone who supported the event," he urged.

IRIN 21 Nov 2002 Muslims protest against news report LAGOS, 21 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - Groups of Muslim demonstrators in Nigeria’s northern Kaduna State staged violent protests on Wednesday and Thursday over what they deemed an offensive reference to the Prophet Mohammed by a national daily, residents said. Residents said more than 500 angry people invaded the office of "Thisday" daily on Wednesday morning and set it ablaze. No one was reported injured. The violence continued on Thursday with the burning of some churches and damaging of cars by the protesters. "Yesterday the Kaduna office was burned down. Today several churches have been set alight in the mainly Muslim areas of the city," Jonah Bako, a resident, told IRIN. The protesters were apparently angered by a report in Thisday's Saturday edition on the Miss World Beauty contest being hosted by Nigeria. The report contained a comment dismissing Muslim opposition to the contest by suggesting Prophet Mohammed would have probably chosen one of the beauty queens as a wife. Thisday subsequently ran front-page apologies to Muslims saying the comments were published in error after they had been removed by the supervising editor. But the anger appeared to have deepened after clerics condemned the newspaper at mosques and urged prayers for its downfall. Residents of Kaduna said vendors have since stopped displaying Thisday for sale. Tension has since mounted in the city, populated by roughly equal numbers of Muslims and non-Muslims. Policemen deployed to the streets in large numbers to stop the violence from further escalating fought with angry mobs throwing stones and bottles. Unconfirmed reports said a number of people had been killed. More than 2,000 people died in the city in 2000 in clashes between Muslims and Christians over an attempt by the state government to introduce strict Islamic law. A dozen states in Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north have introduced the strict Islamic or Shar’iah legal code in the past three years. The Miss World contest has been steeped in controversy as a result of across the world for a boycott in protest against the sentencing to death of a woman, Amina Lawal, for having a baby out of wedlock. More than 90 contestants arrived in Nigeria last week to start the contest after the Nigerian federal government gave assurances it would not allow the stoning sentences to be carried out. Many Muslims have expressed anger that the contest, describing it as "a parade of nudity" and offensive to their religious sensibilities. The contestants are currently on a tour of the mainly Christian south, while the contest itself is scheduled for 7 December in the capital, Abuja. There were fears that the violence in kaduna might spread to the volatile city of Kano and other mainly Muslim towns farther north.

WP 25 Nov 2002 Death Toll in Nigeria Climbs Past 200 as Violence Spreads By Dulue Mbachu Page A11 LAGOS, Nigeria, Nov. 24 -- The death toll from riots sparked by Muslim opposition to hosting of the Miss World pageant rose to more than 200, officials said today, as violence continued to spread across the country. Despite the decision of the Miss World organizers to move the pageant to London, rioting continued in the northern city of Kaduna, where Muslim anger erupted last Wednesday when a local newspaper columnist suggested that the prophet Muhammad might have taken one of the contestants as a wife. Muslim militants burned the northern regional office of the newspaper, ThisDay, and then attacked Christians and churches. Kaduna's Christian population has launched reprisal attacks against Muslim targets, pushing up the death toll, according to hospital officials and the local Red Cross. "We have received reports from field operatives involved in retrieving corpses from the streets indicating more than 200 people have so far died," said Johnson Michika, an official at the city's main hospital. The president of the Nigerian Red Cross, Emmanuel Ijewere, said his organization had counted 215 dead by Saturday night. The violence has since reached Nigeria's capital, Abuja. There were no immediate reports of casualties there, the Associated Press reported. Religious violence has rocked this country of 130 million, Africa's most populous, in the past three years. The fighting has claimed more than 10,000 lives and threatened the fragile unity of a country that is divided almost equally between Muslims and non-Muslims.

AP 26 Nov 2002 Nigerian Calls for Death of Miss World Article Writer By Glenn McKenzie LAGOS, Nigeria –– The deputy governor of a largely Islamic state in northern Nigeria has called on Muslims to kill the Nigerian writer of a newspaper article about the Miss World beauty pageant that sparked deadly religious riots. "Just like the blasphemous Indian writer Salman Rushdie, the blood of Isioma Daniel can be shed," Zamfara Deputy Governor Mahamoud Shinkafi told a gathering of Muslim groups in the state capital, Gusau, on Monday. Rushdie, an Indian-born Briton, went into hiding after Iran's late revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a 1989 fatwa – or religious edict – against him for allegedly insulting Islam his best-selling novel, "The Satanic Verses." In 1998, the Iranian government declared it would not support the fatwa, but said it could not rescind the edict since, under Islamic law, that could be done only by the person who issued it. Khomeini had died in 1989. While state officials cannot issue fatwas, the deputy governor, "like all Muslims," considers the death sentence against Daniel as "a reality based on the teachings of the Quran," Zamfara state Information Commissioner Tukur Umar Dangaladima said Tuesday. Islam's holy book "states that whoever accuses or insults any prophet of Allah ... should be killed," Dangaladima told The Associated Press. "If she (Daniel) is Muslim, she has no option except to die. But if she is a non-Muslim, the only way out for her is to convert to Islam." Daniel, a Lagos-based fashion writer with ThisDay, reportedly went into hiding after being interrogated by police last week in connection with the article, which suggested Islam's founding prophet Muhammed would have approved of Miss World and might have wanted to marry one of the contestants. Her religion is unknown. The newspaper has issued repeated apologies for the article, saying the offending portions were published by mistake after earlier being deleted by a supervising editor. ThisDay officials were not immediately available for comment Tuesday. But one of the paper's columnists, Amanze Obi, suggested Daniel "may have been a victim of excitement." "I imagine that she may have written that line without knowing it," Obi wrote in Tuesday's edition. "The line was innocuous." Dangaladima said other ThisDay employees had been spared from the fatwa, which "applies only to the offending pen." Zamfara was the first of 12 states to adopt Islamic law, or Shariah, after Nigerian military rule gave way to elected government in 1999. Religious clashes since then have killed thousands across the country. The latest rioting began last Wednesday when Muslims burned down a ThisDay office in the northern city of Kaduna. More than 200 people were killed in the city and rioting also briefly spread to the capital, Abuja. The violence caused Miss World organizers to abandon plans to hold the pageant in Nigeria and evacuate more than 80 participants to London, where the show will go ahead Dec. 7.

IRIN 29 Nov 2002 slamic council overrules fatwa on journalist LAGOS, 29 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - Nigeria’s leading Islamic council, Jama'atu Nasril Islam, on Thursday overruled the death sentence or fatwa passed on a local newspaper reporter for an article considered blasphemous by Muslims. The northern state of Zamfara had urged Muslims on Monday to kill Isioma Daniel of Thisday daily as a religious obligation for her article dismissing Muslim opposition to the hosting of the Miss World contest in Nigeria. In the article, Daniel, who has since fled Nigeria, suggested prophet Mohammed may have chosen one of the contestants for a wife. "The Zamfara state government has no authority to issue fatwas and the fatwa issued by it should be ignored," a statement signed by Lateef Adegbite, the council’s secretary general, said. The statement said the leader of Nigerian Muslims, the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Macido, had asked the fatwa committee to meet and discuss Daniel’s article, having noted the apology made by the newspaper. Muslim protests against the Thisday article had degenerated into four days of sectarian violence in the northern city of Kaduna last week in which more than 200 people died. The Miss World organisers cancelled the contest, which was to have held in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, and moved it to London. President Olusegun Obasanjo travelled on Thursday to Kaduna, where he visited some of the wounded in hospital. He told a meeting of religious and traditional rulers he had directed the security agencies to apprehend those responsible for the violence. Christian leaders remained critical of the government’s handling of the crisis, saying most of the casualties were non-Muslims. "If the government fails to protect us, our people will be left with no option but to defend and protect themselves by whatever means available to them," Methodist Archbishop Ola Makinde, told reporters. He blamed the increasing cases of sectarian violence in Nigeria on the introduction of strict Islamic or Shari’ah law by 12 states in the predominantly Muslim north. More than 2,000 people died in Kaduna in 2000 in violence that erupted over an attempt by the government to introduce the Islamic legal code.

Rwanda

Internews (Arusha) 4 Nov 2002 Rwanda Supports ICTR Proposal to Compensate Genocide Survivors By Sukhdev Chhatbar Arusha The government of Rwanda hopes the UN will promptly act on a recent proposal by Navanethem Pillay, President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), on compensation for victims of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Supporting Pillay's proposal, made to a United Nations Security Council meeting in New York on 29 October, Martin Ngoga, special representative of the Rwanda government to the ICTR, said: "Wisdom must prevail the UN has the ability [to compensate the victims] if it decides so." He added that his government would like to see the proposal transformed into reality. "The suggestion is commendable, and we expect the United Nations to act," Ngoga told Internews today. In her proposal, Pillay told the UN Security Council that compensation would help Rwanda to recover from the genocidal experience. "Many Rwandans have questioned the tribunal's value and its role in promoting reconciliation when claims for compensation were not addressed I strongly urge the United Nations to provide compensation for the Rwanda victims." More than 800,000 people died in the April-July 1994 violence in Rwanda, which was triggered by the death of President Juvenal Habyarimana on 6 April 1994. Regarding Pillay's remarks that the tribunal has experienced difficulties in bringing witnesses from Rwanda following new immigration regulations, Ngoga said: "Let the bygones be bygones." He said Pillay's proposal for a joint meeting with senior Rwandan officials "should be the focus of the discussion." The ICTR president told the Security Council that two trials were affected in May and June due of lack of witnesses, which, according to her, "disrupted the careful planning of the judicial calendar and was a severe setback to the judicial work." The trials were the so-called "Butare Trial" for six defendants, and the trial for Eliezer Niyitegeka, former Rwandan minister for information. Pillay's proposed meeting between tribunal and Rwanda government officials is scheduled for Arusha later this month. Rwanda's Justice Minister Jean de dieu Mucyo and other senior government officials are expected to attend.

Christian Science Monitor 7 Nov 2002 Rwandan community courts slow to bring justice Twenty-six pilot courts, called gacacas, have been begun hearing testimony about Rwanda's 1994 genocide By Nicole Itano | Special to The GASHARU, RWANDA - Once a week, the inhabitants of this tiny, mountaintop village meet in a small clearing next to a carefully cultivated potato and bean field. Women comfort babies under the shelter of brightly colored umbrellas. Old men holding the smoothly carved sticks of a village elder huddle under a nearby tree. When 100 people have arrived, trickling in from their fields in the nearby hills, a lanky man with a soft voice rises from his wooden bench and opens a small box containing a list of names. He solemnly begins a prayer for those who were killed during Rwanda's 1994 genocide. "God has brought rain to remind us of those who died in the genocide," he says, looking at the threatening skies. "We are here in their memory." Court is in session. The people of Gasharu have been meeting in this unsheltered field once a week for more than three months, attempting to compile a record of what happened during those terrible 100 days when an estimated 800,000 to 1 million Rwandan Tutsis and their Hutu supporters were slaughtered. It is the first step in a process expected to last three years, during which time those accused of genocide will be tried by newly revived village courts, called gacacas for the grass clearings in which they are held. But questions remain whether these trials, whose success is based on people's willingness to speak openly about what happened, can bring justice. Earlier this year, gacaca (pronounced ga-CHA-cha) courts were initiated to relieve Rwanda's overburdened justice system. Twenty-six pilot courts out of an expected 11,000 have begun hearing testimony. In this first phase, the courts are collecting evidence and compiling lists of the victims and the accused. With strong incentives for prisoners to confess (their sentences are halved), government officials are hoping that the vast majority of the accused, including the more than 100,000 languishing in Rwanda's overcrowded prisons, will voluntarily tell their stories. This crucial information about what happened in 1994 can be used to try the still unrepentant. But Rwandans are wary of digging up the past. As yet, the outflow of information has not been as abundant as the government had hoped. Terezia Uwimana, a Hutu grandmother with snow-white hair and small whiskers poking from her chin, says that everyone knows what happened in 1994. But like many here, she has left the difficult accusations to others, testifying only about the theft of some cattle by Tutsis. Many of the courts have struggled with low participation. And Tutsis have been reluctant to testify for fear they will be victimized again. Questions about the judges So far, the courts have operated with a town-hall meeting format. A panel of 15 judges listens to testimony by community members or prisoners who have chosen to confess. The judges, many of whom are only semiliterate, often ask the speaker to stop or speak more slowly. Worrying to some human rights groups is the training and independence of judges. Some have been accused of complicity in the genocide. And with minimal preparation time, they often lack uniformity in interpreting the law. "The question really is why are people so reticent ... and how will the government respond to that," says Alison des Forges, a senior adviser at Human Rights Watch who has followed the trials closely and testified at the United Nations trials that deal with the genocide planners. "Is it going to react by reconsidering the system or will it simply go ahead as planned?" Ms. Des Forges says that one reason for the low participation from Hutus may be that the government has refused to allow the gacaca courts to deal with crimes allegedly committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front, the Tutsi-led rebel army that ultimately toppled the Hutu government and ended the genocide. As a result, many Hutus say they feel the trials are not addressing the whole story of what happened. One day recently, Didas Rutashungirwa was among those who waited for hours for the proceedings in Gasharu to begin. But for Mr. Rutashungirwa, an aging cattle herder who lost six children and his wife of 20 years, this day was special. He had come to hear the confession of the man who killed his wife. Confronting his former neighbor brought the memories of those terrible days rushing back. Rutashungirwa is anxious to hear this man, one of three prisoners in pink prison jumpsuits returning to testify. But he is also afraid. "The men who killed children and babies, we especially fear them," says Rutashungirwa, who has the haunted look of many survivors. "Maybe," he says, "they will come back to kill the survivors, to finish the job." Though the charge for murder carries a maximum sentence of 15 years, many who have confessed have already served eight years and will be coming home soon. A model for reconciliation Despite a wave of new confessions, it is difficult to find anyone here who admits to actually killing anyone. Augustin Ruhigisa's story is common here. This bulky former bar owner confessed to handing over an old woman to be tortured, but only because a soldier with a gun ordered him to. Under the gacaca legislation, however, giving someone up to be killed is the same as killing. (It is still unclear whether individual courts will convict on that basis.) Even with the challenges, Rwanda's chief prosecutor says Rwanda is making the community courts an example for post-conflict resolution. "By and large, we've been able to make so much progress compared to other countries emerging from conflict," says Gerald Gahina, a slim, well-spoken former refugee who heads Rwanda's 300 prosecutors who are working with the gacaca courts to provide evidence on the prisoners. "Is it a model? In my view, God forbid that any country ever goes through this again, but for us this is working."

AP 7 Nov 2002 Rwanda Turns to Islam After Genocide By RODRIQUE NGOWI Associated Press Writer November 7, 2002, 2:40 PM EST KIGALI, Rwanda -- After the sliver of the new moon had been sighted, Saleh Habimana joined the growing ranks of Muslims in this central African nation and began the daylight fasting that marks the holy month of Ramadan. Later, Rwanda's leading Muslim cleric joined men in embroidered caps and boys in school uniforms to pray at the overflowing Al-Fatah mosque -- more testimony to the swelling numbers of Muslims in this predominantly Christian country. Though Muslims remain a small percentage of Rwanda's 8 million people, Islam is on the rise eight years after the 1994 genocide brought 100 days of murder, terror and mayhem. More than 500,000 minority Tutsis and political moderates from the Hutu majority were killed by Hutu militiamen, soldiers and ordinary citizens in a slaughter orchestrated by the extremist Hutu government then in power. "For Hutus, conversion to Islam was like purification, a way of getting rid of a stigma," Habimana said. "After the genocide, Hutus felt that the society perceives them as having blood on their hands." Arab merchants trading in ivory and slaves introduced Islam to Rwanda in the 18th century. The faith grew after 1908 when waves of Muslims flowed in from Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Sudan at the beginning of European colonial rule. For nearly a century, Muslims remained on the fringes of Rwandan society. The faithful in Kigali were restricted to Biryogo, a dusty neighborhood where the Al-Fatah mosque now stands. They needed permits to leave. During the genocide, Muslims were among the few Rwandans who protected both neighbors and strangers. Elsewhere, many Hutus hunted down or betrayed their Tutsi neighbors and strangers suspected of belonging to the minority. But the militiamen and soldiers didn't dare go after Tutsis in Muslim neighborhoods like Biryogo, said Yvette Sarambuye, a 29-year-old convert. "If a Hutu Muslim tried to kill someone hidden in our neighborhoods, he would first be asked to take the holy Quran and tear it apart to renounce his faith," said Sarambuye, a Tutsi widowed mother of three who survived the slaughter by hiding with Muslims. "No Muslim dared to violate the holy book, and that saved a lot of us." For many Hutu extremists, Muslims were regarded as a group apart, not to be targeted in the genocide. Although the Christian clergy in many communities struggled to protect Tutsis and often died with them, more than 20 Roman Catholic and Protestant priests, nuns and pastors are facing charges related to the killings. Rwandan courts already have convicted two Catholic priests and sentenced them to death. As Sarambuye hid in Muslim homes during the slaughter, she watched them pray, learned about a faith that previously was alien to her and grew to admire it. "For these people, Islam was not a label, it was a way of life, and I felt an urge to join them," she said. Tutsis also converted to Islam for practical reasons -- seeking protection from renewed killings by Hutus who continued to attack Rwanda from refugee camps in Congo after Tutsi-led rebels ended the genocide and overthrew the Hutu government, Habimana said. Conversions tapered off after 1997 when the government was able to guarantee security, and Islam was no longer regarded as a vital safe haven, Habimana said. But the religion still attracts converts. There are no official figures on how many Rwandans are Muslim; estimates vary from 5 to 14 percent. Most Muslims in Rwanda belong to the majority Sunni branch of Islam, said Jean-Pierre Sagahutu, a 35-year-old Tutsi who converted to the faith. "After the genocide, a small group of Islamic fundamentalists, funded by Pakistanis who flew to Rwanda frequently, took control of a mosque and started to organize themselves," he said. "But they were kicked out by the official Muslim organization concerned about the spread of radical Islam." As Rwandan Christian Tutsis and Hutus try to reconcile, their Muslim countrymen believe they could learn something about tolerance and solidarity from Islam. "Reconciliation is not necessary for Muslims in Rwanda, because we do not view the world through a racial or ethnic lens," Sagahutu said.

IRIN 18 Nov 2002 UN, Donors to Assist Government in 2003 Elections Nairobi Foreign donors and aid agencies are to assist the Rwandan government to prepare for democratic elections due in July 2003, the United Nations reported on Friday. The UN Development Programme, British, Swedish and other aid agencies are to help Rwanda's electoral commission to draw up a plan for the July 2003 elections, train electoral monitors, provide ballot boxes and computerise voter rolls. UNDP had already helped Rwanda's Constitutional Commission produce a draft constitution, and supported the judiciary and police forces, the UN added. The constitution is due to be submitted to a national referendum in March 2003. In a meeting on 14 November, Rwandan President Paul Kagame asked UNDP Administrator Mark Malloch Brown for help to ensure "efficiency" and "transparency" during the elections. Brown said that Rwanda's future depended on its efforts to deepen democracy, and that "the challenge is to ensure that the government is the government of the people - of all the people". The July elections will mark the end of the transition period that has followed the 1994 genocide.

Christian Science Monitor csmonitor.com 27 Nov 2002 How Rwanda's genocide lingers on for women A handful of programs are assisting women who were raped and infected with AIDS, but thousands more go without help By Nicole Itano The KIGALI, RWANDA - Chantal Uwamaliya wraps her rail-thin body in a blue knit shawl. She waits with a dozen other women to see a nurse at a small house in a ramshackle Kigali neighborhood. The women who come here, more than 500 in all, are young mothers in their 20s and aging grandmothers who walk with canes. Yet they all share a similar story. Each was raped during Rwanda's 1994 genocide. And each of them has been diagnosed with AIDS. In the summer of 1994, an estimated 800,000 to 1 million people were killed over a three-month period, when Rwanda's Hutu government set out to eliminate the country's ethnic Tutsi minority. Most were killed with guns and machetes. But for many Tutsi women - accused by the Hutus of being too prideful - the Hutus used AIDS as part of their arsenal, raping them to infect them. Human rights and survivors organizations say that rape was orchestrated by organizers of the genocide. "It was one of their weapons," says Consolée Mukanyirigira, coordinator of AVEGA, an organization of 25,000 genocide widows, which runs the small center. "They had two weapons. One was to use the guns and machetes; the other was to infect us with AIDS." Rwanda's HIV-positive genocide widows are largely overlooked in a country trying hard to rebuild and recover eight years after the horror. Only a handful of these women, mostly in the capital Kigali, receive medical care and counseling from a small number of organizations. Every morning, 15 to 20 women arrive at the center, called Agahozo - "the place where tears are dried." Two nurses dispense drugs and advice inside the small house, while others wait quietly on wooden benches outside. No one knows exactly how many women were raped during the genocide, or how many now have AIDS. A recent study of 1,200 AVEGA members who were sexually assaulted in 1994 found that two-thirds were HIV-positive, and three-quarters were emotionally traumatized. AVEGA (www.avega.org.rw), funded by several international aid organizations, has only enough money to help a small number of women whom they know are infected. World Vision (www.wvi.org), a Christian relief organization, also runs a center for HIV-positive widows, but there are thousands, particularly in rural areas, who receive no help at all. Mrs. Uwamaliya doesn't know how many men raped her during the 100 days of murder and chaos that engulfed Kigali. After the death of her husband and eldest daughter, who were hauled away from a roadblock during the first days of the genocide, Uwamaliya fled with her four remaining children, the youngest just a baby strapped to her back. She and her children moved from place to place, staying with sympathetic neighbors or in buildings that had been taken over by fleeing Tutsis. Often, members of the military or Hutu militia, called the Interahamwe, would discover her. But instead of killing her, they raped her. Eventually, Uwamaliya and her children made their way to a place they heard had become a safehouse for Tutsis. But even there, Hutu soldiers would come each night to take their pick of the women. The half-dozen men that remained with them were killed, and the safehouse became a brothel for the militia. Today, Uwamaliya comes every week or so to Agahozo. The women here sit silently, shoulder to shoulder on the center's wooden benches. They do not speak to one another about the trauma they endured. But they say they take comfort that they are not alone. The hardest part for most of them is knowing that their children will soon be without them. The center helps children who have already lost their parents by paying their school fees and helping them find a place to live. But the genocide left many orphans, and the burden of caring for them is too great for this fragile society to bear. "When [the women] start getting sick, they start worrying about what will happen to their children," says Rose Moukamusana, director of the Agahozo center. "Most of them have no relatives, and their friends and neighbors have been killed or scattered. They also fear that if this happened to them, and that it happened to them because they were Tutsi, that it could happen to their children. They believe they are leaving their children in an uncertain world." Uwamaliya, too, is worried for her children, the youngest who is now 9. She tries to be strong. "I am sick, my friends are sick," says Uwamaliya, her voice cracking. "What will happen to them when I die? I must keep living as long as I can for them."

Sierra Leone

IRIN 1 Nov 2002 UN troops start leaving UNAMSIL patrol in Sierra Leone ABIDJAN, 1 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - Several hundred soldiers serving in the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) have concluded their tour of duty and were expected to leave the West African country this weekend. UNAMSIL officials told IRIN that the departing troops were among 600 who would leave by the end of the year under a downsizing arrangement agreed by the Security Council in September. Up to 4,500 of the 17,000 UNAMSIL troops in Sierra Leone are expected to leave by 31 May, 2003. The UNAMSIL force commander, Lt. Gen. Daniel Opande, on Wednesday visited several battalions in the western district of Port Loko to bid farewell to the troops, UNAMSIL reported on Thursday. The troops he visited included a Bangladeshi artillery battalion and a Kenyan battalion. UNAMSIL had also reported last week that a Nigerian battalion in the capital, Freetown, was leaving. On 23 October, the departing Nigerians visited the Aberdeen Amputee camp in Freetown and donated food and other items as a farewell gesture, the mission said. In September UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan proposed that the mandate of UNAMSIL, which was due to expire on 30 September, be extended by six months and the force gradually downsized before an eventual handover of security and other responsibilities to the Sierra Leone government. "The beginning of the drawdown of UNAMSIL will take the mission into the final phase of the United Nations peacekeeping operation in Sierra Leone," Annan had said. He recommended that the force be reduced to about 5,000 troops by late 2004, and later to 2,000 "depending on need at that time". The Security Council adopted his proposals.

Somalia

IRIN 21 Nov 2002 Mixed reactions to clan-based proposal Hussein Aideed ELDORET, 21 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - Somalia's Transitional National Government (TNG) and the opposition Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC) have both expressed dissatisfaction with a proposal to allocate delegates' seats at the Eldoret peace talks on the basis of clan. The regional body, Inter-Governmental Authority on Drought (IGAD), which is organising the conference, on Tuesday proposed that 400 plenary seats be allocated along clan lines, to ensure equal representation for Somalia's four biggest clans, and for minorities. TNG Prime Minister Hassan Abshir Farah told a news conference that Somalis had decided more than two years ago to "leave clans", and set up the TNG, which was the legitimate government. However, he said the TNG would accept clan distribution of seats to a new transitional government once this had been negotiated by the conference. Hussein Mohamed Aideed, co-chairman of the opposition SRRC, told IRIN he did not reject the proposal outright but was nevertheless unhappy with it. "Instead of just saying no, we want to study this and show them how this is impractical," he said, noting that the SRRC was already composed of different clans. "We are mixed, and we already solved our internal problems before coming to this conference," he said. "To divide us now on a clan basis will create divisions in the SRRC, this will create divisions inside the TNG as a group, and it will take a long time, maybe two months I think, to regroup again into a tribal system." However, both sides said they believed a compromise could be found to break the deadlock. Some faction leaders have welcomed the proposal. "These are at least criteria that can be understood," Mogadishu-based faction leader Muhammad Qanyare Afrah told IRIN on Thursday. Qanyare, who leads the so-called group of eight (G8), said the G8 members were in favour of the new proposal. Justice Minister in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, Awad Ahmed Ashareh, told IRIN his administration had no problem with the proposal. "If this new proposal brings a solution and if it is in the interest of Somali people, then it's fine with us," he said. The IGAD proposal came after the G8 complained that seats had been distributed unfairly.

South Africa

Business Day (Johannesburg) 4 Nov 2002 Move to Find Skeletons in Kwazulu-Natal Closet Johannesburg ONCE again, serious consideration is being given by the African National Congress (ANC) in KwaZulu-Natal to a special amnesty deal for perpetrators of political violence in the province. Provincial leader Sbu Ndebele, ahead of the ANC national conference in Stellenbosch next month, is championing a miniversion of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process exclusively for KwaZulu-Natal. If the proposal is endorsed by the ANC's highest decision-making body, it is envisaged that since KwaZulu-Natal has a unique history of political conflict, primarily between the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), an exception should be made for those who, for one reason or another, missed out when the Archbishop Desmond Tutu show was in town. An examination of why these perpetrators missed out in the first place points to why the very suggestion of a special amnesty is fraught with danger. Most of the acts of political violence, which would be covered by this new deal, would have been committed after 1994. In other words, those who would benefit would be people who elected to use force to achieve political goals, despite the liberties which democracy bestowed on every citizen of this country. Coming to mind would be those who assassinated KwaZuluNatal midlands United Democratic Movement leader Sifiso Nkabinde. A former ANC strongman who fell out of favour amid allegations he was an apartheid government spy, Nkabinde was no angel. His removal from the political scene, albeit by criminal and unacceptable means, no doubt helped stabilise the region. Last week the Durban High Court dismissed the killers' appeal against their sentences, but theirs would be an obvious case for consideration. The danger, of course, is that once a precedent has been set, where does the country stop? Whoever planted the bombs that exploded in Gauteng last week might still have plans for KwaZulu-Natal, and the terrorist acts certainly have a political motive. Would these perpetrators also be able to make a case for a special amnesty? Besides, constitutionally, it would be almost impossible to turn down amnesty appeals by people outside KwaZulu-Natal. The drafters of the amnesty proposal argue there would be very strict conditions and time frames. Amnesty would only be granted where full disclosure was made. Applicants would need to tell who supplied them with arms, what the motive was, and who stood to benefit politically. All arms caches would need to be pointed out. Security forces would then launch a massive "search and seizure" operation to rid the province of the weapons. Why such an operation cannot be launched now, without an amnesty process, is beyond me. Criminals who maim or murder for whatever motive, should be caught and given long prison terms. There is absolutely no need for a special deal for thuggery which purports to have political legitimacy. Also, it does seem naïve to expect "full disclosures" from prospective beneficiaries of a proposed amnesty deal. The "whole" truth behind political violence in KwaZulu-Natal, past and present, will probably remain unknown forever to the general public. The reasons are mainly political, and it is perhaps in SA's best interests that we should never have "full disclosures" about who did what. The issue of the identities of those who "sold out" and worked with the apartheid regime would need to be revisited if we are talking about "full disclosures". These are chapters of our history which many, including current top political leaders in KwaZulu-Natal and elsewhere, would prefer to see closed. The cost of reopening them needs to be weighed very, very carefully by whoever has the final say. However, political intrigue is what defines the province's politics. Only recently government settled, out of court, a huge claim by KwaMakhutha township family members who survived a massacre for which former defence minister Magnus Malan and other top generals stood trial. The accused were found not guilty in a court of law, but the new government has paid the damages. It would be helpful if the proposed amnesty could manage to extract proper full disclosure, so that we might have a better understanding of the origins of the past woes of the province. I am afraid I do not have much hope noble though the intention may be. Madlala is editor and publisher of UmAfrika. If proposed amnesty could extract full disclosure we might have a better (grasp) of the origins of the past woes of the province

SAPA 9 Nov 2002 South African Press Association (Johannesburg) Marchers Call On UN to Intervene in Palestine Bloemfontein Marchers in Bloemfontein called on the United Nations on Saturday to intervene in the Middle East "in order to end the genocide committed against the Palestinian people". The marchers waved banners calling US President George W. Bush, British Premier Tony Blair and Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon terrorists. The protest, organised by the provincial branches of the African National Congress, Congress of SA Trade Unions, SA Communist Party and SA National Civics Organisation, was held to show solidarity with Palestinians, Cubans and Iraqis, and to demonstrate against Israel and the United States. Among the marchers were several Muslims from Bloemfontein and neighbouring Thaba Nchu and Botshabelo. Palestinian ambassador Salman Herfi also attended, as well as national Public Enterprises Minister Jeff Radebe. A memorandum calling for world peace was handed to an official of the Department of Foreign Affairs. According to the memorandum the marchers gathered "to show our outrage at the terrorist acts perpetrated by the State of Israel against the people of Palestine". "The continued illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and the merciless annihilation of Palestinian people, including children, constitute a threat to international peace and security. "We demand the effective implementation of the UN resolutions for the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital," the memorandum read. The document also called on Bush and America "to stop testing its military precision equipment and might on Iraq" and to stop "its blatant aggressive tendencies, war mongering and greed". It criticised sanctions on Cuba and called for the immediate release by the US of five Cuban nationals incarcerated "under the guise that they have been found guilty of murder and spying". Around 2000 demonstrators, mainly from Bloemfontein, participated in the march.

Independent UK 7 Nov 2002 Is this the end of the rainbow for South Africa? Bombings, arms caches, arrests... A far-right plot to overthrow the state is sending shock waves through the 'new' South Africa. Are reports of apartheid's death exaggerated? John Carlin investigates The headlines from South Africa have been sneaking their way, ever more alarmingly, into our consciousness. The most recent – "White extremists set off bombs in Soweto" – came only last week, but the trend had been developing for months – "Ten charged with plot against Pretoria", "Afrikaner arms cache seized", and so on. In isolation, each might be shrugged off as part of the background noise of global strife. Together, they raise a question that the world never imagined would have to be asked again: is the ghost of apartheid stirring? Will a resurgent white right attempt bloodily to turn back the clock and destroy the dreams of Nelson Mandela's "rainbow nation"? The answer is amazing, somewhat disturbing, and more than faintly farcical. There has indeed been a white plot afoot which, while limited to the borders of South Africa, was ambitious to an extent worthy of a bin Laden. The ideal for which the plotters have been striving is so plainly evil that it makes the old apartheid dream of total racial separation seem modest by comparison. According to information obtained by the police, they drew their inspiration from the Ku Klux Klan and September 11. While the danger is not yet over – the Soweto bombers are presumed still to be at large – the plot appears to have been foiled. On Monday the police caught one of the alleged ringleaders, a former army officer called Tom Vorster, who had been on the run for six months and is believed by police to have been in contact in recent years with white supremacist groups in the United States. Having made two other arrests late last week, the police believe they have caught all the conspiracy's main leaders. A farmer, an ex-policeman and a former university lecturer, Dr Johan "Lets" Pretorius, all of them right-wing Afrikaners, were the first to be arrested, back in April. The alleged plotters seem to have struck back within a month when a man believed to have been a traitor in their midst, a suspected police informer, was found dead at a shooting range with nine bullets in his body. But the counter-terrorist unit in charge of the investigation, named Operation Zealot, has since notched up success after success, unearthing a cache of bombs on a farm, seizing a truck loaded with thousands of automatic rifles and launching a manhunt that has led so far to the arrest of 18 suspects, three of them serving members of the South African National Defence Force. Vorster appeared in court on Tuesday on charges of terrorism, high treason and sabotage. All 18 are due to face trial in Pretoria in May, and police say that they are expecting to make more arrests shortly. The prosecution has indicated that much of its case will rest on more than 200 pages of documents found among the suspects, all members of an outfit calling itself Boeremag, or "boer force". The documents are reported to reveal that the plotters had been inspired by the attacks in the United States on September 11 to identify heavily-populated targets, so achieving what in the old apartheid security establishment they used to call "high terror value". The objectives of the plot were to overthrow the government of South Africa, set up a white junta and drive the black population into the sea. The means to an end that had eluded successive apartheid governments were the following: recruit a rebel army; assassinate white "traitors" and black cabinet ministers; free jailed Boer heroes; cut off power supplies; and seize control of – among other things – airports, radio stations, gold mines and abattoirs. But the success or failure of the Boer counter-revolution rested above all on a radical new concept in the history of coups d'état, a strategy codenamed "Push and Suck". It may all be academic now. Thanks to Operation Zealot, 10 of the alleged plotters have been charged – exactly as Nelson Mandela was nearly half a century ago – with high treason. But examination of the fantasies that appear to have driven the Boeremag reveals at least three interesting things: how mad the dregs of the apartheid far right are; how stable South Africa has become since the historic elections of 1994; and how right Marx was when he made that crack about history repeating itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Push and Suck was the guts of the conspiracy. It was the means by which a rebel army whose numbers would swell to 4,500 (about 0.01 per cent of South Africa's total population) would set about the task of ethnically cleansing 40 million black people (90 per cent of the population). The final solution contemplated was not, however, genocide. It never was in South Africa; while some have described apartheid as moral genocide, as the deliberate attempt to exterminate the spirit of an entire people, not even the worst of the "volk" ever seriously contemplated mass murder. What was on the agenda was mass incarceration. And mass forced removals. Which is what Push and Suck was all about. The master stroke of a plot "planned down to the finest detail", in the words of the prosecutor in last month's trial (a man with the proud Boer name of Louis Wiese), would have been to expel black South Africans not out of "white areas", as in the old days, but out of South Africa altogether. First, all black people would be forced out of what used to be called the Northern Cape, the Free State and the Transvaal (an inland area about twice the size of Great Britain) towards the coastal provinces of KwaZulu Natal, the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape. This would be done by a combination of force and inducement. They would be pushed out by straight military means, but also sucked out – and here is where the "Boeremag Ten" appeared to have believed the genius of the strategy to lie – by placing large amounts of food along the roads leading out of the centre of the country. The key, of course, lay in letting it be known to the black masses that if they would only be so kind as to abandon their ancestral homes and join the great exodus to the sea, their reward would be unlimited quantities of free grub. Which helps to explain the plotters' resolve to seize abattoirs as well as radio stations, but serves also to reveal that the group belonged to a species of white South African (a happily endangered species, as it turns out) so unevolved as to persist in the belief that black people are not fully qualified members of the human race, but animals to be hunted down exactly as one would wild game. The millions upon millions of black refugees from the three big central regions having been duly displaced to the coast, part two of the operation would involve closing off the new borders, except for whites fleeing inland, and forcing the economic collapse of the coastal provinces. At which point the new military junta would launch a series of punishing military attacks. The upshot of the inevitable victory would be the unconditional demand that every last black man, woman and child go north with their belongings into Africa. Once South Africa was entirely lily-white, once the Boeremag had pulled off the miracle that had eluded the old National Party during the 40 years of apartheid, plans would be set in motion to disband the junta and recreate a new, whites-only political dispensation – presumably based, as the apartheid system used to be, on the Westminster model. Before getting there, however, before putting Push and Suck into practice, the coup plot required the implementation of three preliminary phases, as revealed in the document captured by the police. Phase one involved recruiting and intelligence-gathering. The plotters, at least three of whom are army officers, initially sought to enlist members and obtain secrets from the South African National Defence Force. It was also considered vital to obtain information on how to take over the workings of the South African Broadcasting Corporation and close down parliament. Phase two was unleashing "chaos" on South Africa. This would involve carrying out misleading decoy actions of the type favoured by the South African security forces during the apartheid era to create mayhem in the black communities. One plan was to stage a spectacular attack on a white target – an unspecified action codenamed Lima One – which would be blamed on Muslims or Jews. Another was for a death squad unit composed of 50 individuals to carry out assassinations and blame them on black people. (Among the apparent targets were the former premier FW de Klerk, the perceived father of all Boer sell-outs, and right-wing leaders such as General Constand Viljoen, who participated in the 1994 elections.) There were also plans afoot to stage jailbreaks for Eugene de Kock, a former security-police assassin described by his own colleagues as "prime evil", and for Clive Derby-Lewis and Janusz Walus, the two men responsible for the assassination of the African National Congress (ANC) leader Chris Hani, whose death in April 1993 caused such rage that the country came the closest it ever did to racial war. The third phase would have been the coup d'état itself, the essential part of which would be "taking out" the entire cabinet and selected MPs. The airports and the abattoirs having been seized, power stations would be blown up and a 10-day blackout would be imposed. Military installations would be seized, the government in Pretoria (those among them who remained alive) would be left with no choice but to surrender and a revolutionary army, bounteously provisioned, would set forth boldly to push, suck and conquer. And one final thing. Once the country had been, as they used to say, successfully "unblackened", the fledgling Boer democracy would seek strong ties, as the captured Boeremag document confidently anticipates, with the the government of the United States. Which is perhaps not the most ludicrously outlandish of the objectives the Boeremag plotters set themselves, though, as a number of the former ANC revolutionaries who now run the government of South Africa have pointed out, it would be a mistake to underestimate the capacity these people had to inflict cruel suffering. As South Africa's top policeman, Commissioner Jackie Selebi, said upon the discovery last month of a clandestine home-made munitions dump on a farm in the northern Limpopo province, the intention of the plotters had been to carry out massive terrorist actions against civilians. Selebi, himself branded a terrorist in the apartheid era, revealed that the captured arsenal included 16 metal cylinders, each weighing about 40lbs, that would have provided casings for bombs that could have killed scores of people if detonated in a busy shopping centre. Along with the cylinders, police found 22 buckets of ammonium nitrate powder (the raw materials for the bombs), as well as alarm clocks converted into bomb timers, hand-grenades, and eight boxes containing a variety of ammunition. What drives these people? Why would a group of well-fed farmers, well-paid army officers and, in at least one case, a doctor go to the hare-brained extreme of wishing to slaughter innocent people in the furtherance of a manifestly impossible cause? What do they have inside their heads? The answer is this: a combustible mix of ancient myths and terrors and present fears – fears that are understandable because they are based on tangible day-to-day dangers. The best-known incident in Afrikaner history, and one which has coloured the thinking of whites on relations with their black compatriots ever since, concerns the fate that befell the leader of the Great Trek of 1836, Piet Retief. Lured by the Zulu king, Dingaan, into the royal kraal for peace talks, Retief and 70 of his trekkers were foully betrayed. Dingaan's "impis" – Zulu regiments – slaughtered Retief's party and then fell on nearby trekker encampments, massacring men, women and children. The lesson has been taught to Afrikaner schoolchildren of succeeding generations ever since, entrenching the cliché in the Boer mind: "Never trust a black man." Add to that a heavy component of unacknowledged guilt, and it is not hard to see why the prevailing nightmare of white South Africans for a very long time, at least since the Great Trek, has been of a black hand reaching up from under the bed in the middle of the night with savage intent. An Afrikaner farmer's wife deep in the Karoo offered me a more complex variation on that theme one day eight years ago, just before the elections that would bring Nelson Mandela to power, when she described a dream she had when she was nine years old. "I was up a tree," the woman said, "and I looked down and saw a black man. He was wearing a green military uniform and he had a rifle. I was frightened. I knew he was looking for me. But he couldn't see me because I was hiding behind leaves. Then suddenly his face was right up against mine. But God saved me. He made me invisible to the black man. And then in the dream God told me that one day the black people would want to kill all the whites in South Africa – but we would be saved because he would make them all blind." Blind to the injustices, presumably, that white had perpetrated on black ever since the appalling retribution exacted on Dingaan after the death of Retief: the killing of 3,000 Zulu warriors on the banks of Blood River at a cost, thanks to the technological superiority of the rifle over the spear, of three trekkers lightly wounded. That guilt, combined with a dread sense that black South Africans must be seeking revenge, explains why, in 1990, three months after Mandela's release from prison, the rumour spread around the white neighbourhoods of Pretoria that 10 April 1990 had been declared by the ANC to be "Kill a White Day". That the rumour, so utterly implausible to anyone with any serious understanding of Mandela or the ANC, was widely believed reveals how deep the ancient terrors ran then. They still do. The Boeremag might perhaps have restrained their revolutionary urges, might have quietly snuffed out their ancient terrors, had it not been for the fact that, in the wide open spaces inhabited by the more conservative, less worldly, less politically sophisticated members of the Afrikaner tribe, it has been "kill a white day" every three or four days since the world celebrated the triumph of democracy and the ascent to power of Mandela in May 1994. This has nothing to do with Mandela, but everything to do with the raw, primitive form of apartheid that prevailed for decades in dry, dusty places like Limpopo province, previously known as the Northern Transvaal. The shocking statistic is this: since 1994 more than 600 white farmers have been murdered in South Africa, compared to 25 in Zimbabwe. And they have been murdered by their black neighbours. One of the 10 alleged plotters who has been charged with high treason, Lieutenant-Colonel Jacques Olivier, has revealed in court that he was at a meeting on rural safety last year where an angry man cried out: "For each attack in which a farmer or his family is murdered, a taxi should be attacked." A taxi, in this case, is a van with about 10 seats (but often carrying more people); it is black people's favoured means of transport. It is easy to condemn such vengeful, racist sentiments but, as a liberal-minded journalist who lives in a fortified "gated community" in Johannesburg said to me the other day, it is not fun to live out there on the farms if you are white. Not fun at all. With apologies to the victims of New York and Bali, the threat al-Qa'ida poses to the citizens of the western world is metaphysically remote compared to the clear and present menace South Africa's white farmers live under every day. Which is why they are all heavily armed, and have created paramilitary vigilante groups that keep in permanent radio contact. Who can blame them? These far-flung regions of South Africa have not succumbed to the Mandela magic. The ancient grievances remain. A sharp edge remains in relations between black and white. The accumulated fears and hatreds have not gone; and, from the point of view of the black people of the countryside, few of whom have seen any change in the appalling material circumstances of their lives, it is not difficult to see why. The underlying absurdity of the Boeremag conspiracy to drive all the blacks into the sea derives from their incapacity to see that their sad little world is an anachronism; that things have changed in the big cities; that while you may perhaps be able to lure one or two of your impoverished black Limpopo neighbours down a road with the promise of free corn on the cob, in Johannesburg there are black men in large offices with white secretaries, and black women driving Mercedes-Benzes and spending large amounts of cash in garish shopping centres that rival Las Vegas. And these and other black men and women, even those who do not have white secretaries and Mercs, have nice houses now, with gardens and maids, and they are just as afraid of being robbed and killed in the middle of the night by a poor black person as the white people who, quite possibly, live in the same gated villages. This point will have been brought home to three of the plotters charged with treason when, in Pretoria last month, a judge turned down their request for bail. The judge's name was Dikgang Moseneke. Ten years ago Moseneke, then a talented lawyer, was the number two of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), an organisation – substantially more radical than Mandela's ANC – whose slogan was "one settler, one bullet", and whose declared intention was to "drive the whites into the sea". The PAC is also an anachronism these days. Their abysmal performance in the 1994 elections brought derisory cries from ANC supporters of "one settler, one per cent!" The PAC's white counterparts, the Afrikaner Freedom Front, did better in the 1994 poll, but after five years of Mandela their vote was halved in the second democratic elections of 1999. Just a shade over 1 per cent of voters still entertained the notion of dividing up South Africa along racial lines. Meanwhile, the likes of Eugene de Kock had been jailed, as had Eugene Terreblanche, former leader of the neo-Nazi Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB), who used to threaten with such bluster that he would "level the gravel" with the ANC. All of which helps to explain why, outside the more sensationalist recesses of the Afrikaner press, most South Africans seem relatively relaxed about the arrest of the Boeremag plotters. This is in contrast to the time, 40 years ago, when another 10 "terrorists" – Mandela and nine others – were brought before a judge in Pretoria, in what became known as the Rivonia Trial. Then, even though Mandela's plans were neither as ambitious nor as life-threatening as those of the Boeremag, the story attracted massive attention, in South Africa and around the world. That was because everybody knew that Mandela's revolution had justice and history on its side. The failure of the ANC's armed wing to effect change then, in the early Sixties, was a tragedy. The failure of the Boer plotters today is farce. Most South Africans see them as malevolent clowns. Albert Venter, a politics professor from Johannesburg's Rand Afrikaans University, said last week: "I think most people in South Africa, be they white or black, realise this is a lunatic fringe." This also helps to reveal the extraordinary political success – unmatched by any other society in transition anywhere on the globe – of what turned out in the end to be Mandela's peaceful, negotiated revolution. A string of right-wing bomb attacks that killed 30 black people just before the 1994 elections failed to stop the newly enfranchised from turning up massively to vote. The explosions in Soweto last week were the twitchings of an amputated limb. While certainly a concern as a police matter, in terms of the potential they hold for further loss of life they will barely register as a pin-prick on the body politic. Because South Africa has demonstrated once again that, for all the challenges that lie ahead in overcoming poverty, crime and Aids, the nation's one great, indisputable triumph has been the cementing of its political foundations. In the eight years since the most celebrated political prisoner in history became president of all South Africa, black and white, the country has enjoyed – and continues to enjoy – a measure of stability not seen since the arrival of the first white settlers in 1652.

IRIN 11 Nov 2002 Rightwing threatens Xmas terror campaign - South Africa has struggled to shed its divisive past JOHANNESBURG, 11 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - South African police have launched a manhunt for rightwing militants allegedly planning a terror campaign over the Christmas season. Police spokeswoman Sally de Beer told IRIN on Monday that a task-team had been established and was working around the clock on possible leads. This followed a series of recent bombings that rocked Soweto, South Africa's largest black township. Soweto was initially created by the former apartheid regime in its pursuit of so-called separate development of race groups. The bomb blasts killed a woman, wounded her husband and caused millions of rands worth of damage to a Muslim mosque and rail infrastructure around Soweto. A Buddhist temple outside the capital Pretoria was also damaged by a bomb. On Monday it was reported that the extreme rightwing group known as the Boeremag (Boer Army/Force) had claimed responsibility for the attacks. They also threatened to conduct a campaign of terror over the festive season. In a letter sent to news media on Monday, the group demanded that the government release 35 of its so-called compatriots from prison. Among the 35 would be the 18 members of the Boeremag who were arrested in recent weeks in connection with a plot to overthrow South Africa's democratically elected government. The 18 were arrested during a series of raids by security services which also resulted in the confiscation of large amounts of arms and ammunition, including explosives. "We are investigating, we have to take it [the letter] seriously, obviously we're trying to establish its origins, [as] it was sent in e-mail form to news organisations," De Beer said. The group signed the e-mail as "Warriors of the Boer Nation". Police at the weekend released the names and photographs of six rightwingers wanted in connection with the treason case, and warned those harbouring them that they too would be prosecuted. "Both cases are a top priority for us, the task-team is working non-stop ... and we have made a lot of progress, there have been many breakthroughs. We will hunt them down," De Beer said.

AP 12 Nov 2002 Companies Sued Over Apartheid JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - A South African support group for victims of apartheid has sued several top international banks and businesses for supporting the racist regime. The lawsuit was filed late Monday by the Khulamani group in federal court in New York City on behalf of the group' 33,000 members and 85 individuals. The plaintiffs allege Citigroup, the largest financial institution in the United States, and Swiss banking giants UBS and Credit Suisse aided the ``in the commission of crimes of apartheid, forced labor, genocide, extrajudical killing, torture, sexual assault, unlawful detention and cruel, unusual and degrading treatment.'' Credit Suisse has said it saw no grounds for the class-action lawsuit and said the company should not be held responsible for apartheid's crimes. UBS President Peter Wuffli on Tuesday rejected accusations that the bank should carry any blame for apartheid policies. He said that UBS regretted the events in South Africa during the apartheid years. ``But there is no connection between the suffering of victims and the activities of the bank.'' Wuffli, speaking in a teleconference, said that the bank should not be held responsible for the actions of others. Both UBS and Credit Suisse have always maintained that their South Africa dealings were in conformity with Swiss law. The apartheid class-action lawsuit seeks billions of dollars in damages from as many as 100 corporations, mostly unidentified. The three major banks are also being sued in a similar lawsuit filed in June in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan on behalf of Holocaust victims. South Africa's apartheid regime, which began in 1948, was held together by an oppressive web of racist laws that classified all citizens by race and stripped even the most basic rights from those who were not white. As efforts to overthrow the white regime grew, authorities began jailing some opponents, killing others without trial and chasing still others from their homes. The regime ended in 1994 with the election of Nelson Mandela as president in the nation's first all-race elections. The lawyers in the Khulumani lawsuit said the companies named in the case helped prop up the white government - struggling as foreign capital fled the country - with loans and other business deals worth billions of dollars. The help came even after the United Nations asked all member states to break off diplomatic, trade and transport relations with South Africa in 1962. The companies and banks named in the Khulumani lawsuit are: Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Exxon Mobil, Caltex Petroleum, Fluor Corporation, Ford, General Motors and IBM in the United States; German-based Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, DaimlerChrysler, and Rheinmetall; Credit Suisse and UBS in Switzerland; Barclays Bank, British Petroleum and Fujitsu ICL in Britain; Total-Fina-Elf from France and Royal Dutch Shell from the Netherlands.

IRIN 22 Nov 2002 Think-tank urges international community to withhold finance for elections NAIROBI, - A leading think-tank, the International Crisis Group, has said the international community should refuse to finance the Rwandan elections planned for July 2003, unless the government liberalises political activities and displays "a marked improvement" in respect for basic freedoms of association and expression. "The international community cannot remain silent accomplices to the authoritarian actions of the Rwandan government," the ICG said in a new report titled 'Rwanda at the End of the Transition: A Necessary Political Liberalisation'. It added, "It cannot finance elections that offer no political guarantees for a minimum of equity among the forces present," the report continues. The think-tank said that multiple restrictions on political and civil liberties in Rwanda, such as the forcing of opposition groups into exile and the silencing of the independent press, were working against the government's stated objective of leading the country towards reconciliation in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide. The government's repression of critical voices, it said, created a vicious circle by radicalising the opposition both inside and outside of Rwanda. It added that following the Rwandan withdrawal from the Kivus in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the government must now display the same good will for the end of the transition period. "The Rwandan Patriotic Front must allow public criticism and stop being judge and jury, as well as participant, in the process of political competition," the ICG said. Furthermore, it added, it must not destroy the institutions of common ground where Hutus and Tutsis can meet, talk, argue and ultimately decide on the country's future.

Business Day 28 Nov 2002 Dan Roodt Old split over Afrikaner identity fuels new terror SA's social rifts peculiarly its own, rather than mirroring those of rest of continent ON THE face of it, SA is a peaceful country enjoying a healthy, if modest, rate of economic growth. Under the surface, however, a major rift may be brewing over language and identity issues that have plunged other countries into civil wars. Recently there has been much speculation about a potential right wing threat, linked to the Soweto bomb blasts of October 30. When the Groep van 63, a group of academics and authors campaigning for Afrikaner cultural rights, handed a letter to President Thabo Mbeki, suggesting the bombings might be a symptom of "Afrikaner alienation" within the new SA, it caused a huge reaction. One newspaper with a mainly black readership called it "a threat from the right", while two notably left-wing weeklies published viciously anti-Afrikaans cartoons likening Boers to dinosaurs and suggesting the Groep was a front for the underground Boeremag, some of whose members languish in jail, awaiting trial on charges of treason. The fact that the group of academics explicitly condemned the violence and loss of life in Soweto was held to be of no consequence. Afrikaans newspapers in the Naspers group have been almost hysterical in condemnation of the Groep van 63. Many people agreeing with the contents of the letter fell silent, out of fear that they too might be tainted as potential terrorist sympathisers. Is there a danger that SA might disintegrate into ethnic strife like so many other countries? Its location in sub-Saharan Africa where most countries have experienced at least one civil war, genocide or coup, certainly does not help. Despite glib assumptions about SA being an African country, however, it needs to be understood in terms of its own history, rather than that of its troubled continent. As Koos Malan, a prominent Groep van 63 member, once told me: "Hertzog avenged himself on Lord Milner upon coming to power in 1924, but currently Milner is having his revenge from the grave." In fact, since 1994, SA has again embraced the Milnerist ideal of one undivided state, with one nation speaking one language, English. Over the past two years, Afrikanerdom has been in a state of effervescence. The Afrikaans media have been host to a vehement exchange of views over the future of Afrikaners in SA, including whether they have a future at all. Liberal historian Hermann Giliomee has described the performance of FW de Klerk and Roelf Meyer in the early 1990s as an "onoorwonne oorgawe" a surrender without defeat. Koos Malan's point about the Milner-Hertzog axis in SA history holds even under African National Congress (ANC) rule. Milner wanted to integrate Boer and Briton into a British SA, with a strongly English identity under the Union Jack in 1902. In 1924 Hertzog scuppered all of this, ended ambiguity on the official status of Afrikaans, and introduced a new flag and national anthem in 1928, familiar as Die Stem. Hertzog's slogan was "SA first", which was considered radically nationalist, causing an uproar at the time. Natal wanted to secede, and until the late 1950s SA had two national flags, the Union Jack as well as the orange, white and blue. For most of the 20th century, SA was ruled by Afrikaners who imposed Hertzog's vision, that of "sovereignty", one of his favourite words, denoting a strongly independent country, anticolonial and committed to indigenous symbols and culture, centred around the Afrikaans language. Hertzog wanted English-speakers to become Afrikaners too, but only succeeded halfway in that he cut the umbilical cord with Britain and gave them a local identity modelled on the Afrikaner one, but had no real effect on their attachment to their powerful language, the medium of business and global communication. Then the ANC won the lotto of history, jettisoned Marxism-Leninism, but under the influence of the English intellectual left who had remained implacably opposed to Hertzogism all along, decided to reimpose Milnerism, fortified by Samora Machel's slogan, "for the nation to be born, the tribe must die". What nation-building really means in SA, is the complete destruction of Afrikaans culture and the Afrikaner identity. Further echoing old imperial ideas, Mbeki has embraced Rhodes's Cape to Cairo philosophy, in which the national identity created under Hertzog will be dissolved into the greater empire of the African Union. To the dismay of Afrikanerdom, an intellectual from Natal, himself a member of an ethnic minority, but thoroughly anglicised and inculcated with the universalist spirit of Milnerism, Education Minister Kader Asmal has been given power of life and death over Afrikaans culture. No one is more hated today by Afrikaners than Asmal, who has patiently set about undermining the ultimate repository of Afrikaner identity their education system. In the past weeks, Stellenbosch University has been at the centre of an acrimonious clash over language policy, but so has every other Afrikaans university. Once at the centre of South African identity, Afrikaners now find themselves on the scrapheap, and prone to the same old identity crisis that used to haunt them throughout the 19th century under British rule, and which was only resolved by the suffering of the Anglo-Boer war. It is hard to tell what right-wing terrorist groups think, if they think at all. But the current sense of crisis among Afrikaners, compounded by crime, farm murders, affirmative action and Asmal's anglicisation policies, provides an ideal environment for recruitment to extremist groups, whether left or right. When Asmal threatened to impose English on the remaining Afrikaans universities, especially in medicine and engineering, 27 Afrikaner organisations protested en bloc, ranging from the politically correct Afrikanerbond (formerBroederbond) which supports Milnerist "nation-building" to the ProAfrikaanse Aksiegroep, which would like to see cultural autonomy for Afrikaans-speakers. In the past few years, apart from a few kaftans and African proper names, SA has evolved into a state about as indigenous as Coke, without the brandy. As the country finds itself forcemarched towards a neo-Milnerist, "inclusive" identity, held together by the weak glue of English, which is understood by less than half of her population, tensions will arise that may ultimately prove more divisive than apartheid. After all, unlike the Isrealis and the Palestinians, we've never really hated each other. In the overreaction to the Groep van 63's letter to Mbeki, I thought I saw real hatred for the first time. It hardly augurs well for the future. Roodt, a former Head of Derivatives at Citibank, is the author of a book on the Truth Commission, Om die Waarheidskommissie te Vergeet and leader of the Pro-Afrikaanse Aksiegroep (Praag).

IRIN 28 Nov 2002 Bridge damaged by blast - The blast was in a remote area several hundred kilometers south of the port city of Durban, but caused jitters countrywide JOHANNESBURG, 28 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - Another bomb exploded in South Africa, this time on a bridge on the picturesque "Wild Coast" south of the port capital Durban early on Thursday morning. Nobody was injured in the blast on the Umtamvuma bridge, but it has been closed for engineers to assess the damage to two supporting pillars. The bridge linked the provinces of KwaZulu Natal and the Eastern Cape, and was about 1-km away from a casino resort and a popular tourist area. In October one person was killed when nine explosions rocked Soweto, outside Johannesburg, and another two people were injured in a blast in a temple in the town of Bronkorstspruit, east of Johannesburg, on the same day. Earlier this month a bomb exploded in police offices in the Western Cape, and a few days later there was another blast, this time in a building housing the police airwing in an airport between Johannesburg and the capital Pretoria. Although right wing extremists were blamed for the Soweto blasts, police spokeswoman Director Sally De Beer told IRIN that police would not speculate on who was behind the Umtamvuma bridge bomb. Forensics experts were still sifting through the debris searching for clues, she said.

Sudan

Washington Times 4 Nov 2002 Nat Hentoff (columnist) Sudan guilty of genocide On Oct. 21, President George W. Bush signed into law the Sudan Peace Act, which the Senate had unanimously passed, and the House approved 359-8. More than 2 million black, non-Muslim civilians in the South have died from an ongoing civil war since 1983 in that country. The United States now declares in a law that "the acts of the government of Sudan . . . constitute genocide as defined by the (1948 United Nations) Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide." The northern National Islamic Front government in Khartoum has enslaved women and children in the south of Sudan; engaged in ethnic cleansing; bombed churches and schools; and prevented food from humanitarian agencies from reaching the black Christians and animists trying to withstand the armed "jihad" forces of the north. It has taken years of organized pressure to move the Congress and White House. The extraordinary coalition of the New Abolitionists includes black churches around America, white evangelicals, Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship, the Hudson Institute, Freedom House, the Institute on Religion and Democracy, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Boston-based American Anti-Slavery Group and determined civil rights leaders Joe Madison and the Rev. Walter Fauntroy. Among other crucial people involved is Barbara Vogel, a fifth-grade teacher in Denver, who told her class that slavery still exists. The children raised money to redeem Sudanese slaves through the Swiss-based Christian Solidarity International. Also pivotal were Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas and U.S. Reps. Donald Payne, Frank Wolf and Tom Tancredo. Eric Reeves, who teaches Shakespeare and Milton at Smith College, took a two-year leave to focus entirely on valuable research and advocacy to illuminate the atrocities in Sudan. The Sudan Peace Act authorizes $300 million to aid the blacks in the south over the next three years for humanitarian purposes and "to prepare the population for peace and democratic governance." Under the law, the president is to certify every six months that the Khartoum government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army are negotiating in good faith. If he finds that they are not, sanctions go into effect. As described, for example, by the Freedom House, if there is evidence of "continued bombing of civilians, slave raids, and bans on relief flights," the United States will oppose "international loans and credits to Khartoum," and among other punitive actions, seek "a U.N. Security Council Resolution to impose an arms embargo on Khartoum." The Sudan People's Liberation Army in the south must also not unilaterally subvert peace negotiations. What gives the Sudan Peace Act particular force is the finding by the United States that the government in Khartoum is guilty of actual genocide. The International Convention on Genocide states unequivocally that the countries signing the convention "confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and punish." If evidence were to mount that slave raids from the north, accompanied by gang rapes of captured women, have not stopped, and that shipments of food continue to be blocked by Khartoum, Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan Bashir and his chief subordinates in the northern National Islamic Front could be brought before the International War Crimes Tribunal. I have talked to a number of the principals in the New Abolitionist coalition, and they intend to keep the pressure on the president and Congress to ensure that the provisions of the Sudan Peace Act are carefully and continually monitored. Also, the Africa desk of the State Department must be held accountable for documenting and reporting all violations of the Sudan Peace Act. According to a report by Christian Solidarity International, quoting the news service Al-Anbara, "the Sudanese charge d'affaires in Washington, Dr. Harun Khidir, blamed 'members of the extremist Christian rights groups, and a group of the black masses' for pushing the Sudan Peace Act through Congress." And, on Oct. 16, Agence France Presse reported that after passage of the Sudan Peace Act, "Islamist officials organized a mass demonstration in Khartoum in support of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, during which an effigy of President Bush, wrapped in American and Israeli flags and labeled 'the corpse of imperialism,' was torn to shreds and burned." The Khartoum government will certainly require close watching, and by the press, too. The story of the signing of the Sudan Peace Act was only minimally reported in the New York Times and The Washington Post the next day. A longer piece was published in The Washington Times. None of the pieces mentioned the formal declaration of genocide, the core of the new law. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch did include that news.

Reuters 11 Nov 2002 Sudan to share power, wealth with rebels for peace CAIRO (Reuters) - Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said on Monday his country was willing to share its power and wealth with rebels in the hopes of ending a 19-year war and preserving the unity of Africa's largest country. "(We want) to give the south confidence and a high participation in power. This is not a problem for us and we will reach a solution regarding this (power-sharing)," Ismail told reporters in Cairo. "We need...to stop the war and for a fair distribution of wealth, power and to reconstruct the south. This will strengthen unity's chances," he said. Khartoum and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) are holding peace talks in Machakos, Kenya, which follow a framework deal in July that allows southerners to opt for independence after a six-year period of administrative autonomy. SPLA spokesman Samson Kwaje said he hoped some kind of preliminary agreement on sharing power and wealth would be reached before the talks break off temporarily. "We are still negotiating, but we are confident that we may reach a kind of agreement by the end of the week," he said. The two sides agreed a ceasefire in October but both have accused the other of violating it. The truce is supposed to last for the duration of the peace talks. Earlier this month, Sudan said it was ironing out the final details with the SPLA on dividing political power and had started to discuss the issue of wealth-sharing. Ismail described the peace talks in Kenya, which are expected to break off in the next few weeks as a "limited success". Negotiations are due to resume in January. "The peace talks are progressing normally. We can't say that they have reached a blocked road or that they are moving with the required speed to say a peace deal will be signed in the coming few weeks but there is limited success," Ismail said. The SPLA is fighting for greater autonomy for the mostly animist or Christian south from the largely Muslim Arab north. The fighting has cost nearly two million lives and is complicated by issues of ideology, ethnicity and oil

ICG 14 Nov 2002 Ending Starvation As A Weapon Of War In Sudan Humanitarian assistance has been manipulated cynically and devastatingly as a war strategy by both sides in Sudan, though overwhelmingly by the government, throughout the nineteen-year conflict. There is now an historic opportunity to end these aid restrictions permanently, but it will require immediate, determined and coordinated action by the international community. Failure would mean more deaths, and putting Sudan's fragile peace process at risk. A crucial mid-December meeting of UN, SPLA and Sudanese government representatives provides an opportunity to solve these problems permanently. For the full report, please see CrisisWeb - http://www.crisisweb.org

AFP 20 Nov 2002 - Sudan committee tracks down 2,000 abductees KHARTOUM, Nov 20 (AFP) - An internationally-backed government committee has recovered 2,000 abductees in Sudan from Arab tribal captivity and aims to complete its mission by end 2003, the committee chief announced Wednesday. The Committee for Eradication of Abduction of Women and Children (CEAWAC), set up less than two years ago, has traced and recovered 2,000 women and children, mainly members of the southern Dinka tribe of Bahr el-Ghazal, said Ahmed al-Mufti. He said they were abducted by Missairiyah, Rizaiqat and Maalya tribes living in Southern Darfur and Western Kordofan, both neighbouring Bahr el-Ghazal. Six hundred of them have been reunited with their families and the remaining 1,400 either placed in camps or with Dinka host families until their own families are located, Mufti said. He was addressing a press conference in Khartoum after a tour by a CEAWAC delegation of Southern Darfur and Western Kordofan states. Both the government and southern rebels have been accused of kidnapping villagers during the course of Sudan's two-decade-old civil war either to conscript the abductees or sell them into slavery. Mufti said that while a committee of the Dinka put at 14,000 the persons abducted from their tribe, CEAWAC estimated the number at between 5,000 and 6,000. "The task of the committee can be fulfilled in a few months' time, that is, ahead of the set date (end of 2003), provided the required funds are made available," said Mufti. He appealed to international donors and Sudan's finance ministry to raise their contributions. Mufti complained that international donors had granted only three percent of funds needed by the committee, while the finance ministry had met only 20 percent of its pledge. Led by Mufti, the delegation on tour comprised CEAWAC officials, tribal chieftains, representatives of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the Swedish Save the Children charities of Britain and Sweden. They met with governors, provincial commissioners, native administration officials and leaders of the Missairiyah, Rizaiqat, Maalya and Dinka tribes.

Reuters 27 Nov 2002 - Sudan group says returns 29 abductees home-agency KHARTOUM, Nov 27 (Reuters) - A Sudanese government committee trying to stop tribal abductions in Sudan said it had reunited 29 abductees with their families, the official Sudan News Agency (SUNA) reported on Wednesday. Abductions between tribes, particularly in the south, have been a common practice for generations, but human rights groups and officials say the problem has been exacerbated by a 19-year-old civil war. The government acknowledges that abductions take place, but has denied allegations that the kidnappings and ensuing forced labour amount to slavery. SUNA did not say when the Committee for the Eradication of Abduction of Women and Children (CEAWC) had returned the 29 to their families but it added that the committee was in the process of returning 26 other abductees to their homes. According to earlier figures published by CEAWC, 600 abductees have so far been reunited with their families out of a total estimated figure of 2,000 kidnappings. The U.N. children's fund UNICEF has said tribal leaders estimate some 14,000 people were abducted between 1986 and 1998, although many would have been freed by now. A U.S.-sponsored commission said in May slavery did exist in Sudan, but it was hard to establish the scale of the practice.

Uganda

AFP 15 Nov 2002 Rebels hack to death nine people in north Uganda: military KAMPALA, Nov 15 (AFP) - Rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have hacked to death nine civilians during a raid in Lira district of northern Uganda, a military spokesman said Friday. Major Shaban Bantariza said the attack was carried out in Ogur sub-county in Lira on Friday and that 20 other people were taken away by the rebels. A gang of LRA raiders used machetes, axes and sticks to kill their victims, he added. "People were abducted by the LRA rebels from their houses and killed quietly," said Bantariza. "They did the massacre and disappeared. Two units of our forces are closing in on them," he added. The latest killings bring to 40 the number of people murdered by rebels in northern Uganda during the past in eight days. The LRA has engaged in violent activities since 1988 ostensibly fighting to overthrow President Yoweri Museveni's secular government and replace it with one based on the biblical Ten Commandments. The group is however earned notoriety for its brutality against civilians.

AFP 29 Nov 2002 140 killed in northern Uganda fighting in a month: army KAMPALA, Nov 29 (AFP) - Over 140 people, mostly rebels from the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), were killed in northern Uganda in the last four weeks, army spokesman Major Shaban Bantariza said Friday. One hundred and six rebels, 25 civilians and 11 government soldiers had died between November 1 and 27 in fighting in the central African state, Bantariza told AFP. "We captured 30 rebels during combat, while 22 others surrendered to the army," he said. "Sixteen of our soldiers sustained serious injuries while 12 civilians were also injured." Items recovered from battles including 80 sub-machine guns, an anti-aircraft gun, over 6,800 bullets, grenades, land mines, mortar bombs, and communication equipment, Bantariza said. He said that during the same period, up to 240 people were rescued from rebel captivity. The unrest has displaced some 800,000 people in the northern Ugandan region. Many of those released have been handed over to humanitarian organisations for rehabilitation, he said. The army figures could not be confirmed independently, but sources in the region say the army has gained the upper hand in the war against the rebels. The LRA have battling since 1988 to overthrow President Yoweri Museveni's secular regime and replace it with one based on the biblical Ten Commandments.

Zimbabwe

BBC 7 Nov 2002 Zimbabwe 'diverts food aid' People must show Zanu-PF, as well as identity cards, to get food The European Union has condemned the government of President Robert Mugabe for diverting food aid to its own supporters and ignoring opposition activists. A Danish minister told Reuters news agency "that is not acceptable." The Zimbabwe Government is using our aid and our food to put political and economic pressure on its own people Bertel Haarder, Danish Minister for Europe Last weekend, a United States official warned that the US may have to take "intrusive" measures to ensure that food aid was properly distributed. Up to six million people - half the population - are estimated to need food aid after poor rains, combined with the government seizure of almost all white-owned farms. Bertel Haarder, European Affairs Minister of Denmark, which holds the EU presidency, was sparking at a meeting of EU and Southern African officials in the Mozambique capital, Maputo. The meeting was due to be held in Denmark but was switched to Mozambique because Zimbabwe's leaders are banned from entering Europe under EU sanctions. "We would like to strongly react against the fact that the Zimbabwe government is using our aid and our food to put political and economic pressure on its own people," Mr Haarder said. Maize bags The BBC's Christian Fraser, who recently went to Zimbabwe, says that bags of maize were stacked outside polling stations during the by-election in Insiza - reportedly put there to reward people who voted for Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party. Zanu-PF won the election in what was considered an opposition stronghold. Just a few hundred white farmers remain on their land Following the US warning, Zimbabwe accused it of planning to invade the country under the pretext of guaranteeing the distribution of food aid. Mr Mugabe denies that the food crisis is a result of his land reform programme and blames it on a drought, which has affected much of the region. But white farmers who are prevented from working their land say that their dams are full of water. Just a few hundred white farmers remain on their land, out of some 4,000 two years ago. Our correspondent says that the land has gone to Zanu-PF officials, who often have no farming background, instead of the landless black people who were supposed to benefit. In Maputo, Zimbabwean Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge repeated his government's argument that former colonial power Britain should compensate the white farmers who have lost their land. As a result of British colonial rule, whites owned much of Zimbabwe's best farmland. Britain has refused to pay unless there is transparency in the redistribution of land.

Dawn (Pakistan) 11 Nov 2002 Mugabe uses famine as a weapon By Peter Beaumont LONDON: The rains have come to the undulating pastures of northern Matabeleland. In the bread basket of Zimbabwe, the seed should be in the ground by now. But instead the rural poor are bracing themselves for a catastrophe on a scale not seen since the Matabeleland massacres a generation ago. Death is stalking the people of Matabeleland again. Only this time it is a slow death by starvation - orchestrated in large part by Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party as a weapon against his opponents in the Movement for Democratic Change. Amid warnings that more than 6.7 million Zimbabweans are facing starvation, the Matabele have found themselves attacked by Mugabe's thugs, who are refusing food to anyone suspected of supporting the MDC. They have been abandoned by donor countries in the international aid community, who have judged Zimbabwe a bad bet; and threatened by forecasts of a strong El Nino effect on the country's weather set to bring a season of heavy rains followed by drought. The combination is bad enough for Zimbabwe's hungry rural communities - where one in three adults is infected with HIV - but there is more bad news. Thanks to drought and the government's 'fast-track' land reform policy, cereal production is down 57 per cent from last year and maize output by 67 per cent. The international community has raised barely half the money needed to bridge that gap. With inflation rampant and foreign exchange rates in dramatic decline, shortages of bread, maize, milk and sugar are worsening. To complicate the picture further, Western officials accuse senior Zanu officials of profiteering from a black market in food that most cannot afford. "Countries that usually give in crises like this don't want to know because of Mugabe's reputation. At present funding for food aid is running at only 40 per cent of what is needed. If we can't persuade people to give more, then we are looking at a disaster. "Mugabe is playing politics with aid, but the international community must not be drawn into doing the same, no matter how repellent Mugabe's behaviour. It is the people of Zimbabwe themselves that matter, and we have got to help the," said a British diplomat. Britain's International Development Secretary, Clare Short, has called on fellow members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development to pledge more. Despite deteriorating relations between Britain and the Mugabe regime, Britain remains the second largest donor behind the United States - providing $57 million since September 2001. The most recent assessments suggest that the 'coping strategies' of those most badly affected will run out early in the new year. And then people will start to die. But it is a message likely to be unpopular with governments from Scandinavia to Japan - usually big donors - which sources say have been reticent about giving aid to Mugabe's Zimbabwe. It is a position that was outlined last week by Denmark's European Affairs Minister, Bertel Haarder, speaking at a meeting of European and southern African Ministers meeting in Maputo. His comments are unlikely to encourage already cautious governments to rush to Zimbabwe's aid while Mugabe is still in power. "We would like to strongly react against the fact that the Zimbabwe government is using our aid and our food to put political and economic pressure on its own people," said Haarder last week. "They use our aid as a tool in the domestic fight against the opposition to survive, and that is not acceptable." Haarder's remarks followed comments by a senior US official earlier in the week who also accused Mugabe of politicizing famine relief and said Washington was considering 'interventionist' measures that could challenge Zimbabwe's sovereignty. The elections may be over but, according to one human rights observer returned from Zimbabwe, the use of starvation as a political weapon is continuing in some of the most hard-hit areas. The human rights worker described widespread use of starvation against oppositioncommunities.-Dawn/The Guardian News Service.

Zimbabwe Standard (Harare) 27 Nov 2002 'Government Promoting Genocide' Harare Kelvin Jakachira, the national executive member of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ), says government is sowing the seeds of genocide in the country by continuing, through the national broadcaster, to fill the minds of the nation with anti-white, anti opposition propaganda. Presenting a paper on ZUJ's position on the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA) at a Misa-Mutare Advocacy workshop held in Nyanga at the weekend, Jakachira said ZBC radio and television had become effective in delivering the message of hate directly and simultaneously to a wider audience. "We do not want what happened in Rwanda to be repeated here," he said. Rwanda, which became a centre of ethnic cleansing in the 90s under its late leader, Juvenal Habyarimana, effectively used the medium of radio to fan the ethnic hatred which culminated into genocide. Millions of people died as the Hutus massacred the Tutsis and turned the Great Lakes area into a bloody zone. Jakachira's warning comes at a time when the state media has stepped up its campaign to discredit the opposition MDC and the whites by labelling them as the source of Zimbabwe's misery. "Referring to MDC members as terrorists can actually give other people the excuse to attack them. Genocide starts on a small scale," he warned. Hondo yeMinda adverts flighted on television and radio these days portray whites as evil people responsible for the shortages in the country. The BSA which was passed about a year ago opened the airwaves to private players but up to now no application has being approved. He said the delay by the government in offering licences to private players in the broadcasting sector was a deliberate ploy to continue enjoying the monopoly and thus be in a position to attack the voiceless opposition parties.

IRIN 28 Nov 2002 Famine "very close", WFP warns Food supplies are running out JOHANNESBURG, 28 Nov 2002 (IRIN) - The World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Thursday that the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe has deteriorated to the point where "we are very close to famine" among already weakened households, WFP Deputy Country Director Gawaher Atif told IRIN. WFP had aimed to feed three million vulnerable people in November, but does not have the food available to reach that target. It will now have to prioritise who can be fed. "In November we'll focus on the most vulnerable of the most vulnerable, it's a target population that already doesn't have any other source of food except WFP ... We are very, very close to famine here," Atif said. The signs of extreme need are already evident. Wild foods, some poisonous without careful preparation, are being consumed. In food distribution queues, people are scooping up spilled maize kernels. School children are dropping out of class to find casual labour, levels of malnutrition are worsening, and hunger-related diseases are becoming more frequent, WFP said in a statement. Overall, the agency faces a shortfall of 200,000 mt between now and March 2003. Although WFP's emergency operation has been 60 percent funded, it takes two to three months for those pledges to be translated into food on lorries bound for hungry communities. Another reason for the shortfall, Atif said, was that the Zimbabwean government has not been able to honour an agreement to swap 17,500 mt of locally stored maize for genetically modified grain held by WFP that was to have been milled by the state-owned Grain Marketing Board (GMB). The GMB, which outside WFP's operation has a monopoly on food distribution, has also struggled to import enough cereals to meet needs, due in particular to a lack of foreign exchange. A total of 6.7 million Zimbabweans will require food aid in the coming months leading up to next year's harvest. By January, WFP had planned to increase its distributions to 5.8 million people in 57 districts, subject to the availability of relief supplies. "We need more food," Atif said. "The situation is looking very bleak and that's the bottom line." In the coming months, despite other potential hurdles like fuel shortages, WFP needs to increase its cereal deliveries to around 65,000 mt a month, "while the government must also rapidly increase its imports, since the economic situation has put more and more people at risk", the WFP statement said. It added the nationwide shortages of maize, bread, milk and sugar has seriously affected members of Zimbabwe's working class, who do not meet WFP's selection criteria. The combination of commercial shortages, high parallel market prices and an accelerating rate of inflation, expected to reach 200 percent by the end of the year, was drastically reducing the capacity of those earning fixed incomes to feed themselves. "The number of those in need keeps soaring and WFP cannot cope on its own. The gap needs to be filled both by the government, as well as by WFP and NGOs. Only a collective effort can hope to combat this crisis," the statement quoted WFP Country Director Kevin Farrell as saying.

Americas

AP 30 Nov 2002 Adapting to modernity, Latin America's Indians make striking gains, still face racism and poverty EDITOR'S NOTE -- Niko Price, an Associated Press correspondent based in Mexico City, traveled along the Panamerican Highway from Texas to the south of Latin America. This report, on the continent's Indians, is one in an occasional series. By NIKO PRICE Associated Press Writer SAN RAFAEL, Ecuador (AP) -- Dressed in bowler hats, masks and furry leggings, the men dance through the streets, brandishing bottles of liquor and branches draped with live, squealing guinea pigs -- offerings for Intiraymi, the Festival of the Sun. Suddenly the two bands stop playing and a smallish man holds up a panicked, fluttering rooster. "I am proud to be continuing this tradition and celebrating our culture," announces Ruben Cholo, 38, sounding loud and boozy. "Gentlemen, this tradition is ours. This culture is ours. Let us never lose it." The Otovaleno are an Indian group that has made it economically without losing its traditions. That makes them a rarity in Latin America, where Indians by and large still live in extreme poverty without running water and electricity, with little political power, often bearing the brunt of idiotic TV satires. There were at least 40 million Indians in the two continents of the New World when Christopher Columbus arrived. That population was reduced by 80 percent to 90 percent by European diseases, war, oppression and genocide, but today has taken off again and some estimates place it above the original level. Who, though, is an Indian today? In Mexico, for instance, most people have some Indian in them, yet the Indian population is officially just 10 percent, because only those who speak an Indian language qualify. Indian numbers range from more than 70 percent of the population in Bolivia to less than 1 percent in Argentina. Cuba's population counts don't even mention Indians. Westernization has been both a blessing and a curse. It has brought services like health clinics and running water and trade routes, but also deforestation and influxes of non-Indian populations that seriously threaten Indian identity and lifestyle. It has brought education that is producing Indian lawyers and lawmakers. Improved health care has stamped out some of the diseases brought by the early settlers. But with the consumer society has come drug addiction and crime. Urbanization has created a slum-dwelling Indian underclass. Television has beamed violence, pornography and crass commercialism into Indian homes. To see the effects, cut 600 miles north from Otavaleno country in the mountains of Ecuador to Panama and the town of Ipeti Kuna. Here runs a graveled segment of the Panamerican Highway, the 8,909-mile river of highway and dirt track that represents an old dream of linking North America to Patagonia by a single road. Big trucks rumble through town, picking pick up bananas and lumber to sell in Panama City. "In the beginning, there were no settlers. Just trees, birds, different kinds of animals," said town official Orlando Hernandez, 40. "Since 1970, when they started to open La Panamericana -- that's when our problems started." Ipeti now is three separate towns. Ipeti Kuna for the Kuna Indians, Ipeti Colono for mestizo loggers, and Ipeti Embera for another Indian tribe displaced from its traditional lands. The three groups have had occasional clashes, sometimes deadly. Women in Ipeti Kuna still wear dresses adorned with colorful fabrics called molas, only now they buy them machine-made from Panama City. "Before, economically, people didn't worry so much. But now if you don't have money it's like you don't have anything," said Ovitilio Perez, 27, wearing a Reebok baseball cap. The mountain provided farmland and animals to hunt for meat. "Now it all comes from Panama City." Scattered reaction to such conflicts of development have exploded throughout the region. While most Indians continue to petition their governments for roads, electricity and Western comforts, others, often encouraged by leftist Europeans and Americans, have begun to resist modernization. In southern Mexico, many Mayan Indians rallied around the Zapatista rebels, who rose up in 1994 in 12 days of fighting with the army that killed 145 people. While there has been no sustained fighting since, conflicts between Indians on either side persist. The Zapatistas, who wear traditional tribal dress and ski masks, are led by Subcomandante Marcos, whom authorities have identified as a Spanish-descended philosophy professor from Mexico's Gulf coast. The other leaders are Indian. When the Zapatistas went to Mexico's Congress in 2001, it was a Tzotzil Indian, Comandante Esther -- "I, a poor Indian woman and a Zapatista" -- who addressed the lawmakers on their behalf. The Zapatistas want autonomy so Indians can make laws, hold elections and control resources -- rankling business interests looking for oil and minerals in the mountains of Chiapas. Elsewhere, Indians have had more success in influencing government. In Peru, part-Indian Alejandro Toledo is the president, the first ever to be elected on an Indian-rights platform. Calling himself "a stubborn Indian with a cause," he likened himself to a 16th century Inca emperor, pledging to rectify 500 years of injustice and bring prosperity to Peru's 45 percent Indian population. Seventy percent of Indians voted for him last year. "It's a source of pride that for the first time an Indian will govern," Mariano de la Cruz, a Quechua Indian, said in halting Spanish as he voted in a Lima slum. "Discrimination has gotten worse, and he will be a symbol for all of Peru." But 16 months into his presidency, Toledo is having trouble making good on his pledges. His popularity has plunged, and he has faced violent protests. In Ecuador, Indians are 40 percent of the population and have had more success in influencing government. Elections to the Confederation of Indigenous Nations, an advocacy group, are now treated with the same importance as presidential elections. In 2000, Indian leaders joined army officers to depose President Jamil Mahuad, and won a seat on the triumvirate that replaced him. Ecuador now has an elected non-Indian president, but the coup was a striking example of Indian power. "The military came in on the heels of the Indians, not the other way around," said Simon Pachano, a sociologist at the Latin American Institute of Social Sciences in Quito. "The Indians in Ecuador are better organized than in any other Latin American country." Ecuador's 21,000 Otovalenos have embraced globalism with a passion. They sell their handicrafts in New York and Paris and have produced an astounding assortment of lawyers, doctors and engineers. And although much of the tribe remains in poverty, a large middle class has fueled the boom of the town of Otovalo, where car dealerships and real estate brokers do a brisk business. "Society has created a very negative stereotype of Indians, and many times the Indians themselves assume that stereotype," said Mario Conejo, Otovalo's first Indian mayor, wearing sandals and bowler hat over a long ponytail. "We broke that cycle in Otovalo." It hasn't been easy. Conejo recalled the 1996 Miss Otovalo pageant and its first Indian contestant. Amid national outrage, the city council barred Indians from the pageant. That, Conejo said, exposed the racism of the mixed-race people who make up half the town's population. It got Conejo elected mayor in a contest marred by racial strife. "It's difficult for many people who think of Indians as dirty, lazy and ignorant to accept that an Indian has a big house or drives a late-model car," he said. "A mestizo can't accept that an Indian is better than him." Back at the Festival of the Sun, Marco Calapaqui breaks out of a dancing circle to offer a bottle of lemon liqueur to a stranger. The 28-year-old Indian lives in San Rafael, but has been to Houston and Toronto to study law and dreams of working at the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. "I like defending drug smugglers, murderers, the hard cases," he says. "I dream of going to The Hague. And I will. It's a promise I've made to myself." Calapaqui has cut his traditional ponytail in a concession to Western ways, but he still gets drunk and dances at festival time. "It's essential," he says. "It's our patrimony, our way of life."

Canada

National Post 30 Oct 2002 The portraits of one man's struggle Chris Wattie Gertrude Kearns Toronto A NEW EXHIBITION OF PAINTINGS DEPICTS THE PLIGHT OF ROMEO DALLAIRE: Dallaire #4 is one of a series of paintings on the genocide in Rwanda by artist Gertrude Kearns. She uses camouflage as her canvas. The subject of Gertrude Kearns' latest show will almost certainly not be at its opening today in Propeller gallery, on Toronto's Queen Street West, although the artist admits wistfully she still holds out a faint hope. The trouble is, even after producing her remarkable and ambitious series of 10 paintings on the difficult subject of the genocide in Rwanda, she finds that Canadian General Roméo Dallaire eludes her, at least in person. "I have attempted to contact him several times, but he hasn't responded," Kearns says. "I know he's aware of what I'm doing -- I sent him an invitation to the opening ... but no, I wouldn't count on him." Dallaire, the commander of the ill-fated 1994 peacekeeping mission to the troubled African nation, was unable to halt the rising tide of slaughter around him and suffered -- often publicly -- terrible psychological consequences. Kearns says it was Dallaire's plight that attracted her to the subject of the moral and physical landscape of the Rwandan genocide. "I've been collecting photos of Gen. Dallaire from way back," she says, perched on a stool in her cluttered downtown studio. "I thought, here's someone in a very complex dilemma." She sent the general, who became famously guarded of his privacy after publicly admitting he suffered post-traumatic stress as a result of his time in Rwanda, letters, copies of her previous work and an explanation of what she wanted to do. There was no reply. She tried contacting Dallaire through friends and was met with the same silence. So Kearns decided to go ahead anyway. "I thought if he'd really wanted to tell me to leave him alone or not to do it, then he would have," Kearns says, frowning. "I was very sensitive to that ... and I do have the sense that he doesn't object to this project." Working from a series of portrait-style photographs of Dallaire taken by freelance photographer Rick Madonik, Kearns began to paint a series of larger-than-life portraits of the general on sheets of thick camouflage cloth. Her oil paintings are simple, almost like pastel or chalk sketches dashed out on a sidewalk, showing Dallaire's progressively deteriorating mental state. "They're in a series," she says. "From him being in control at the start of the mission to his breakdown. "They're about conscience and challenge." The show is titled UNDONE, a play on both the effect Rwanda had on Dallaire and the United Nations' role in failing to stop the genocide, and its most impressive image is that of Dallaire holding his head in his hands. The use of camouflage as a canvas -- Kearns calls it "quasi-camouflage" and says she found it in a Toronto fabric store -- lends both an eerie quality to the paintings and a visual vagueness. You have to look closely to make out details against the mottled daubs of brown and black that make up the backdrop. "I hope that gives a sense of the complexity of what happened in Rwanda," Kearns says. "How it was hidden for so long ... and the impotence of the UN troops thrown into that." The larger, landscape pieces are less impressive despite their size. The images of armoured cars, stretchers, machetes and bodies seem staged, especially when compared with the simple lines and shadings with which Kearns outlines Dallaire. She hopes the show, which will run at the artist co-operative gallery for three weeks, will help make at least a little sense out of "the incredible pathos and stupidity" of Rwanda. "I looked at so much material researching this [that] I started to have nightmares, too," Kearns says. "So I can understand how traumatized Gen. Dallaire must have been ... His troops were walking through knee-deep bodies and, as he said himself, he was shaking hands with the devil every day." And while she still harbours ambitions of doing a portrait of the general from life, Kearns says UNDONE is as close as she's likely to get for the time being. "It sounds very presumptuous, but I wanted to do something with him," she says. "This is my way of trying to live the experience: to get as close to it as possible." "I really wanted to say something with this series." cwattie@nationalpost.com

AFP 4 Nov 2002 Canada refuses to sign pact to exempt US soldiers from international court, OTTAWA, Nov 4 Canada will not sign a bilateral deal with the United States to exempt US personnel from prosecution for alleged war crimes or other atrocities before the new UN-sponsored International Criminal Court (ICC), Foreign Minister Bill Graham said Monday. Graham, who had just attended a meeting of international parliamentarians who plan to establish a global parliamentary network to monitor the ICC, said Canada and the United States already had an agreement covering the conduct of US military personnel on Canadian soil. Under that agreement, any US soldiers accused of crimes are sent back to the United States for court-martial there. "There is no need to have another specific bilateral agreement," said Graham. "We don't have any intention of signing such an agreement." The United States, which opposes the formation of the ICC, has been seeking bilateral agreements with a number of countries to exempt US personnel on their territory from the court's jurisdiction. So far, according to a coalition of non-governmental organizations, 13 countries have signed such agreements with the United States: Afghanistan, the Dominican Republic, East Timor, Gambia, Honduras, Israel, the Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Micronesia, Palau, Romania, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. None of those countries have ratified the convention setting up the ICC. According to the coalition of non-governmental organizations, 61 countries have so far ratified the establishment of the court, which will now go ahead with the election of 18 judges next February.

Edmonton Journal Sunday, November 10, 2002 Agony of Ukraine famine hard for survivors to describe 'More bones, more tragedy' come to light every day: UKRAINIANS REMEMBER Bryant Avery, Journal Staff Writer Survivors of imposed starvation in Ukraine during 1932 and 1933 are dwindling in number now, but evidence is still growing about the genocidal Soviet policy and its catastrophic effect on millions of people. "In life, many things happen and usually you can forget them," Ukrainian Canadian Congress president Mykola Vorotylenko said at the 69th annual memorial service on Saturday. "But every day there are more bones, more evidence, more tragedy." In the mid-'30s, Soviet Union dictator Josef Stalin sent troops into Ukraine to collect 1.7 million tons of grain for lucrative Western markets, causing a massive famine. Vorotylenko's mother survived. "The breadbasket of Europe became one massive graveyard," Congress vice-president Luba Boyko-Bell told the crowd of about 300 at a sombre service in City Hall and in front of the Ukrainian famine memorial sculpture. The number of people who died is not known, but estimates range from eight million to 10 million. There are now fewer than 100 survivors in the Edmonton area's large Ukrainian community, Vorotylenko said. Teens Krysta Czar and Laryssa Szmihelsky have heard the story many times, in school, home and Saturday language classes. They also attend the remembrance event every year. "It's the same thing over and over," Czar said with a 14-year-old's smile, "but it's also good to be reminded. It's hard to put yourself in their places." Vorotylenko agreed. "For most people, it is difficult to understand how people could eat other people," he said. "But if people don't have any food, their minds go crazy." Vorotylenko emigrated to Canada four years ago and is a safety worker for a petroleum company. Now 46, he recalled how his mother was tight-lipped on the atrocity for years in Ukraine. "She didn't tell me much because it was dangerous to tell," he said. "Somebody did these things, and some of them are still in power. We need to remember that." bavery@thejournal.southam.ca

National Post 23 Nov 2002 ; Pg. A16, U.S. challenges Ottawa over war immunity: World criminal court: Washington hints future military co-operation in jeopardy, Steven Edwards, UNITED NATIONS UNITED NATIONS - The Bush administration said yesterday it will challenge Canada's refusal to offer immunity to Americans sought by the new international war crimes tribunal. Bill Graham, the Foreign Affairs Minister, said this month Canada's signature on the Rome Treaty, which created the International Criminal Court, meant Canada could never offer blanket immunity. Washington fears the court, which began operations on July 1 in The Hague, may indulge in politically motivated prosecutions of its nationals. It seeks immunity pledges from countries worldwide and has so far collected 15. "The fact that [Canada has] taken this position does not mean that the matter is over," a senior administration official said yesterday. "It is not a closed issue. We will have to have this conversation again in the future." The statement comes amid claims this week the Bush administration has become overly pushy in trying to align Canadian government policy with that of Washington. In Prague for this week's NATO summit, John McCallum, the Defence Minister, said "Canadians were a little bit ticked off" by Washington's repeated requests for Ottawa to increase defence spending. "It's a made-in-Canada decision," he said, though he admitted he, too, wished Ottawa would increase defence spending. Canada is one of 84 countries that have adopted the Rome Treaty. This obliges signatories to surrender people to the ICC who have been indicted for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide if national courts fail to prosecute them. In July, the United States asked Canada to promise never to hand over U.S. nationals to the court, claiming Article 98 of the treaty allowed such pledges. Foreign Affairs officials have said for months they were "studying" the U.S. request. ICC supporters argue the article was written to recognize only "Status of Forces" agreements, which hold soldiers accountable by their home state if caught violating laws while serving overseas. Ottawa has concluded that, for Canada, the article refers primarily to the 1951 Status of Forces Agreement among NATO countries and cannot be extended to a new agreement on immunity with Washington. "This Status of Forces Agreement, in our view, provides their forces here with sufficient protection, and there's no need to enter into another specific bilateral agreement," Mr. Graham said on Nov. 4 in Ottawa. Though he added Ottawa was prepared to consider "some adjustments" to the agreement, he insisted, "We must not take any action which would undermine the integrity of the court." Washington is hinting that future military operations with Canada may be jeopardized by Ottawa's hard line. "While our status of forces agreements are relevant, they may not provide the full coverage that we seek," said the administration official. "We want to reach a clear understanding with the government of Canada that will provide a clear separation from the court. We are seeking to have that separation so that we can continue to do the important business together." Washington may demand Ottawa sign ad hoc pledges of immunity before joint operations are approved. "We do not want our people to be under the jurisdiction of a treaty-based court to which we are not a party," the official said. "The Article 98s are necessary." The European Union, whose 15 members have also embraced the court, recently issued guidelines that allow EU states to negotiate limited immunity deals for U.S. soldiers and diplomats. Though Richard Boucher, the U.S. State Department spokes-man, described the guidelines as a "positive and constructive way forward," he said Washington would continue to seek comprehensive agreements. Most of the states signing immunity agreement are considered susceptible to U.S. pressure. The most recent are Sri Lanka, Gambia and El Salvador, with several other African and Asian countries in the pipeline, U.S. officials say. Gambia and five other countries -- Romania, East Timor, Tajikistan, Honduras and Marshall Islands -- have signed Article 98 agreements even though they have also signed and ratified the Rome Treaty. This suggests they do not see a conflict between the two. Still, ICC supporters say the U.S. campaign is foundering. "It doesn't look like much of a success," said Bill Pace, convenor for the Coalition for the ICC. "Legal experts tell us that a Pinochet-proof bilateral agreement is outside international law," referring to the former Chilean dictator.

Chile

Miami Herald 6 Nov 2002 Chile dam plan: Death of a culture? BY JIMMY LANGMAN Special to The Herald RALCO-LEPOY, Chile -- To the indigenous Pehuenches, the Bio Bio River is sacred. If the river is not respected, then Mother Earth (nuke mapu, in their native language) will become angry, nearby volcanoes will erupt and the land will tremble with earthquakes. But to the Chilean government and Endesa, the energy company owned by the Spanish-controlled Enersis Group, the river is a profitable means toward meeting Chile's energy needs and aiding regional economic growth. And now, despite the opposition of many Pehuenches, Endesa wants to dam the waterway to build a giant hydroelectric generating facility -- flooding much of the indigenous group's ancestral lands in the process. It is a conflict that has been roiling for more than six years. The company has persuaded 84 Pehuenche families to accept land elsewhere in exchange for their property, but seven other families refuse to leave. In May, the Chilean Supreme Court refused to hear a case concerning government plans to expropriate those families' lands. This month, a so-called Hombres Buenos commission appointed by the Economy Ministry is to visit those properties to determine how much Endesa must pay the families to move. Before the end of the year, the families will likely be forced off their ancestral land by police. 'When they come, I will say, `Why are you here?' '' said Nicolasa Quintreman, 63, dressed in traditional Pehuenche clothing. ``I am filled with anger when I think what our children and grandchildren will lose. ``If we don't have this land, we are nothing.'' Within a year, Endesa plans to finish construction of the 570-megawatt Ralco dam. The second of six dams originally planned for the river, the Ralco, Endesa says, could supply up to 18 percent of the energy for central Chile, including the capital, Santiago. LAWSUIT FILED But the $600 million project will also flood about 9,000 acres of temperate rain forest along 42 miles of the river valley, once one of the world's best white-water rafting spots and home to numerous rare plant and animal species. Moreover, some warn, the dam will cause the disintegration of the unique Pehuenche culture because of the Pehuenches' deep economic and historical ties to the river. ''This is a form of genocide,'' said Roberto Celedon, a lawyer for Quintreman and other Pehuenche families who, last month, filed an emergency complaint with the Washington, D.C.-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. ''The courts and government have decided not to respect indigenous rights,'' Celedon said. ``The only way to justice is at the international level.'' According to Chile's 1993 Indigenous Law, indigenous lands may not be sold, only traded for land of equal value and only with the consent of all owners. But the government and Endesa (whose executives refused to be interviewed by The Herald) insist that the nation's 1982 Electricity Law allows the expropriation of private property -- even indigenous land -- to provide energy for the public good. ''The indigenous question is for the courts to resolve,'' said Enrique Sepulveda, director of the Economy Ministry's legal department. Celedon filed a lawsuit on behalf of indigenous families. In it, he argues that expropriation contradicts a 1997 ruling by Conama, Chile's environment agency, which gave the project an environmental permit on condition that the indigenous families be relocated under the terms of the indigenous law. The high court sidestepped the issue on administrative grounds, stating that the suit should have been filed immediately after Endesa was awarded the electricity concession in March 2000. Diverse critics say that environmental, indigenous, water-rights and other laws have been repeatedly violated because of drug trafficking, a common form of corruption in Chile, and that an independent, high-level, international or national investigation is needed. ''There are signs of corruption everywhere. Even the World Bank pulled out financing because of environmental and indigenous problems,'' said Hernan Echaurren, a Santiago businessman whose family once owned much of the land surrounding the river. Echaurren and others point to the probable influence of Endesa's campaign contributions to numerous Chilean politicians. Eduardo Frei, the Chilean president from 1994 to 2000, has been accused of a conflict of interest since he was previously a partner with Sigdo Koppers, a consulting firm that helped build the first Endesa dam on the river. POLITICAL PRESSURE Fact is, President Frei often intervened to get Ralco approved. Twice, for instance, Frei fired the heads of Conadi, Chile's indigenous-development agency, after they had determined Ralco to be a threat to the sustainability of Pehuenche culture and had refused to sanction the relocation of Pehuenche families. Jorge Rosenblut, a former senior official in the Frei government, is also accused of favoritism toward the project. In 1996, he ordered Conama to pave the way for Ralco even after the 20 governmental agencies on the environment agency's technical committee had roundly recommended rejection of the project. Four years later, Rosenblut was named president of Chilectra, power distributor and subsidiary of Enersis, Endesa's parent company. ''The influence of this company in the politics of Spain is well known,'' said Jose Aylwin, son of former Chilean President Patricio Aylwin and an expert on indigenous law at Chile's Frontera University. ``The pressure that they have placed, through the use of political, economic and media influence, both on the President Frei and President Lagos administrations for the completion of Ralco, has been enormous.'' Maria Isabel Gonzalez, director of the government's energy commission under Frei, said Ralco was originally intended for the commission's 2005 work plan, as it had been determined that natural-gas pipelines from Argentina would be more cost effective. ''Chile doesn't need Ralco till 2020 with all the other energy sources available,'' she said, but Endesa sped up plans for Ralco so it could control the nation's energy market. ''After Ralco was approved, 16 investors disappeared,'' Gonzalez said. Today, because construction is two years late, consumers are actually paying 8 percent more on their bills and thus giving Endesa an extra $100 million a year to subsidize Ralco.'' Rosario Huenteau, 59, a Pehuenche woman who lives with her young son alongside the Bio Bio, recalled being hopeful, after Chilean President Ricardo Lagos visited them in August 2000, that Chile was ``going to respect the indigenous law.'' Now, her faith is shattered. ''We don't know who to turn to for help,'' she said.

Colombia

ICRC 21 Nov 2002 ICRC News 02/47 Colombia: Training in humanitarian law for the armed forces On the initiative of the General Command of the Colombian Armed Forces and with the support of the ICRC delegation in Bogotá and the Colombian Red Cross, a technical seminar was held in the Colombian capital from 12 to 14 November in order to lay the foundations of a permanent plan to incorporate international humanitarian law into the training and operational guidelines of the Colombian armed forces. The seminar was part of a strategy aimed at ensuring that humanitarian rules are taken into account in decision-making processes and in the planning, conduct, supervision and evaluation of military operations through the gradual inclusion of those rules in military manuals and regulations and in military training programmes and exercises. The participants included two generals in the Colombian armed forces and various high-ranking officers from the General Inspectorate of the Colombian army, navy and airforce and the Directorates of military education, policy, instruction and training. Members of the country's main military academies also took part. At the close of the seminar, General Román, Inspector General of the Colombian Armed Forces, said: "Over the past few years, the ICRC has promoted the dissemination of international humanitarian law and helped raise awareness of its rules among the Colombian armed forces in a very effective way. It is now our turn to take the process a step further by including the rules of that law in our instruction manuals and operational guidelines so as to ensure that our decisions never fall short of humanitarian norms."

Guatemala

UNWire 12 Nov 2002 GUATEMALA: UNDP Supports Plan For Reparations To War Victims - UN Wire's Scott Hartmann traveled to Guatemala last week to observe the U.N. Development Program's post-conflict activities in the country. GUATEMALA CITY -- Exactly one week ago, the high-level multi-institutional body charged with drafting a National Reparations Program to address the needs of hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans affected by the country's 36-year civil war presented their proposal to President Alfonso Portillo in hopes that he will soon push through Congress legislation creating a commission responsible for translating the plan's goals into action. The body, the Instancia Multiinstitucional por la Paz y la Concordia, which is a U.N. Development Program-supported project, was established in 1999 on the recommendation of Guatemala's Commission for Historical Clarification, which called for the country to "urgently" set up a program to provide reparations to the victims of human rights violations and the violence associated with the country's armed conflict and their family members. The proposed $396 million, 11-year program foresees a variety of forms of reparations to the populations most affected by the conflict, including economic compensation, support for the nearly 1 million Guatemalans who were displaced by the conflict and support for efforts to locate and exhume the bodies of those killed in massacres. It also includes support for community development and the establishment of medical and mental health facilities, land restitution and the formalization of land titles, support for efforts to promote tolerance and mutual respect, the creation of an alternative to military service, the dedication of Feb. 25 as a national day to remember the victims of the conflict and other measures to honor and remember the victims. The proposal also suggests the creation of a commission to oversee the reparations program, comprised of representatives of the Congress, the Supreme Court, the Human Rights Ombudsman's office and victims' organizations, as well as representatives of human rights, women's and ethnic Mayan organizations. The Commission for Historical Clarification suggested the program's funds come from reductions in military spending and aid from countries that supported the Guatemalan government economically and militarily during the country's conflict, such as the United States. According to the proposal, those eligible for reparations include those who were affected either "directly or indirectly, individually or collectively, by human rights violations" such as forced disappearance, extrajudicial executions, physical and psychological torture, forced displacement, forced recruitment as a minor, sexual violence, child rights violations and massacres. Human Rights Activists Skeptical Despite the cooperation the current government has been giving to the work of the body responsible for the proposal, some human rights activists UN Wire interviewed expressed skepticism that Portillo's deeply unpopular government will push the plan through Congress, even though the party Portillo represents, the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG), dominates the legislative body. Instead, the activists said, the FRG-dominated Congress may respond to pressure from the ex-paramilitary Civil Defense Patrols (PAC) and approve measures to "compensate" the hundreds of thousands of former members of the PAC for their services rendered during the armed conflict. The right-wing FRG is led by populist Efrain Rios Montt, an ex-military leader who is charged by human rights organizations with overseeing the most brutal period in Guatemala's modern history but is revered by a large segment of the country's population. The FRG is reportedly closely linked to the military and ex-PAC members, whom human rights groups have accused of being the perpetrators of the vast majority of human rights violations during the government's conflict with left-wing rebels. Despite the political maneuvering ahead of next year's November presidential and legislative election, Orlando Blanco, the head of the National Coordinator for Human Rights, an umbrella group for Guatemalan human rights organizations, said he hoped that some kind of compromise could be reached. According to Blanco, the definition of "victim" under the plan is broad enough to allow for the inclusion of many of ex-PAC members, whom he said in many cases were victims of the conflict as well. Their inclusion would provide an opportunity to reunite the country and heal the wounds the prolonged conflict left, he said. Many Guatemalans who UN Wire spoke to across the country in areas affected by the conflict, including ex-PAC members and commanders, gave their full backing to a plan that would provide reparations to a wide variety of persons affected by the conflict, including the family members of those killed in massacres, provided that they themselves, as populations heavily affected by the conflict, receive reparations as well. Despite such sentiments, many ex-PAC members refuse to see themselves as "victims" of the conflict, insisting that they provided the state and their communities with a valuable service that helped turn the tide of the conflict in the 1980s in favor of the military. In this light, some human rights activists charge, large groups of ex-PAC members, which were composed of some of the most marginalized segments of Guatemala's population, are being politically manipulated by the FRG to retain its grip on power. "In reality ... two Guatemalas still exist, two [different] visions," said Blanco, noting that the process of reconciliation will be very difficult if the deeply divided country cannot recognize and reconcile with its past. One major obstacle is ignorance, Blanco added. "There are people who have never left their community, they don't know what is beyond the river nearby," he said, which leaves them open to being used politically. During Guatemala's prolonged conflict, one of the longest and most violent in Latin America, nearly 280,000 people died or disappeared. According to the landmark 1998 report by Guatemala's Commission for Historical Clarification, the armed forces and other agents of the state were responsible for 93 percent of such acts of violence and human rights violations, which overwhelmingly targeted the ethnic Mayan community. http://unfoundation.org/

AI 27 Nov 2002 Guatemala Justice Without Fear AI Index: AMR 34/076/2002 Publish date: 27 November 2002 Seeking justice for human rights abuses can be a life-threatening pursuit in Guatemala, Amnesty International said today, as the organization's International Legal Network, made up of approximately 5000 lawyers and other legal professionals from over 40 countries began a long term action in support of members of Guatemala's legal community. More on this Web site: Guatemala "It is all too common for Guatemalan judges, lawyers and prosecutors to face threats, intimidation and attacks," the organization added. "Those engaged in investigating and prosecuting cases of human rights violations or supporting those who are pressing for implementation of the Peace Accords are at particular risk." In recent years, numerous legal professionals working on human rights cases have been killed, while others have been forced to flee the country in fear for their lives. For example, efforts to bring to justice those responsible for the 1998 killing of Bishop Juan José Gerardi have resulted in a number of those associated with the case, including a judge and three state prosecutors being forced to seek refuge abroad with their families. Dozens of others involved in the case reported serious intimidation and another dozen also fled the country. Several witnesses who stayed paid with their lives. Harassment can also take the form of legal action and short-term imprisonment, as experienced by Luz Margoth Tuy, from the Auxiliary Human Rights Procurator's Office in Sololá, who had legal proceedings initiated against her in an apparent reprisal for her role in the investigation of the October 2000 killing of a land rights demonstrator and her involvement in efforts to mediate in local land disputes. "It is unacceptable that members of the Guatemalan legal community should have to work in fear. Such a situation is not only a threat to those professionals but to the whole rule of law in Guatemala," a representative of the International Legal Network said. "We hope that by showing support for our fellow professionals in Guatemala and by exerting international pressure we can contribute to ensuring greater protection and respect for them, so that they can work effectively and safely, including to promote human rights." The International Legal Network will be contacting members of the legal community in all regions of Guatemala to develop contacts and to determine their needs and concerns. The Network will gather information about the existing system for the protection of members of the legal community at risk -- including the work of the new Special Prosecutor for crimes against justice operators and the Supreme Court Committee for threats against the judiciary -- and will make recommendations for a more effective system, including ensuring that adequate resources are provided to protection and investigation mechanisms. Improving the protection provided to judges, prosecutors and lawyers -- including by ensuring that personnel allocated to the task are adequately trained and paid -- is an immediate necessity. However, this is not enough in itself. "Ensuring that all incidents are investigated thoroughly and that those responsible are brought to justice is the one critical measure that will put an end to this climate of intimidation," Amnesty International said. "For too long the gross human rights violations committed in Guatemala -- including genocide, mass unlawful killings and 'disappearances'-- have been shrouded in impunity. This has sent a message to those responsible that they are effectively untouchable and can get away with silencing anyone trying to shed light on past abuses," the organization added, stressing that the widespread impunity for past abuses has been a major factor in the wave of new abuses currently sweeping Guatemala. "Truth, justice and accountability are the cornerstones on which Guatemalan society can be rebuilt after the horrors of the conflict, and those working to achieve these goals must be allowed to do so without fear," Amnesty International concluded.

Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Switzerland) www.nzz.ch 28 Nov 2002 First published in German, November 23, 2002 Guatemala's Bloody Past "The Victims Cry Out from Beneath the Earth" Richard Bauer Despite the peace concluded in 1996, the scars of Guatemala's 36-year civil war are far from healed. The truth about the army's genocide against the Mayan populace is only slowly coming to light. Now, the victims are to receive some measure of justice through the erection of memorials, the excavation of mass graves and court trials of some of the perpetrators. Everything in the Guatemalan provincial town of Rabinal seems at least one size too big. The paved main square, built in Spanish colonial style, is larger than a football field. At its head shines the monumental, whitewashed façade of a Baroque cathedral. Far behind it is a military camp, much too big for peacetime. And just in front of that are two neighborhood-size cemeteries, one for the poor, another for the rich. Stronghold of the Army and Guerrillas The single-story houses along the checkerboard grid of streets are shabby, some of them untenanted. If it were not for the popular weekly market which draws crowds of peasants from the area down into the valley, this town would sink into insignificance. But twenty years ago, at the height of the country's protracted civil war, things were different. Bands of left-wing guerrillas used Rabinal and the surrounding parts of Baja Verapaz Province as their most important transit route from the capital to the highlands. On military charts, this charming mountain landscape dotted with farmlands and woods was marked as devilishly dangerous, and the military indiscriminately labeled all the area's inhabitants as guerrilla collaborators (unjustly, as a rule). In the days of the military presidents, General Lucas García (1978-82) and General Ríos Montt (1982-83), a series of terrible massacres and extralegal executions took place in and around Rabinal. Guatemala's National Truth Commission has registered 28 mass executions in Baja Verapaz Province, and the total for the entire country was at least 669. Recent excavations raise the suspicion that the actual number was probably far greater. The crimes are ascribed mostly to the army and the so-called Self-Defense Patrols (PAC) which were encouraged and equipped with primitive weapons by the military. Members of these militias were not only employed guarding the security of their own villages. Often they were ordered to engage in punitive expeditions to neighboring villages. In those cases, they functioned as death squads which descended in the early morning hours to sow fear and destruction among the civilian populace. From September 1981 to August 1983 alone, between 4,000 and 5,000 people - including many women, children and old men - were murdered within the Rabinal municipal district, which at that time had a population of something over 22,000 inhabitants. In its 1999 report, the Truth Commission estimated that as many as 200,000 people were killed in the course of the civil war between the various guerrilla groups and the army, which received massive U.S. support as part of the cold war. The report openly refers to the essentially ethnic murders as "genocide," since it was mainly the innocent indigenous Indians who were slaughtered, rather than members of the warring parties. A Museum as Memorial Bert Janssens, a young Belgian philologist who has been working as a volunteer in Rabinal for the past few years, guides me through the local museum of which he is curator. Three nuns sit in front of a TV screen, viewing a documentary film about army atrocities during the civil war. The tape is drawn from the museum's video archives. The museum, which doubles as a documentation center, has become a major attraction for the region's inhabitants. Dedicated just a year ago, it now registers about a thousand visitors each month, including many school classes. Their interest is not focused primarily on the exhibitions of fine regional handicrafts. It is the "Sala de historia" that is the sad main attraction, a room devoted to the village's history, which was blanketed in silence until recently. Entering the room's relatively dim light from the bright sunshine outside, one is almost overwhelmed. All available wall space is plastered with enlarged passport photos of victims. Extra partitions had to be set up to accommodate the 350 black and white images from the archives of the municipality's civil register. Candles burn here and there beneath the photographs: on All Saints' Day, family members came here to memorialize their dead, though in many cases they do not even know where they are buried. The photo captions indicate that most of the men and women were killed in 1982 during the massacres in the hamlets of Chichupac, Río Negro and Plan de Sánchez. The idea for the museum was a direct result of the peace agreements which ended the civil war. The pacts explicitly state that a lasting peace among the various ethnic groups, and the development of a democratic society, are possibly only if the victims are publicly acknowledged, if a culture of mutual respect is engendered, if the past is worked through, the perpetrators of crimes against humanity punished, survivors compensated, and human rights respected in the future. Mass Murderers Prosecuted Largely with financial and technical assistance from abroad, a series of projects has been launched in recent years designed to contribute to the reconciliation of Guatemala's deeply divided, multi-ethnic society. The difficult task of confronting and overcoming the past is met with suspicion or unabashed obstruction on the part of the tone-setting oligarchy, segments of the hardline military caste and prominent conservative politicians. That fact has been increasingly criticized lately by the members of the UN peace mission operating in Guatemala. But despite all the obstacles, there has been some initial progress, as the case of Rabinal shows. The village now not only has its museum as a warning to future generations; a few memorials to the victims of state terror under the military dictatorship have begun to spring up in the cemetery for the poor. And in the neighboring village of Xococ, family members of murdered victims have banded together into a working group to seek dialogue and reconciliation with the perpetrators, and also to push for prosecution and compensation. Unprecedented things are also happening in Guatemala's courtrooms. In February 1982 there was a grisly massacre in the little village of Río Negro, in which 107 children and 70 women were slaughtered. Despite considerable resistance, a trial was finally held, and although the military men behind the operation were not brought to justice, in 1999 three former members of a civil patrol were convicted as material perpetrators - a landmark result. One of the massacre's survivors, Jesús Tecu, who was only 11 years old when the incident occurred, now expresses regret that another 27 members of the same PAC are still at large. He has been fighting for years to have other cases from the years of civil war brought before the nation's courts. The main obstacle, he says, is getting witnesses to testify before a judge; many of them are afraid to break their silence, because the perpetrators live in the same community or a neighboring one and threaten vengeance if the witnesses talk. At the insistence of victims' families, excavations have been started at two dozen secret burial sites in the area around Rabinal, and 216 skeletons have already been exhumed. Heading this operation is the Guatemalan Foundation for Forensic Medicine (FAFG), which is financed by the UN Development Program and contributions from Holland and the U.S. The foundation is headed by Fredy Peccerelli, a young Guatemalan anthropologist trained in the USA. He points out that it is a matter of major importance to the local Mayan populace that the families of victims have the remains returned to them so that they can be ceremonially buried. The Mayans live in close relationship with their dead, maintaining ongoing ties to them, and having family members anonymously buried in mass graves constitutes a serious and abrupt disruption of the communication process, both for individuals and the community as a whole. On the basis of his experience with the FAFG, Peccerelli has been repeatedly called upon by the War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to undertake missions to Bosnia. Lack of Forensic Experts Excavations of burial sites are accompanied by a team of psychologists who tend to the needs of family members. "The victims cry out from beneath the earth," says one woman whose parents were murdered near Rabinal. A Spanish employee of the FAFG, which now has a staff of about 60, explains that once remains have been dug up, it is not always easy to explain to people why the bones must first be examined in a laboratory before being turned over to the victim's family. Family members, she says, are afraid that the bones will be sold in the U.S. or cooked to make soup, and eventually be replaced by animal bones. To counteract this legend, relatives are given an opportunity to visit the foundation's laboratories in the Guatemalan capital. One time, when an anthropologist was trying to explain his work to the members of a Mayan community, he remarked somewhat poetically that the bones began to speak when they were examined in the lab, at which former members of a civil patrol suddenly became very interested. They wanted to know just what the dead had said, doubtless to find out if they themselves had been branded as perpetrators. In the early 1990s, when the first secret cemeteries were discovered in Guatemala, the situation was very similar to that in Argentina, Chile or Bosnia: nowhere in the country were there specialists qualified to conduct scientific exhumations and forensic examinations. The American forensics expert Clyde Snow, who had acquired a worldwide reputation through his excavation work in Argentina, trained the first Guatemalan specialists. Working with an annual budget of $1 million, some 60 excavations are now undertaken each year. Recent years have seen about 300 exhumations throughout Guatemala, most of them handled by the FAFG. More than 2,000 sets of bones have been found, X-rayed and examined for signs of violent death. Naturally enough, the work of the forensic specialists is not appreciated everywhere, witness the death threats which some Foundation staff have recently received. Clearly, there are guilty parties in the ranks of the military and the PACs who fear being brought to justice. These days, excavation reports and the statements of interrogated relatives are accepted as valid proof by the country's courts. November 28, 2002 / First published in German, November 23, 2002

Guyana

AP 22 Nov 2002 Villagers Recall Jonestown Massacre JONESTOWN, Guyana (AP) — Razor grass, vines and a few wild daisies cover the area where American cult leader Jim Jones urged more than 900 followers to commit mass suicide. Few care to remember the horrors of Nov. 18, 1978. But painful memories are reawakening with a new influx of foreigners — U.S. missionaries and wildcat Brazilian gold miners — to the remote jungle outpost. ``I see strange faces and I feel scared again,'' said Caroline George, 37, whose three siblings died at Jonestown. ``Everything is different in Guyana but it somehow feels the same.'' Residents of Port Kaituma, the nearest town about six miles away, asked themselves the other day what the business might be of a Nigerian who stopped in at a diner for some fried chicken; and of a Colombian who landed on the airstrip in a private plane. This newfound multiculturalism, reminiscent of Jones' dream of a Utopian multiracial society, is not welcomed by villagers whose collective psyche was scarred by the mass suicide. ``All of the activity here has brought better business but some of the people who come in here, I just don't like,'' said Denise Duke, 37, owner of the Big ``D'' Food Mall, a wooden restaurant specializing in chicken foot soup. ``A lot of us are still suspicious of outsiders. Sure they bring us things, but what do they take in return?'' The town has more than quadrupled in size and population since the Jonestown massacre. Most of the 7,000 residents are native Amerindians and descendants of African slaves and East Indian indentured laborers imported centuries ago to Britain's only colony in South America. An interior covered by impenetrable jungle and dissected by snake-infested rivers prevented the Guyanese government from monitoring Jones' activities, and accounts for a different kind of lawlessness today. Port residents complain that President Bharrat Jagdeo's government, preoccupied with growing anarchy in the capital, Georgetown, is not doing enough to prevent foreigners from stealing Guyana's wealth. Meanwhile, locals say, Brazilians and Venezuelans who have joined a gold rush often mine without permits and smuggle their gains across unpoliced borders. Others complain the government is too trusting of foreign churches and missionaries. Baptist pastor Dean Runyon, from Cleveland, Ohio, has gathered more than 400 followers in four years for his church, which offers services and helps with small community projects. ``Why I came to Guyana? That's a long story,'' says Runyon, hurrying to a sermon and referring other questions to his parishioners. ``I have nothing to hide, though.'' ``Pastor Runyon is no Jim Jones,'' said parishioner Raymond Wong, 32. ``He preaches the word of God, but that's it.'' Few of these churchgoers are old enough to remember Jonestown. ``A lot of us who were around when Jonestown happened stopped going to church,'' said Paul Adams, 49, who helped Jones clear land for the agricultural commune where he and his followers grew bananas and cassava and raised pigs. Hundreds of men, women and children, followed Jones. They built cottages, workshops, dormitories and cultivated crops on 300 acres carved from dense tropical rain forest, some 140 miles from a capital reachable only by air or boat. Then a congressman from San Francisco flew to the jungle compound one day to investigate allegations of abuse. As U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan was preparing to return to the United States with 18 temple members who had wanted to leave, he was ambushed on the airstrip. Ryan, three newsmen and a cult defector were killed. Eleven others were injured. Then Jones exhorted his followers to drink cyanide-laced grape punch. Babies were killed by squirting it into their mouths with syringes. Most adults were poisoned, some forcibly. Some were shot by cult security guards. Hours later, 912 of Jones' followers were dead. So was Jones, found with bullet wound in his head, whether it was suicide or murder is unknown. ``Something like that would never happen again here,'' said Tourism Minister Manzoor Nadir. ``I think the country learned its lesson the hard way.''

Peru (see also Japan)

ICRC 14 Nov 2002 Peru: Incorporating humanitarian law into further education Since the beginning of the second university term, nine professors from the humanitarian law interest group set up by the ICRC delegation in May 2002 have been reserving time in their courses for international humanitarian law. The professors are teaching this aspect of law in five courses at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, two at the University of Lima and one at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. Following changes to the university curriculum, they will now be teaching subjects including the development of international humanitarian law, its scope and basic principles, the relationship between humanitarian law and human rights, war crimes and international criminal jurisdiction under humanitarian law. Students will also be learning about the ICRC's international activities and the new challenges facing this branch of law. The ICRC is currently discussing the possibility of including humanitarian law in curricula with the law faculties of the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and San Martín de Porres universities. The professors of the interest group have been working with increasing dedication in this area. Members of the group have given presentations on topics related to international humanitarian law at events organized by Congress, the ministry of justice, the police, the national committee for the study and application of international humanitarian law, plus human rights organizations. Participation at these events confirms the position of these professors as points of reference in the field of international humanitarian law.

AP 16 Nov 2002 Peru commission exhumes remains of rebel massacre 2002-11-16 / Associated Press / LIMA, Peru Forensic experts have exhumed the remains of 62 adults and children massacred by guerrillas two decades ago in remote hamlets more than three kilometers high in the Andes Mountains, officials said Thursday. The villagers were murdered by Shining Path rebels in April 1983 near the town of Lucanamarca, 350 kilometers southeast of Lima. The Lucanamarca massacre shocked Peruvians and was the forerunner of mass killings by rebels and army troops as Peru sank into savage conflict. Two teams from Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission began digging Saturday near the hamlets of Muylacruz, Llacchua, Ataccara and Yanaccollpa. The remains will be sent to Lima on Friday for identification, the commission said in a press release. Peruvian, Argentine and Guatemalan forensic anthropologists conducted the exhumations with the help of villagers, who led investigators to grave sites and identified deteriorated clothing worn by the victims. The Shining Path, a Maoist-inspired rebel movement that tolerated no opposition, used terror to force peasants to support its drive to overthrow Peru's elected governments. Rebel ideologues first entered the Lucanamarca region in the late 1970s from the Huamanga University in Ayacucho, where Shining Path founder Abimael Guzman had been a professor. After guerrillas killed a handful of peasants in 1982, community self-defense groups known as "ronderos" began to fight back armed only with clubs and slingshots. In March 1983, a rondero patrol rounded up 10 guerrillas, marched them into Lucanamarca's central plaza and killed them, burning one man alive. Shining Path guerrillas retaliated the following month, shooting or hacking villagers to death with machetes. Guzman took credit for the massacre in 1988. "Faced with reactionary military action we responded with action: Lucanamarca," he told the guerrilla's clandestine newspaper El Diario. Shining Path violence dropped off significantly with Guzman's capture in 1992. The truth commission began working in July of last year to shed light on atrocities that occurred from May 1980 to November 2000 in fighting between government security forces, insurgents and civilians. At least 30,000 people died in the fighting and another 6,000 people disappeared. The commission plans to publish a final report based on exhumations, open hearings and individual testimonies in July of next year. In addition to the Lucanamarca digs, investigators have exhumed the remains of peasants massacred by army troops. Commission president Salomon Lerner told newsmagazine Caretas this week that the military has not responded to truth commission inquiries and that of the 13,000 people that have testified so far, none have included army personnel. Lerner also said the commission, which almost shut down earlier this year for a lack of money, has funding lined up through February.

Reuters 19 Nov 2002 The Americas Head of Death Squad Arrested in Peru LIMA, Peru -- In a dramatic arrest that could shed light on former president Alberto Fujimori's possible involvement in human rights crimes, Peru captured the head of an army death squad that killed 25 people in two of Peru's most notorious massacres in the early 1990s. Maj. Santiago Martin Rivas was leader of the Grupo Colina death squad. The unit was convicted of killing 15 people at a party in the Barrios Altos district of Lima in 1991 and nine students and their professor at La Cantuta university in 1992. He was arrested at his Lima home. Fujimori, who ruled Peru from 1990 to 2000, is charged with responsibility for the murders. The former president, who is now in exile in Japan, has denied the charge. Martin Rivas was one of 10 officers sentenced to up to 20 years in prison for the La Cantuta killing, which happened when Peru was in the grip of leftist rebel violence. He was released after Fujimori decreed an amnesty in 1995. But he became a fugitive after Peru's top military tribunal ruled last year that the sentences should be upheld, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. His detention brings to seven the number of Grupo Colina members behind bars; 14 are still at large, Interior Minister Gino Costa said. Costa said at a news conference that Martin Rivas had been under surveillance for a week.

The Japan Times (Kyodo) 21 Nov2002 Fujimori renews vow to run in '06 Peru election RIO DE JANEIRO Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori marked his second anniversary of self-imposed exile in Japan on Tuesday with a vow to return to Peru, where he is wanted as a fugitive. Alberto Fujimori "I'm ready to fight a new battle," Fujimori said in a statement issued through a spokesman, renewing his pledge to run in the 2006 presidential election in Peru. Fujimori, 64, arrived in Japan on Nov. 17, 2000, while still in office, on an unscheduled visit after briefly attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit in Brunei. He announced his resignation three days later, but the Congress refused to accept it and dismissed him as president. Peru has since repeatedly sought his extradition from Japan on charges of dereliction of duty and abandonment of office. Fujimori is also charged with corruption, and two charges of murder and kidnapping in connection with his alleged sanctioning of two massacres by a paramilitary death squad in the early 1990s. He has maintained his innocence and accused his political enemies in Peru of making false accusations against him. He has repeatedly said he wants to return to Peru and run in the 2006 presidential election. Fujimori is still a target of widespread criticism in the South American nation, and the Peruvian legislature has barred him from taking any public office in the nation for 10 years. Japan has rejected repeated requests from the Peruvian government to hand over Fujimori on the grounds that the former president has Japanese citizenship and thus can stay in the country indefinitely. Fujimori was born in Peru to Japanese immigrants from Kumamoto Prefecture.

United States (see Canada)

Baltimore Sun 3 Nov 2002 Goldhagen on Pius XII - demands for accountability By John Rivera Sun Staff Originally published November 3, 2002 A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair, by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen. Alfred A. Knopf. 352 pages. $25. Over the last several years, there has been a run of books examining the conduct of the Roman Catholic Church during the Holocaust, much of it focusing on the apparent silence of Pope Pius XII in the face of genocide. Many of these works have added valuable insight and historical documentation to what critics hold is a sad chapter in the church's history. Unfortunately, A Moral Reckoning does neither. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, a professor of European Studies at Harvard University, writes this volume as a follow-up to his 1996 work, Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, in which he argued that contrary to previous portrayals of a German populace that cooperated with the Nazi genocide only under coercion, the average German actively supported and often gleefully carried out the killing. In this latest volume, Goldhagen turns to the role of the Catholic Church in laying the groundwork for the Holocaust through centuries of preaching anti-Semitism, and then once the killing started, its failure to act or speak out against the genocide. He sets out in three sections of the book to dispassionately analyze what the church did and did not do during the Holocaust, to what extent it is culpable and what it needs to do to redeem itself. The first section, in which he lays out his historical case, is the weakest. There is nothing new here. Goldhagen relies instead on the work of others, most notably the more recent work that has been published, including John Cornwell's controversial Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, Susan Zuccotti's Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy, and James Carroll's Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews. He appears not to have consulted the 12-volume official publication of a selection of documents related to the church's activities during World War II, which is in French, and relied instead on Pierre Blet's one-volume summary in English, Pius XII and the Second World War. Goldhagen too easily states as fact that Pius XII was an anti-Semite, with most of his evidence based on Cornwell's citation from a letter when the pontiff was a papal diplomat in Germany before the war and referred to a Communist insurrectionist as a Jew who was "Pale, dirty, with drugged eyes, hoarse voice, vulgar, repulsive, with a face that is both intelligent and sly." Goldhagen's argument also suffers from overstatement. His contention that the church has much to answer has merit, and his critique of the Vatican's contention - that it historically harbored a religious "anti-Judaism," but is innocent of anti-Semitism, which it holds is pagan in origin - is on target. But his efforts are marred by statements like the Catholic Church "harbored antisemitism at its core, as an integral part of its doctrine, its theology and its liturgy." If anti-Semitism is at the core of the Catholic Church, it is beyond redemption. Goldhagen does hold, however, that the Catholic Church can and must be redeemed, and he lays out several steps to accomplish this. First, it must renounce papal infallibility, a major obstacle to seeking the truth and admitting error. It must repudiate its supercessionism that in any way assumes Christianity has supplanted Judaism. It must embrace true religious pluralism, acknowledging that salvation is not limited to the Catholic Church. And it must purge its Scripture of its numerous anti-Semitic references. Goldhagen's demands are so radical that they are unlikely to foster much serious discussion within the church. But his voice adds to a chorus demanding greater accountability. John Rivera has been the religion reporter for The Sun since April 1997. He covered Pope John Paul II during his visit to Baltimore in 1995 and on his trip to Cuba. He earned a master's degree in theology at Washington Theological Union.

Morris County, NJ Daily Record 4 Nov 2002 A puppet police officer speaks about hate crimes to students at Rockaway Valley School in Boonton Township. John Bell / Daily Record Puppets put new face on hatred By Chris Gosier, Daily Record Nine years ago, in a Montana town, someone was terrorizing Jewish families by throwing rocks through the windows where menorahs were displayed. But rather than hide the Hanukkah symbols, the town did the opposite. In a show of unity, they put a picture of a menorah in every window. The acts of hate soon stopped. The story came to a Boonton Township school on a recent day, acted out with dancing puppets, talking buildings and a skulking skinhead who gleefully "threw" an imaginary rock, to the sound of a window crashing. The show by the Catskill Puppet Theater, based in Laurens, N.Y., was both funny and foreboding as it showed students at the Rockaway Valley School one town's response to the bigotry that had moved in. The show had some creepy moments, students said afterward. But it also made them laugh by putting a comical face on hate. "He looked like a mouse," 9-year-old Connor Kirwan said of the preening skinhead, an actor wearing a mask stretched into a squinty, toothy grimace. "He looked like a monkey," said 10-year-old Jaclene Troisi, one of about 180 third- through sixth-graders who saw the play. Like other students, she also got the larger point that "just because somebody's different, you shouldn't be mean to them." The show was brought to the students by the school's cultural arts committee, part of the district's Home and School Association. Committee members saw the play showcased in Bergen County last year by Young Audiences of New Jersey, a nonprofit arts group. It appealed to them because it fit with the anti-bullying lessons the school is trying to promote. "We're trying to teach them tolerance (and) peace," said Michaeline Fernandez, one of the members. "We just wanted them to get the overall message that there's differences in the world … and we need to accept that and get along with others." The story is detailed in a children's book, "The Christmas Menorahs: How a Town Fought Hate." The citizens of Billings, Mont., were inspired by a story from Denmark during World War II, when the country had been conquered by the Nazis. When the Nazis ordered all Jews to identify themselves by sewing stars on their clothing, King Christian decided to wear one himself, the story goes. Soon the stars were worn by Danes everywhere, Jews and non-Jews alike. The king was represented by a puppet who "galloped" in front of the stage on horseback, a gold star on his left shoulder. He told a scowling Nazi officer that "my people have spoken. If you take one of us, you'll have to take us all." The cast demonstrated the large, full-body puppet afterward, as the children peppered them with questions about the rotating stage and other mechanical aspects. Few children questioned the moral of the story, however, which apparently was obvious: "that you shouldn't boss around people, and treat them with respect," in the words of 9-year-old Kevin Marhefka. Chris Gosier can be reached at cgosier@gannett.com

Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle 6 Nov 2002 ( —Events to mark Native heritage Native American Heritage events By Diana Louise Carter From dance performances to somber reflections on tragic aspects of American history, November will be filled with local events related to the history and culture of Native Americans. Some of the events are tied to Native American Heritage Month, while others are connected to historic events that coincidentally fall in November, such as the signing of a treaty in Canandaigua 208 years ago. The events begin with a talk tonight by nationally recognized author and activist Ward Churchill, who is Creek and Cherokee. Churchill’s talk, about the genocide of Native Americans, is sponsored by Monroe Community College’s Holocaust Genocide Studies Project. The talk is the project’s annual Kristallnacht program, commemorating the Nazi pogrom Nov. 9-10, 1938, against Jews that is considered the starting point of the Holocaust. Speakers for this annual talk represent contemporary issues. “We think he’s a very good speaker for this program,” said MCC professor Sharon Dobkin, because Churchill’s controversial talks and books have focused on “state-sponsored violence and attempts to culturally ruin a people.” On Monday, local Native Americans and others will hold the annual commemoration of the signing of the Pickering Treaty in Canandaigua. The historic treaty between the United States and the Iroquois Confederacy was agreed upon in Canandaigua on Nov. 11, 1794, and remains in effect today. The event includes a ceremony at the spot on the lawn of the Ontario County Courthouse where the treaty was signed, a potluck dinner, and a traditional Iroquois social with dancers and singers from around upstate New York. Meanwhile, the University of Rochester is holding three Native American Heritage Month events. Performances will include a nationally known Zuni dancer who lives in Henrietta and a musician and healer of Kiowa, Comanche and Tuscarora descent who lives in Tempe, Ariz. E-mail address: dcarter@DemocratandChronicle.com Here are some of the upcoming local Native American events. All are free. Tonight -- University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill delivers a talk, “Holocaust & Denial in America, Genocide by Any Other Name: 1492 to the Present,” at 7 in the Monroe Community College Theater.

Yale Daily News 18 Oct 2002 MATTHEW D. HOUK AND JOHN HARABEDIAN Sharing the story of the Native Americans Indigenous Peoples' Day is not intended to be simply a desecration of Christopher Columbus. Rather, it is an attempt to acknowledge what followed from his landing in the New World, the effects of which continue to affect the native populations of the Americas to this day. One only need examine the policies of this country's government, under which Native Americans have suffered for the past 510 years, or the policies of governments such as Brazil, where as late as 1980, permits allowing the extermination of a given number of indios were distributed to anyone willing to pay the price. The fact that these practices are, for the most part, overlooked by our own representatives in this purportedly representative democracy is the impetus behind the celebration of Indigenous Peoples' Day. Granted, Columbus himself was not entirely responsible for the suffering of all indigenous peoples over the past 510 years; however, this does not acquit him from the gruesome actions perpetrated by those under his command -- actions which have been well documented. Had Columbus simply been the "intrepid Italian explorer" that Meghan Clyne so proudly holds him up to be ("Columbus: no saint, but no Satan," 10/16) and had he been "seeking wealth, adventure and a safe haven from political persecution" and nothing else, there may be good reason to celebrate this man and his accomplishments, while confining our condemnations to those who actually took part in the extermination of indigenous people. This, however, is certainly not the case. Columbus did not depart from Spain with the altruist intentions you purport; rather, as his own diaries indicate (see Samuel Eliot Morrison's "Journal and Other Documents on the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus"), he came with the expectation of encountering wealth belonging to others and it was his unambiguous intention to obtain this wealth by whatever means necessary. Although his initial intent was not to obtain wealth from the people of the Americas, this in no way justifies the horrific consequences that resulted from these actions against our people. What is at issue here, however, is not Columbus' voyage of discovery; rather, it is his return to the New World with a force of 17 ships given to him at his request by the Spanish crown. Upon this return to the New World and subsequent appointment as "viceroy and governor of the Caribbean Islands and the mainland of America," Columbus instituted policies of encomiendas on the island of Espanola (present-day Hati and the Dominican Republic) and oversaw the systematic extermination of almost 99 percent of the native Taino population. According to Ward Churchill in "A Little Matter of Genocide," by the time of Columbus' departure in 1500, the native population had been reduced from as many as 8 million to about 100,000, and by 1514, with his policies still a part of the institution of government he created, the native population had dropped to a low of 22,000. Granted, many of the deaths were the result of disease, but does this in any way absolve them from any guilt? It is widely known that many of the deaths during the Holocaust resulted from disease and the terrible working conditions the prisoners were subjected to, but these deaths are still seen as part of the total loss resulting from Nazi policies and are not justified by saying that the Nazis "may have erred in their ways" and "cannot be blamed for inadvertently spreading germs" within the prison population. And, not all germs were spread "inadvertently" as Clyne would like to believe. It is well known among the educated community that Lord Jeffery Amherst instructed his men to use smallpox-contaminated blankets to "extirpate" the Ottawas. Given these widely known facts, we fail to see how our comparison of the suffering of indigenous peoples in the Americas with the suffering of the Europeans at the hands of the Nazis in any way "lacks historical integrity and disrespects the victims of the Nazi genocide." If anything, we believe that these facts could only serve to bring those groups who have survived these similar struggles closer together. Our goal in holding this celebration every year is not only to dispel the myths surrounding the colonization of the New World, but to bring attention to the present-day struggle of indigenous peoples not only in the Americas, but around the world. Columbus Day, while seen by many as the great beginning of "democracy, liberty, human rights, the belief in a transcendent god, and liberal education" in what was to become known as the United States, is seen by us as the great beginning of the Native American Holocaust. While the experience of the Europeans at the hands of the Nazis embodies the true meaning of the word (to be consumed by the flame), our holocaust was one in which our people, culture, land and ideas (one of which was the idea of democracy, shared by us with the Founding Fathers) were consumed by the metaphorical fire that raged across this continent and continues to rage to this very day. John Harabedian and Matthew D. Houk are juniors in Saybrook College and Jonathan Edwards College, respectively. They are co-presidents of the Association of Native Americans at Yale.

Brown (University) Daily Herald 6 Nov 2002 New exhibit examines smallpox disease in historical context By Marion Billings: Herald Contributing Writer First reported in ancient Egyptian texts, smallpox ravaged human civilization, often playing an important role in history. U.S. history has certainly been touched by the variola virus, which was first brought to the island of Hispanola, now the Dominican Republic and Haiti, in 1507 by the invading Spanish army of Hernando Cortez. A current exhibit at the John Carter Brown Library titled “Smallpox in the Americas, 1492 to 1815: Contagion and Controversy” documents the history of the disease with various books, pamphlets and primary sources pulled from the library’s collection. The exhibit was coordinated with the publication of an essay entitled, “God Have Mercy on This House,” by Professors Emeritus of Medicine Stanley Aronson and Lucile Newman. The idea for the exhibit originated when Norman Fiering, director and librarian of the John Carter Brown Library, approached Aronson to write an essay, with Newman’s help, chronicling smallpox in the American colonies. The library then enlisted the help of its curators to prepare the exhibition from its collections. Aronson’s interest in smallpox has been a long time in the making. “I’m probably the only physician in the community who has ever seen smallpox,” he said. During the 1947 smallpox epidemic in New York City, Aronson was working as a young doctor and became involved in the crisis. Since then, he has been interested in smallpox as both “a social phenomenon and a social tragedy,” he said. Brought from the Old World by invading and settling Europeans, smallpox wreaked havoc on native populations in North and South America, which had no prior immunity to the virus. Individuals who survive an infection of smallpox will be immune for the rest of their lives. Having never been exposed to the foreign virus, an estimated 2 million Native Americans died of smallpox after a member of Cortez’s army brought the disease there in 1520. A 17th-century book in the exhibit documents the surprise of many English settlers in North Carolina when “within a few dayes after our departure from every such towne, the people began to die very fast and many in short space.” Smallpox further sped the rapid extermination of Native American populations in North America, a phenomenon recognized by many British settlers. John Archdale, governor of the Carolina colony, observed in a 1707 book featured in the exhibit how “it at other times pleased the Almighty to send unusual sickness amongst them, such as the smallpox … to lessen their numbers, so that the English, in comparison to the Spaniard, have but little Indian blood to answer for.” The exhibit also documents early ideas about using smallpox as a weapon. A 1777 Revolutionary War document proposes shooting the contents of smallpox pustules at colonial soldiers in order to debilitate them. The exhibit also addresses early techniques used to control the disease. A practice known as variolation that had been used for centuries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, came to the colonies by way of England in the early 18th century. Variolation was met with considerable controversy. The process involved intentionally inoculating healthy people (usually children) in the skin with fluid taken from the pustules of a smallpox victim. The procedure caused the patient to suffer from a milder version of smallpox, with a much lower mortality rate. After recovering, the individual would then be immune for life. Many people argued that the process had not been properly investigated, while others called it a heathen practice that attempted to interfere with God’s will. But in 1799, a doctor named Benjamin Waterhouse, who was on the faculty of Brown and Harvard College, brought a totally new technique of vaccination to the United States. The procedure, which involved intentional infection with cowpox (a milder cousin of smallpox) to confer immunity to smallpox, had been developed by Edward Jenner in England several years before. The vaccination procedure, the first in history, was much more successful. Vaccination initiatives were conducted all over the world until the disease was eradicated in 1977. The exhibit’s examination of smallpox in historical context is what makes it particularly exceptional. Bill Jesdale GS, a student of community health who visited the exhibit, said, “It was interesting to draw parallels not just thinking about smallpox as a potent biological weapon, but also in terms of thinking about who in society is responsible for interpreting and creating meaning for the biological threats of our day.” The exhibit will remain on display until Jan. 15.

WP 6 Nov 2002 Site, Dig, Save, Report Archaeologists Find Place in Agencies By Guy Gugliotta; Page A19 On a November morning in 1864, U.S. Army Col. John Chivington and 700 half-drunk volunteers attacked and massacred nearly 200 Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians -- most of them women and children -- encamped along a dry wash in southeastern Colorado, just north of Lamar. This debacle, known as the Sand Creek Massacre, served as a catalyst for two decades of bloodshed that decimated the Cheyenne and Arapahoe and left a legacy of bitterness among Native Americans that endures. In 1999, in a bill sponsored by Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.), a Northern Cheyenne, Congress directed the National Park Service to find the exact location of the massacre and survey it with a view toward making it a National Historic Site. The job fell to staff archaeologist Doug Scott, of the Park Service's Midwest Regional Center in Omaha. Volunteers had searched before, but had not found the encampment. "Either the stream had buried it in silt and soil, or it had washed away, or we were looking in the wrong place," Scott said. Scott, the Park Service's Great Plains team leader, is one of at least 600 and as many as 900 archaeologists working for the federal government. Nobody knows exactly how many there are, because many are seasonal and contract hires. While archaeologists may not seem to fit into the button-down federal bureaucracy, the agencies need them. The Park Service alone has 60,000 sites -- that it knows about. There are storied tourist attractions such as the Gettysburg battlefield and the Indian ruins at Mesa Verde, but the portfolio also includes tiny spots like the Native American campsite at Gates of the Arctic on Alaska's North Slope. And these known points of interest cared for by the Park Service say nothing about the chance encounters that occur whenever a government agency bulldozes a right-of-way, paves a runway, lays a foundation, makes a repair or digs a tunnel. "At one point 10 years ago, there was a problem with moisture below the foundation of the house where Lincoln died, across the street from Ford's Theater," said the Interior Department's Frank McManamon. "We pulled up the boards and found a bunch of artifacts." McManamon is the Park Service's chief archaeologist, but he also serves as consulting archaeologist for the parent Interior Department, point of contact for archaeologists throughout the federal government who may need anything from legal advice to a fresh set of eyes. The Army Corps of Engineers, with a formidable archaeological staff of its own, called on Interior in the late 1990s to organize investigations to determine whether Kennewick Man, the remains of a middle-aged man who died 9,200 years ago, qualified as Native American. The Interior Department said he did, giving tribes an early victory in a bitter, still-unresolved battle with researchers seeking the right to examine the remains. More recently, McManamon's office has been informally reviewing the research on more than 600 sets of human remains and other material from an 18th-century African American burial ground unearthed by the General Services Administration during construction of a federal office building in Lower Manhattan. In all, the federal government produces about 20,000 archaeological reports a year, and McManamon is trying to log them in to the National Archaeological Database. Right now the database has 240,000 citations, but the work moves in fits and starts on an $800,000 annual budget. McManamon said most of the logged items are surveys rather than actual excavations, "in part because we're not trying to destroy sites, as in the past." McManamon is a leading exponent of the modern creed that reminds archaeologists to be careful what they excavate, because "once you dig it up, it's gone." For Scott in Colorado, the task was to find a site that existed but which had been covered over and forgotten for more than 130 years. The team knew it was close, but even an error of a few hundred yards in an area of pristine pastureland can condemn an archaeologist to months of futility. Scott said his researchers started from the premise that earlier expeditions were looking for the site of the massacre in the wrong place. Then historians in the group huddled with aerial photographers and came up with a plausible alternative to the traditional site, about a mile to the north. "In the spring of 1999, we started to check with metal detectors," Scott said. "About seven-tenths of a mile north of the traditional area, we started to run into cannonball fragments, bullets, kettles and cast-iron skillets, tools, scrapers and arrowheads." With evidence of both an Indian encampment and military hardware, the team members felt they had found the right spot. "We didn't dig it all up," Scott said, "but we collected over 400 artifacts and worked about 3 1/2 miles of stream several hundred meters on either side." The site squared with historical accounts: "There is nearly no evidence of resistance by the Arapahoe and Cheyenne," Scott said. "The overwhelming amount of material is from the Colorado Volunteers." The team found pieces from a half-dozen 12-pound fragmentation shells fired from four mountain howitzers brought along on mules by Chivington's men to rip the encampment apart. On Oct. 31, 2000, President Bill Clinton signed a bill authorizing creation of a National Historic Site at Sand Creek, 50 miles north of Lamar and 150 miles southeast of Denver.

Reuters 7 Nov 2002 U.S. Loses New Bid to Block U.N. Anti-Torture Pact By Irwin Arieff UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A U.N. committee dealt the United States a heavy defeat on Thursday in its bid to block or cripple a draft anti-torture treaty that has been a decade in the making, paving the way for the pact's final approval next month. Overriding opposition from Washington, the U.N. General Assembly's Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee approved the draft treaty by a vote of 104 to eight, with 37 abstentions. Joining Washington were China, Cuba, Israel, Japan, Nigeria, Syria and Vietnam. The pact next goes to the full 191-nation U.N. General Assembly, where routine approval is expected next month, as the assembly and the committee have identical memberships. To come into force, the pact must be signed and ratified by at least 20 governments, a number set by the treaty itself. The treaty, which the United States has opposed since the drafting process began 10 years ago, would set up an international system of inspections for all sites where prisoners are held to insure that torture was not taking place. Washington argued the pact would divert limited U.N. resources from other, more effective, anti-torture mechanisms and enjoyed only limited support from the U.N. membership. It has also argued that opening state prisons to international inspection would violate states' rights under the U.S. Constitution. But it has also been stung by widespread criticism of its embrace of the death penalty and its treatment of alleged al Qaeda and Taliban detainees at a base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. GO-IT-ALONE TREND The campaign against the anti-torture pact was the latest in a wave of go-it-alone actions that have infuriated many of Washington's closest allies at the United Nations, including rejection of the Kyoto pact on global warming and the new International Criminal Court aimed at combating genocide and war crimes. Debra Long of the Association for the Prevention of Torture said the lopsided result showed Washington was in the minority on what many countries saw as a key human rights vote despite its claims the treaty had only limited support. "They don't want this type of mechanism to be in place because they will not accept visits to their own prisons. But it is scandalous that they would try to block visits to prisons in other countries," Long told Reuters. Before approving the draft treaty, the committee defeated, 98 to 11 with 37 abstentions, a U.S. amendment that would have shifted the burden of paying for the prison visits and the treaty's administrative costs to those countries that ratify the pact rather than the U.N. general budget. U.S. envoy Frank Gaffney drew hoots of laughter from delegates when he said many U.N. member-nations had difficulty paying their dues. Washington has a long history of piling up arrears and granting itself unilateral U.N. dues cuts. Treaty backers argued the U.S. amendment would have crippled the treaty by discouraging poor countries from ratifying it. "No country should hesitate to join these efforts because of financial concerns," said Danish envoy Henrik Hahn, speaking on behalf of the European Union. The anti-torture pact would supplement an existing Convention Against Torture which went into force in 1987 and has been ratified by 130 countries including the United States in 1994.

AP 7 Nov 2002 NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — Since the Sept. 11 anniversary, more than 14,000 foreign visitors have been fingerprinted at U.S. border crossings and 179 have been arrested, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Thursday. Standing a few feet away from the roaring American Falls, Ashcroft called the entry-exit program now in place at ports of entry around the country “a vital national security shield” to winnow out potential terrorists. “We are confronted now with a new adversary, one who enters our country quietly,” Ashcroft said. “They enter disguised in the form of businesspersons or tourists or students. “The challenge we face is to somehow identify such individuals who would threaten the United States while we maintain the facility of our borders ... to provide the basis for the community we share with our good neighbors.” Some of those arrested were either wanted felons who fled authorities during previous visits to the United States, foreigners with serious criminal records or others attempting to enter the country with fraudulent documents or under false pretenses, Ashcroft said. “If today or tomorrow a suspected terrorist is identified” through the program, “it would not be the first time that such an apprehension has been made,” he said. The Justice Department chose Sept. 11 as the starting date for the program developed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. It will correct some of the problems that led to the terror attacks a year earlier, Ashcroft said. Congress required the government to develop a stricter border system in sweeping anti-terrorism legislation signed by President Bush late last year. Under the program, the fingerprints of many visitors are matched against databases of known criminals and known terrorists. It targets all nationals of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria, all designated by the U.S. government as state sponsors of terrorism. Thousands of men from those countries who arrived in the United States before Sept. 11 this year also will have to be fingerprinted and photographed if they plan to stay beyond Dec. 16, the Justice Department said. They include about 3,000 nonresident aliens, such as students and visitors on long-term travel visas. The requirements do not apply to permanent residents -- those with INS “green cards” -- or to naturalized citizens from those countries. Some immigration advocates maintain the program is discriminatory, taking the United States down a dangerous path of formalized profiling of foreign visitors. “It is not racial profiling. ... It is based on intelligence data” rather than ethnic or religious criteria, Ashcroft insisted. During a pilot project using the same technology to identify criminals trying to enter the country, immigration authorities averaged about 70 fingerprint “hits” a week. The fingerprinting led to the arrest of more than 2,000 wanted felons between January and July.

Canadian Press 7 Nov 2002 Canadians not exempt from tough new U.S. border rules: U.S. Attorney General 10:40 PM EST Nov 07 NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. (CP) - Canadians are not exempt from tough new American screening rules at the border, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said Thursday. But Ashcroft repeated promises that Canadians crossing into the United States won't automatically be fingerprinted, photographed and interviewed based on their place of birth. And he insisted the new U.S. exit and entry system, known as NSEERS, does not amount to ethnic profiling. "No nation is exempt from (NSEERS)," Ashcroft said at a news conference near the U.S. side of Niagara Falls. "If a person comes and in the judgment of the person at the border they qualify for, or meet criteria that is intelligence-based that relates to preventing terrorism, they can be referred," for registration. New security measures were instituted this September in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The National Security Entry-Exit Registration System has drawn criticism from some Canadians who say they have been interrogated and fingerprinted simply because of their place of birth. The federal Foreign Affairs Department issued an unusual travel advisory on Sept. 13 advising Canadian citizens born in Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria to reconsider U.S. travel. Canadians of Pakistani, Saudi or Yemeni origin "could also attract special attention" at the border, warned the department. Last week, Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham said he'd been assured by Washington that "all Canadians will be treated as Canadians when travelling on Canadian passports." His department, however, has been at a loss to explain what if anything has changed and border harassment continues to be reported by Canadian travellers. Nonetheless, Graham ordered the embarrassing travel advisory to be lifted on Wednesday, on the eve of Ashcroft's border visit. Ashcroft gave a more nuanced version of the U.S. promise Thursday. "Place of birth is not an automatic referral into this system," he said. "If an individual announces a citizenship in a country that is on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, obviously that becomes a referral." That means Canadians with dual citizenship who were born in any of the five listed Arab countries will indeed be registered. Other Canadians may be registered, but not necessarily. Ashcroft said the system is not based on race or ethnicity, but on intelligence. "It is not racial profiling. It is not based on ethnic criterion or religious criterion. It is based on intelligence data and the list of nations provided from the state sponsors of terrorism." Under NSEERS, any traveller designated by a U.S. border official is fingerprinted and matched against a database of known criminals and known terrorists. Those considered to pose a higher risk are also required to periodically confirm where they are living and what they are doing in the United States and confirm their exit from the country. Ashcroft said that since the measures were introduced on Sept. 11, 2002, more than 14,000 foreign visitors had been fingerprinted at U.S. border crossings and 179 arrests made. Some of those arrested were either wanted felons who fled authorities during previous visits, foreigners with serious criminal records or others attempting to enter the country with fraudulent documents or under false pretenses, he said. Thousands of individuals from the five targeted countries who arrived prior to the introduction of the new measures will also have to be fingerprinted and photographed if they plan to stay beyond Dec. 16, the Justice Department said. This group includes students and visitors on long-term travel visas. .

Arab News 8 Nov 2002 Racial profiling under scrutiny By Fatima Ageel, Special to Arab News Following the attacks of Sept. 11, many persons of color in general — and Muslims in particular — became targets of discrimination, violence, and racial profiling. Many were detained by law enforcement agencies, even though most of them had nothing whatever to do with the attacks. Racial profiling occurs when officials target a certain group of people of color, ethnicity, nationality, name or religion. While racial profiling existed prior to 9/11, the recent attacks have sparked a controversy over its effectiveness in preventing future terrorist attacks. Jennifer Di Maglia, 20, an American of Syrian and European descent believes that racial profiling still exists and is primarily directed at people of Middle Eastern, North African, Southeast Asian descent — or for that matter, anybody who is Muslim. "However, racial profiling went on for decades before Sept. 11. Persons of color, presumably other than white, were targets of police discrimination, harassment, and other civil liberty violations," she said. Erica Lopez, 19, an American of Puerto Rican descent and a Christian, added, "It worsened after the attacks. Now they’re focusing on everybody. However, they will never forget the black man." Joseph Daswani, 19, an American of Indian and Trinidadian ancestry and a Christian, said, "There are a lot of ignorant people out there who categorize you because of where you come from." May Awkal, 20, a Lebanese-American Muslim, believes that racial profiling is happening more than ever. "All people who ‘look’ Middle Eastern or Muslim are subject to harassment," she said. Amna Hussein, 20, a Pakistani-American Muslim, found a note on the door of her room in the dorm that said: "Go back to where you belong." She was shocked and couldn’t believe how ignorant some people were. Erica Lopez recalled walking home soon after 9/11 and being confronted by a man who appeared drunk. "He was saying, ‘I’ll be dammed if you think y’all can come into this country and destroy it.’" Even though Lopez is Puerto Rican-American, the man seemed to think she looked like a Middle Easterner. Zahra Swaleh, 20, a Muslim student from Tanzania, described an experience at Boston’s Logan Airport as "uncomfortable and extremely degrading." The incident occurred last October. Swaleh was forced to take her shoes off and her laptop was searched as well. "I stood out from the crowd which was predominately white; I was the only one who was randomly selected from the whole crowd." There has always been controversy over racial profiling in law enforcement, but in the aftermath of 9/11, the debate whether the US government should constitutionally protect racial profiling has increased. Guilerma Arce, 20, a Haitian American Christian, said, "With the US government making racial profiling law, it will continue to heighten racial tension which is already at levels that are intolerable." On the other hand, Arce said, "Racial profiling can occur as long as it is regulated." She believes that it should be conducted in a respectable manner, without yelling, physical violence, or any use of derogatory terms. "Unfortunately, that’s not always the case," she added. Di Maglia strongly disagreed. "It’s immoral and unreliable," she said. "Terrorists come in all shapes, sizes, colors, nationalities, and religions." Lopez added that even if racial profiling were constitutionally protected, "They will not target white Americans. They’re going to look for minorities. Look at those who run for Congress; it’s obvious who is most likely to be harassed for just about anything."

Cornell Daily Sun (NY) 12 Nov 2002 Abortion does not parallel Holocaust To the Editor: Last week, the Cornell Coalition For Life and the Genocide Awareness Project displayed anti-choice posters on Ho Plaza which use disturbing images to argue that abortion is genocide (News, "Pro-Life Advocates Face Pro-Choicers," November 8, 2002). One of these posters equated Planned Parenthood with the Nazis by juxtaposing a picture of an aborted fetus with historical photographs of emaciated corpses in a mass grave. Other posters drew comparisons to the Ku Klux Klan and Al-Qaeda. While these groups have every right to present emotionally disturbing pictures to spark debate or persuade students to reconsider their views on abortion, these posters go too far. To evoke images of the Holocaust and other historical tragedies is an appalling act of disrespect for those who have died and the beliefs for which they were killed. Furthermore, these images provide an irrelevant comparison. Victims of the Holocaust, the K.K.K. and of Al-Qaeda were murdered because they were different from their assailants. Fetuses are aborted in this country because people hold different theological and medical views on when life begins. To use historical tragedies as a metaphor for abortion is inaccurate and misleading. This weekend marked the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the violent rampage against German Jews in 1938 that is considered the beginning of the Holocaust. As we remember this dark period of our history, let the 11 million people who perished in the Holocaust rest in peace. Don't desecrate their memory for political gain. -- Amy Goodman '03 Vice President of the Jewish Student Union, written on behalf of the Cornell Hillel Jewish Student Union

pacificnews.org 4 Nov 2002 Residents March Against Racial Violence Bridges to the New California Compiled and Edited by Pueng Vongs, New California Media, Nov 04, 2002 "Bridges to the New California," produced by Pacific News Service, is a weekly report on the news and views of in-language and English-language ethnic press based in or circulated in California's ethnic majority communities. Sikhs Target 'Hitman' Video Game Ashfaque Swapan, India-West Sixty-five Sikh organizations in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom have mounted a protest against "Hitman 2: Silent Assassin," a new video game that the groups charge is racist and "shows a deliberate lack of decency and sensitivity to Sikhs," reports India-West. A petition demands an apology from U.K.-based video game maker Eidos, which makes many popular video games, including the best-selling "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider." Hitman 2 features India as one of the locations for the violence. The Sikh groups say one scene is obviously based on the Golden Temple (Harmander Sahib) in Amritsar, a sacred site for Sikhs. "Such a graphical portrayal of violence within the sacred grounds of any religious place -- whether a temple, a church or a mosque, is completely unacceptable," the petition says. The petition also takes issue with the mention of Dalits as "untouchables," which it calls an offensive term. One of the villains in the game is Zip Master, man with a shaven head and wearing a long saffron tunic. He has his hands clasped in the traditional Indian greeting, "namaste." http://news.pacificnews.org/

gamesindustry.biz 13 Nov 2002 Eidos settles Hitman Sikh dispute Eidos has released an official statement about the controversy over Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, which came under fire from Sikh groups for allegedly depicting the religions adherents as members of an evil cult. The UK games publisher claims that it has now come to an "amicable position" with the Sikh Coalition, and will respond by removing all relevant content from the Hitman 2 website, making changes to the forthcoming GameCube version of the title and taking steps to adapt the current editions of the game to edit out the offending content where possible. "In recognition of the concerns and sensitivities which have been raised, Eidos and the developers, IO Interactive, have responded in both a socially and commercially responsible manner," the statement reads. "Eidos and IO Interactive would like to stress that no offence was intended but would like to apologise to the Sikh community and other persons for any offence taken." The red-faced company goes on to state that it has learned its lesson from the debacle, and will "observe and respect cultural, religious and ethical sensitivities in its future products".

NYT 13 Nov 2002 Veterans Never Forget - Letter to the Editor: As usual, there was a light turnout for the Veterans Day Parade up Fifth Avenue (news article, Nov. 12). However, it was obvious that the vets who marched appreciated the people who came out in the rain to cheer them on. Sadly, many of my fellow Vietnam vets look older than the Korean War vets. Vietnam certainly took its toll on everyone who participated in that horrible war. When we Vietnam vets hear politicians and military leaders say we have to put Vietnam behind us, it hurts. Many of us came home from Vietnam and went to Washington in 1971 to protest with the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. We never want America to forget about Vietnam. This political war that wasted 58,000 American and 3 million Vietnamese lives, plus millions more who were disabled physically and psychologically, should serve to remind us that our great nation is capable of atrocities against our own people as well as others. "Never again" means we can't afford to forget. MICHAEL J. GORMAN Whitestone, Queens, Nov. 12, 2002

San Francisco Chronicle 16 Nov 2002 Exhibit details Nazi torment of gays It opens at Holocaust museum in Washington, then will travel Edward Epstein, Chronicle Washington Bureau Saturday, November 16, 2002 ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle. URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/a/2002/11/16/MN92411.DTL Washington -- Labeled as "socially aberrant," "enemies of the state," and "degenerates," homosexuals in Nazi Germany were persecuted nearly as vigorously as Jews by the genocidal regime. The Nazi horrors against homosexuals, mainly gay men, are much less well- known than the story of the 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. But the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, a popular and somber 9-year-old attraction, opened an exhibit Friday showing in brutal detail how the Nazis tried to "cure" gays, sometimes through castration, or work them to death in concentration camps. The exhibit remains in Washington until March 16, then hits the road for as- yet-unspecified cities. "This is designed as a traveling exhibition. We hope to keep it on the road for as many years as it can physically stand it," said Edward Phillips, the exhibit's curator. Homosexuality between men had been illegal in Germany under Paragraph 175 of the country's criminal code since the German empire under the kaisers was created in 1871. But the law, which specified jail time for the crime of sex between men, was only sporadically enforced until the Nazis came to power in January 1933. The law never addressed the issue of lesbianism, Phillips said, and these women "ended up becoming pretty much invisible under the Nazis." In fact, in post-World War I Germany -- the Weimar Republic years of "Cabaret" -- a gay lifestyle emerged openly in Berlin and Hamburg. Hundreds of nightclubs and bars catering to gay crowds flourished, as did newspapers and magazines. All that abruptly changed when Adolf Hitler became chancellor. The crackdown began almost immediately, with the closure of the bars, shutdown of the press and silencing of anyone advocating decriminalizing homosexuality. At first, the Nazis thought they could cure homosexuals. "The Nazis looked to create a master Aryan race," said Phillips. "So for Aryan men, the Nazis wanted to get rid of homosexuality as a behavior, and not get rid of homosexual men." But in 1934, Hitler purged his rival Ernst Rohm, leader of the Nazi storm troopers, and linked Rohm's homosexuality to subversion and treason. Heinrich Himmler, the SS leader, was put in charge of persecuting gays. During the Nazi era, about 100,000 men were arrested for violating Paragraph 175. Eighty percent of those arrests came during 1936-39, as Himmler's campaign reached its peak. The outbreak of war in September 1939 meant that the regime needed soldiers and workers by the millions, even gays. The result was that some gays went into the military, others stayed in prison, and 5,000 to 15,000 were sent to concentration camps, where they were forced to wear pink triangles sewn on their clothing. The gays were near the bottom of the camps' hierarchy, just above the Jews marked for extermination. Among the museum's artifacts is the secret camp diary of inmate Harry Naujoks from the Sachsenhausen camp near Berlin. He recalled that in June 1942, all the men imprisoned under Paragraph 175 were forced to register with the commandant and were sent off to the back-breaking brick works. "In the first 18 days, 53 men were 'finished off,' " his handwritten words say. "They had to race the dump wagons and were beaten until they'd collapse. Or they had to run the gamut of the sentries, and were shot." After the war, the occupying Allies allowed Paragraph 175 to stay on the books. Some men were kept in jail to finish out their terms. In 1956, the West German government refused to grant compensation to men who had been imprisoned under the Nazis solely for their homosexuality. In 1990, the anti-gay law was abolished, and only last May did the German parliament apologize to the men and offer the remaining handful the chance to apply for compensation. "This exhibit is an extension of our mission to educate about persecution and about the impact of persecution," Phillips said. "People need to think about it," he added.

San Francisco Chronicle 18 Nov 2002 Assyrians -- not just part of ancient ROB MORSE "I didn't think there were so many Assyrians in the world," said a non- Assyrian guest to Narsai David at the Ritz-Carlton on Friday night. David, the Berkeley food expert, had drawn 430 Assyrian Americans from all over the West to a banquet to raise money to build school buildings in their homeland in Northern Iraq. "We don't get together often," said Dr. John Aivaz of Palos Verdes, president of the American Assyrian Chamber of Commerce. It was an interesting time for an Assyrian get-together. Their brethren in Northern Iraq soon may be in the middle of an American invasion and, if all goes well, finally get a voice in Iraqi affairs. The Assyrian Americans at the Ritz-Carlton were still joyful that a month ago, for the first time, the president had recognized their role in a future Iraq. "The oppression of Kurds, Assyrians, Turkomans, Shi'a and Sunni must be lifted," said President Bush in a speech on Iraq. Immediately afterward, I got a call from David. Despite his not being a big Bush fan, he was bubbling over, saying, "Did you hear the president mention us?" I have to confess that before August, when I wrote a column about David's visit to Northern Iraq on behalf of the Assyrian Aid Society of America, I thought Assyrians were something from ancient history. It turns out they're a part of whatever history is to come in the next year. - We mentally isolationist Americans somehow missed the fact that the 20th century -- the world's most criminal century -- has been tough on this great civilization that became the first Christian nation. Assyrians were slaughtered by the Turks, a mass murder more forgotten than the Turkish genocide of the Assyrians' fellow Christians, the Armenians. Surviving Assyrians trekked to Baghdad, where they were massacred again and forced to Northern Iraq, along with Assyrians from Iran. There, along with the Sunni Muslim Kurds, they have suffered Saddam Hussein's depredations. At Friday's dinner, Youel A. Baaba, a literary scholar and patriarch of the Assyrian Aid Society, spoke in the Assyrian language about how few people knew of the 200 Assyrian villages destroyed by Hussein and people forcibly relocated to undesirable places. "Sadly, not too many people are aware of the atrocities committed against Assyrians or their deplorable living conditions in Iraq," he said. Baaba spoke of the need to support their countrymen in the homeland to secure their language and culture. Or else, he said, "We, like millions of other people before us, will melt away in this beautiful pot called the United States of America." The handsome, well-dressed people in the audience applauded Baaba, most without having to look at the English translation. They hadn't entirely melted in this beautiful pot. A children's dance troupe ended its spirited interpretations of Assyrian folk dances by appearing with American flags and singing "God Bless America." They were greeted with the applause of immigrants and children of immigrants for whom the flag means what it's supposed to mean. - This was one of the few large gatherings in the Bay Area where you could find mass support for a U.S. invasion of Iraq. These are people who know a thing or two about Hussein's branch of the axis of evil. "Assyrians and other groups should have their right of survival, property and democracy," said Aivaz. "They are just surviving. In the 21st century, that is not acceptable. They are looking for the greatest democracy in the world to do something." "Whatever happens, it will happen for the best," said Los Angeles developer Pierre Toulakany. "It couldn't be worse that what we've had, with chemical weapons used against our people." This is America, though, and you could find healthy dissent. Dorothy Clark and Julia Roberts of Modesto, both Assyrian Americans, said they feared a Bush invasion of Iraq. "That man will do what he wants," said Roberts. There are many things I fear, among them America's power to fire and forget, to use a missile metaphor. The world doesn't need more peoples used for our strategic purposes, then consigned to ancient history. Rob Morse's column appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. His e-mail address is rmorse@sfchronicle.com. ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle. Page A - 2

BBC 19 Nov 2002, US Muslims suffer backlash - Many Muslims in the US are living in fear of attack By Kevin Anderson BBC News Online in Washington Hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims in the United States increased by 1,700% in 2001, according to crime statistics compiled by the FBI. Human Rights Watch has criticised US authorities for not doing enough to stem the backlash following the 11 September attacks. Muslims and Arabs have faced a backlash after other events linked to the Middle East in the last two decades, the group said, calling on the authorities to take steps to head off such violence in the future. Rise in hate crimes In 2000, the FBI received reports of 28 hate crimes against Muslims and Arabs in the US. In 2001, that number increased to 481. Local statistics demonstrate even further the dramatic rise in hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims. In Chicago, the police department reported only four anti-Muslim or anti-Arab hate crimes during the year 2000, but in just three months - September-November 2001 - there were 51 such crimes reported. Muslims even suffered a backlash after the Oklahoma bombing A US Justice Department study found that an estimated 75% of hate crimes go unreported, said Amardeep Singh of Human Rights Watch. The hate crimes included the murder of at least three people. Balbir Singh Sodhi, a 49-year-old Sikh and father of three, was killed as he planted flowers at his gas station four days after the 11 September attacks. Police said that the alleged killer bragged at a local bar that he was going to "kill the ragheads responsible for 11 September". Abusive chants Assaults and attacks on places of worship were widespread. On 12 September 2001, 100 police officers stopped an angry mob as they marched on a mosque in Bridgeview Illinois. The mob shouted slogans such as "Arabs go home" and hurled abuse at passers-by who looked Muslim or Arab. Human Rights Watch says that authorities should have seen the backlash coming and done more to prevent crimes against Muslims and Arabs. Constant targets This is not the first time that hate crimes against Muslims has increased. Middle Easterners experienced a backlash after the Iran Hostage Crisis, the Gulf War and after the 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City. Although Timothy McVeigh was eventually arrested for the 1995 attack, early reports linked the attack to Middle Eastern men. Conspiracy theorists are still trying to link the bombing with Arab terrorists. "Government officials didn't sit on their hands while Muslims and Arabs were attacked after September 11, but law enforcement and other government agencies should have been better prepared for this kind of onslaught," Mr Singh said. He also accused the US Government of sending mixed messages in trying to head off a violent backlash. "The concern is that while the government is pounding the pulpit of tolerance with the right hand, that with the left hand it is pushing aside very American traditions of equality," Mr Singh said. While members of the government including President Bush made very public statements of support for Muslim-Americans, the government focussed its anti-terrorism efforts on Arabs and Muslims. Those anti-terrorism measures included secret detentions and deportations. Quick to act But the report also had what appeared to be welcome exceptions. Some 30% of the population of Dearborn Michigan are immigrants from the Middle East. Police and city officials have worked to reach out to the Middle Eastern population there after a racially charged incident at the high school in 1995 that led to a Justice Department investigation, said Police Chief Greg Guibord. Just because people are from a certain race doesn't make them guilty Police Chief Greg Guibord Relations improved as a result, and the city hosts an annual festival celebrating Arabic culture. Immediately in the wake of the 11 September attacks, city officials met with representatives from the Arab community. They were concerned about their safety. Extra patrols were added near mosques and Arab neighbourhoods. Chief Guibord went on record saying that members of the Arab-American community were not the people responsible for the attacks. "Just because people are from a certain race doesn't make them guilty," he said. And he added: "There was a statement made by this community that we are not going to tolerate any type of violence in any form." The community did not experience a rise in hate crimes. But he says that this was the result of years of dialogue between city leaders and the Arab community. And he added it might be difficult in areas where Muslims formed a much smaller part of the community.

Salt Lake Tribune 20 Nov 2002 Massacre Is Still News In response to B. Kent Harrison's letter admonishing The Salt Lake Tribune for printing articles on the Mountain Meadows massacre (Forum, Nov. 12), I find it amazing that he would think a historical event where a group of Mormon men massacre men, women and children traveling to California in a wagon train, and then try and blame it on local Indians, would not warrant ongoing press investigation. The press routinely prints articles relating to the Custer "massacre," Holocaust accounts and reports of governments killing their citizens. Why does he think the events at Mountain Meadows are less newsworthy? I read Will Bagley's excellent book Blood of the Prophets and find his conclusions compelling as well as convincing. The recent (1999) and unprecedented intervention by the current Utah governor in circumventing state laws relating to the forensic investigation of bones unearthed at the Mountain Meadows Monument clearly adds fuel to the argument of a cover-up. JIM DEFA Salt Lake City

Daily Nebraskan (Univ of Nebraska) 25 Nov 2002 Speaker to offer views on genocide By MELANIE FEYERHERM November 25, 2002 Israel Charny is hoping to share his understanding with Lincolnites. The professor of psychology and family therapy and the executive director of the Institute of the Holocaust and Genocide at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, tonight will discuss the Holocaust and other genocides He said he felt the topic of genocide was a worldwide issue, and discussion and understanding of it was necessary. "This whole readiness of humans to solve problems by destroying other humans is all over," he said. And he wants more people to become aware of why this happens. Five years after receiving his doctorate in psychology, he took an exam to become a specialist in human behavior. "I woke up from a dream and asked myself 'Did I understand how people treated each other in the Holocaust?,'" he said. "I realized I knew nothing, I hadn't ever been trained to understand (it)." It was then, he realized he needed to spend his life researching and understanding why humans treated each other like they did in situations like the Holocaust, he said. "The more we are aware, the more we can prevent human life," he said. Charny said he considered genocide as the killing of unarmed citizens by trans-national terrorists. Around the world, he said he felt many countries have denied any acts of genocide they have done, and that denial allows more cases of genocide to exist. "(Denial) makes people less aware and less resolved to fight new signals of genocide," he said. He said he thought Americans were starting to go through a denial of what happened Sept. 11. "One form of denial is a kind of a dulling experience - a retreat to the way of life, an illusion that what happened didn't really happen," he said. "I'm quite sure that if we go back to the families of the people that died (from the Sept. 11 attacks) you won't get any of that dulling." For the past few years, Charny has been taking trips to the United States. He visits about five colleges or communities each time. He said the visits started after the publication of the "Encyclopdia of Genocide," which he helped edit. A book signing of the encyclopedia will be held after tonight's discussion. Robert Hitchcock, professor of anthropology and geology, said he was looking forward to the discussion because of Charny's experience on the subject. "He brings 30 years of experience as a psychologist dealing with the effects of genocide," he said. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln department of anthropology and geography, the Harris Center for Judaic Studies, Nebraskans for Peace and the UNL Chapter of Amnesty International will sponsor the discussion.

Branford Review (CT) 29 Nov 2002 The Pequotoog Massacre of 1637 By: Iron Thunderhorse Quinnipiac Tribal Council Speaks On December 5, 2001 the Branford Review published a guest column I wrote entitled, "Thanksgiving: the complete history; and the story of Squanto." In that piece I explained, generally, that the worn-out Thanksgiving Day "story" told to schoolchildren is a sanitized version of the truth...disinformation. Now, on behalf of the Quinnipiac Sachemdoms and the ancestral Algonquian Confederacy known as the Wampanoo and Lenape/Renambe Restoration Movement I will officially recall some additional facts. The following information was compiled by Cathy Ross, Mary Robertson, Chuck Larsen and Roger Fernandes of Highline School District's "Indian Education" program at the Tacoma School district in September of 1986. The year was 1637, the month of April or Ponatom to the bands east of the Connecticut River, the moon when birds lay their eggs. Over 700 men, women and children of the Pequotoog were gathered for a nicommo (Indian feast) at a place near what is called Groton, Connecticut today. It was their time for celebrating the annual green corn dance. They were at a large ceremonial arbor erected for such purposes. While they were gathered to celebrate they were surrounded and confronted by a group of mercenaries of Dutch and English colonies. The Pequotoog men were ordered to come out of the arbor and only the warriors responded thinking it was some kind of contest or negotiations. When they were all assembled every one was murdered, shot dead on the spot, unarmed. Then, the women, children and elders were burned alive in the arbor. For the next 100 years, every Thanksgiving Day ordained by a governor or president "was to honor that victory, thanking God." The newcomers called it a battle. Our ancestors recall it as a massacre. Thanksgiving Day "was first officially proclaimed by the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637 to commemorate the massacre of 700 Indian men, women and children" wrote the educators listed above. This was confirmed by William B. Newell, an Algonquian man of 84 winters and former chairman of the University of Connecticut Anthropology Department. His sources included: The Documents of Holland, Thirteen Volume Colonial Documentary History, letters and reports from the colonial officials to their superiors and the King of England, as well as the private papers of Sir William Johnson, British Indian Agent of thirty years for the colony of New York. The remaining Pequotoog who were not at the nickommo celebrating were also subjected to similar atrocities at a second massacre in May. Of the survivors that remained, one-third were shipped to the Caribbean as slaves, one-third were sent to the Narragansett territory in exile, and one-third were banished to Mahican territory. During this period Indian agents were given orders to keep the Indians divided. Agents were essentially white Anglo "overseers" whose primary purpose "was to encourage Indian communities to accept assimilation tactics and religious conversion, learning English and being redefined from vibrant independent nations to Indian townships" according to the educators. (I have scheduled separate columns to discuss the aspects of religious conversions.) Not only were 700 of the Pequotoog massacred, and later more numbers added to the count - and even after the remaining Pequotoog were exiled or forced into slavery - even the name "Peqout" was banned throughout the territory. All this for their resistance to conform to the Puritan Reformation. Ruth Duncan/Little Owl, ACQTC Thunder Clan Headwoman (who traces her own ancestry to 1625 in Connecticut) has written several beautiful poems and legends about these Pequotoog massacres, as she understands how "it would be difficult to imagine the horror that was felt by other indigenous people...who lived on the other side of the river." The Dutch/English militias raided dozens of Indian villages in Connecticut and killed 500 more in just a single massacre. These massacres were conducted usually in the dark of night when the men were unarmed and women and children were asleep. This was no war, it was an act of death squads more inhuman than those experienced in the Balkans in the 20th century. The leaders today who are guilty of war crimes of ethnic cleansing are being punished, but the people of the genocide against the Algonquians lived on and their policies still exist to some degree. I have scheduled a separate column for 2003 that deals with the subject of racial disparity to descendants of Indian slaves as opposed to the descendants of Black slaves. In loving memory of all those men, women, elders and children who were needlessly slaughtered and their deaths disguised as an act of war, I write these words to remind the Anglos of Connecticut and every other minority of Connecticut of these historical facts. Thanksgiving Day is not celebrated by Indian people of New England. It is a Day of Mourning for the Confederacies of the Dawnland. As America feasts, we fast and give offerings to those who were killed. Namitch neetompaog.

Asia-Pacific

Afghanistan

AFP 14 Nov 2002 UN probes intimidation of witnesses to Afghan mass killing KABUL, Nov 14 (AFP) - The United Nations said Thursday it is investigating claims that witnesses to an alleged mass killing of Taliban prisoners in northern Afghanistan are being harassed, tortured and even murdered. UN spokesman Manoel e Almeida da Silva said a joint mission with Afghan human rights officials had headed to northern Afghanistan this week to probe "credible" reports that during the past eight weeks several witnesses had come under attack. Some 1,000 Taliban are said to have suffocated in container trucks while been transported to the town of Shebargan by US-backed troops belonging to the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance resistance movement. A long-awaited UN investigation into a site at nearby Dasht-i-Leili, alleged to be a mass grave containing their bodies, has yet to commence. Almeida da Silva said local warlord Abdul Rashid Dostam, who denies his troops deliberately let Taliban prisoners die, had been contacted in connection with the intimidation claims. "The UN has received reports of very serious incidents relating to the prospect of an investigation of harassment, torture and extra judicial execution of Afghans in possession of information. "The mission has raised its grave concerns with government authorities and with General Dostam. It has stressed the need for an immediate investigation with which General Dostam has pledged to cooperate." The spokesman said a preliminary UN investigation into the alleged mass graves earlier this year had recommended the establishment of a witness protection scheme, but this was not carried out. "What we are talking about here is the people who are believed to have information about the circumstances surrounding Dasht-i-Leili, in other words potential witnesses, who have been pressured in different ways, in violent terms. "We felt they were credible enough or serious enough and needed to be looked into."

Australia

The Age (Melbourne) 22 Nov 2002 Pg. 6 US Blamed For Lack Of ICC Candidate, Annabel Crabb With only a week to go, Australia has yet to nominate a candidate to sit on the bench of the International Criminal Court, raising allegations yesterday that the government had "gone cold" on the court after pressure from the United States. Justice John Dowd, the Australian president of the International Commission of Jurists, said yesterday that Australia, as a strong supporter of the new war crimes court, should run a candidate for its 18-member bench. "I think there is an overlay in this that because of the appalling pressures which the US has had on Australia not to promote the court, Australia is taking a fairly low position," the New South Wales judge said. Labor's foreign affairs spokesman, Kevin Rudd, frustrated after several advances to Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer, had a blunter approach last night. "Get your bloody act together, and get someone up!" was his advice, as told to The Age. The government is now being urged to field a candidate - preferably a woman, as few have been nominated - before nominations close on November 30. Mr Downer - who, with Attorney-General Daryl Williams, fought a fierce battle against Coalition colleagues this year to secure ratification of the ICC - flatly denied Justice Dowd's claims yesterday. "In a democracy, particularly a liberal Western democracy like Australia, you always get these sort of anti-American conspiracists, but nine times out of 10 they waffle on and are wrong, and in this particular case America has nothing to do with our approach to the International Criminal Court," he told ABC Radio. Mr Downer won support from Tim McCormack of the Australian Red Cross, who has been at the centre of the ICC campaign in Australia. Professor McCormack said Australia routinely talked to like-minded nations in such circumstances, and in this case the Canadian candidate, Philippe Kirsch, was so impressive that Australia would do better to support him and seek Canada's backing for a candidate in future. "I understand why the government decided not to run a candidate, and I think it's the right thing to do," he said. The ICC has so far received 30 nominations for the bench, from countries including Canada, Mali, Samoa, Uganda, Britain and Finland. Only seven women have so far been nominated, prompting Mr Rudd to suggest directly to Mr Downer that an Australian woman would be an ideal candidate. The ICC has a gender balance requirement built into the selection process, as well as measures ensuring different styles of legal systems are fairly represented. Mr Downer said yesterday that the government had instead been concentrating on finding an Australian candidate for the position of prosecutor on the ICC - a single position that he described as "the most important position in the court". But he conceded that finding a candidate - again by November 30 - would be complicated: "We've got to find someone who's prepared to do it, who has the appropriate skills and, secondly, start promoting that person through the international community. I can't be sure we'll get that, but we're still working on that."

Sidney Morning Herald AU 22 Nov 2002 The 170-year-old war Academics are accused of lying in a new account of colonial Tasmania, reports Andrew Stevenson. The Black War finished in Tasmania in 1832 but white historians can't put down their weapons. Today sees the publication of the first volume of Keith Windschuttle's alternative history of the frontier, in which he accuses four contemporary historians - including Henry Reynolds - of deception and mistruths. Windschuttle claims Professor Reynolds misreported the words of Lieutenant-Governor Arthur and misrepresented his views. Professor Reynolds had also misrepresented the views of settlers such as Edward Curr in building a case that white Tasmanians had argued for the extermination of Aborigines, Windschuttle claims. The most authoritative scholar of the Tasmanian frontier, Lyndall Ryan, fares worse. Yesterday, after reading sections of the book, The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Professor Ryan said she had been accused of lying. advertisement advertisement Windschuttle claims in the book that references cited by Professor Ryan do not support claims of massacres or killings of Aborigines. "I conducted the research for these events 30 years ago, " Professor Ryan said. "I had no reason to fabricate them then and I am in no position to check them now. I can't believe I would have made it up. He's accusing me of lying ... "The truth or otherwise of these events do not destroy the overall argument of my book - that the Tasmanian Aborigines were violently dispossessed of their country as a result of the British colonisation of Tasmania but they were not exterminated." Two other leading historians, Rhys Jones and Lloyd Robson, both now dead, are sharply criticised in the book. Robson, who wrote A History of Tasmania, included claims by a settler of having witnessed Aborigines killing 300 sheep at Oyster Bay in 1815, an action which led to soldiers killing 22 Aborigines. But, argues Windschuttle, this would have been difficult. The settler, James Hobbs, was living in India at the time and there were no sheep at Oyster Bay for anyone to kill. Lieutenant-Governor Arthur feared Aboriginal hostilities in the 1820s would lead to the "eventual extirpation of the colony". These are the words Windschuttle claims are used by Professor Reynolds to support a policy of "ethnic cleansing". Arthur never made the statement, wrote Windschuttle. Professor Reynolds attacked the claim yesterday. "I've never said that. That's quite, quite misleading. How could they [Aborigines destroy the colony]? I mean there were people who said that but Arthur never did and I've never, as far as I'm aware, suggested that he did," he said. "Nowhere did I suggest that Arthur thought they could wipe out the colony. That would be a silly thing to say."

Globe and Mail 29 Nov 2002 Print Edition, Page R14 Wild dingoes couldn't drag me away A rabbit-proof fence longer than the Great Wall of China snakes through the largely empty Australian Outback -- a place deeply ingrained on the nation's psyche By CHRIS KOENTGES Special to The Globe and Mail Friday, November 29, 2002 – Print Edition, Page R14 THE OUTBACK, AUSTRALIA -- The Australian muse is concealed like a bottled genie in the land out back, guarded with a laconic grin and shrug. "Past the square, past the bridge, past the mills, past the stack," goes Nick Cave's invocation of the secret. "In the border fires and humming wires," he tells us of "a gathering storm and a tall handsome man. In a dusty black coat. With a red right hand." The man -- the outback's vague-secret-come-to-life -- is George Miller's Mad Max. He's Peter Carey's bushranger Ned Kelly, the silent father who attempts to murder his children in Nicholas Roeg's Walkabout,the invisible stalker at Peter Weir's Hanging Rock. He's Crocodile Dundee. He's that dingo that ate Meryl Streep's baby. And most recently, he is Kenneth Branagh inhabiting the ghastly A.O. Neville -- Mr. Devil to the Jigalong mob in Phillip Noyce's Rabbit-Proof Fence -- the most literal incantation of the secret-cum-muse yet. Robert Hughes, the island/continent's thoroughly loathed expat historian/critic, likes to chide an Australian population almost entirely based in coastal cities. "Australians fantasize about the Outback. It is a great national icon but they would never dream of living there. It is too weird, too lonely, too silent." Before it was Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock,it was Joan Lindsay's Picnic at Hanging Rock -- Lindsay wrote the novel on which the film was based. "On St. Valentine's Day in 1900 a party of schoolgirls went on a picnic to Hanging Rock," the classic opens. "Some were never to return." Like the confused first wave that watched The Blair Witch Project before its release, most Australians, to this day, don't realize the story is fiction. The mistake is understandable, though, because everything about the rock's disturbing form would have you believe its reality. The boulders and ravines and gnarled spires shield a picnicker -- or stalker or, for that matter, reader or filmgoer -- from the harsh wind of the surrounding plain. You'll hear the warble of a dozen varieties of bird, from white crested cockatoo to kookaburra, but will never actually see a bird. The rock angles up and into itself so that at any given moment you can accidentally disappear from the person behind you with one or two steps. Before it was Weir or Lindsay's Hanging Rock, it was a sacred site of the Edibolidgitoorong, a sub-clan of the Wurundjeri. It still is, in fact. "I remember going up to Cooktown back in the early seventies," said George Miller, who I would eventually meet up with in Sydney. (He'd once gone scouring the land for narratives about the secret, and had the uncanny knack of telling me how to go look for it -- but would never explicitly let the bloody thing slip.) "Any Australian town you'd have to spend a week in the pubs before anyone would speak to you. You knew you were accepted when they would introduce you to their dog. There is a kind of laconic quality to the Australian bush character. They're not used to anyone but themselves. The truth is they're probably a bit mad." Pressing into the vast, desolate Mundi Mundi Plains a week earlier, I had arrived at the postapocalyptic stretch where the tanker flipped in Mad Max II. The centre of the country, Australia's famous dead heart, is known as terra naulis. No man's land. One of those places you visit and can legitimately feel like the last human being left on Earth. Where the tanker overturned, the earth begins to turn ochre, and for two straight days and nights I would speed into an increasingly vivid redness, past mangled eucalyptuses and rotting kangaroo carcasses, always with a sense of being gently pressed by an invisible pursuer. By the next afternoon, I entered Tibooburra where the average summer temperature is 43 degrees and outsiders get punched in the face for starting conversations with, "Hot enough for you?" Before setting up camp a few hours outside the town, I asked a trucker if it was okay to have a fire at night. "What are you going to do?" he chortled meanly. "Burn the dirt!" The next morning -- after I couldn't find fire wood -- I arrived at the fence. The writer Jan Morris once wrote that the the famous Harbour Bridge in famous Sydney is "by far the most striking thing ever built in Australia." But I must disagree, for the most striking thing ever built in Australia is its rabbit-proof fences. They were constructed by regional governments during the 1880s to stop the spread of a rabbit plague across state borders. (Rabbits lived on both sides of the fence before construction.) The separate fences were eventually linked up. Today the structure's called the Dingo Fence and maintained by the Wild Dog Destruction Board. It evokes something that existed eons before plagues of rabbit and dingo. "The one great untold story in this country is the destruction of indigenous culture," Miller would eventually confide. "We've seen that story many times in American culture. Dances With Wolves and stuff, but in the Australian culture, not many films have told that story about not only the actual genocide of the Aboriginals, but the culture of the genocide." It's the almost-total genocide of the oldest continuous culture left on Earth. In 30 Days in Sydney,Peter Carey writes that "we are obsessed, have always been obsessed, with the original inhabitants, even while we anticipated their passing, while we labelled them 'doomed,' stole their land and children too. . ." "Yet even the most racist amongst us must grant the Aboriginals intimate knowledge of this hostile land, and that is where they gain their authority in our imagination. They know how to live off the land and we did not, and still do not." The first time the Australian essayist Robert Dessaix ventured deep into terra naulis,he felt a shadowy fear of punishment for breaking laws he didn't understand. He wrote, "where men, owls, wallabies, snakes, rocks, trees and rain were all part of some kind of mindfulness we had no name for in the city, the terror lay in not knowing to whom or what this offence might be given." The Aboriginals once broke up the land out back into lines of song. They navigated each line by invoking endless tunes about specific features that the new culture would never learn to recognize without a fence. In their visual tradition of pounding plant material into pulpy paint, they continue to depict their landscape using a kind of cheek-by-jowl style of "pointillist dot" -- always as perceived as looking down from above. Specific colours and sizes of dot represent specific eucalyptus or dry river bed or or enormous rock or tufts of grass surrounding furtive hunting grounds or, in some paintings, refitted posts, wrapped in barbed wire.

Cambodia

AP 21 Nov 2002 Cambodia Genocide Charges Revived By EDITH M. LEDERER UNITED NATIONS -- A key-U.N. committee revived efforts to establish a genocide tribunal for surviving leaders of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime, charged with the deaths of more than one million people during the 1970s. Secretary-General Kofi Annan "will make his best efforts to implement the mandate" and conclude an agreement with the Cambodian government if the draft resolution is adopted by the 191-member world body, U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said Thursday. The General Assembly committee that deals with human rights issues voted 123-0 with 37 abstentions late Wednesday in favor of the draft resolution sponsored by Japan and France. The full General Assembly OK the move. That approve is expected but no date has been set for a vote. The draft resolution calls on the secretary-general "to resume negotiations without delay, to conclude an agreement with the government of Cambodia, based on previous negotiations, to establish Extraordinary Chambers" to prosecute senior Khmer Rouge leaders. The U.N. legal team abruptly ended talks with Cambodia in February over the makeup and procedures of the proposed mixed court, saying the government lacked the political will needed to conduct free and fair trials. The negotiations had been underway for five years. At the time, U.N. legal counsel Hans Corell said the Cambodian government's decision that its law setting up the tribunal would take precedence over any agreement with the United Nations on the conduct of the trials meant there was no guarantee the tribunal would be independent and impartial. Many countries were upset at the U.N. decision, including the United States and France. The communist Khmer Rouge have been blamed for the deaths of at least 1.7 million Cambodians between 1975-79, when the group held power. None of the surviving leaders has appeared before a court to face accusations over the atrocities.

AP 23 Nov 2002 Hun Sen welcomes idea of new genocide tribunal BANGKOK Cambodia's prime minister said yesterday his government will cooperate with the United Nations in the world body's renewed efforts to establish a genocide tribunal for former Khmer Rouge leaders. A U.N General Assembly committee dealing with human rights issues voted 123-0 with 37 abstentions late Wednesday in favor of a draft resolution seeking to revive efforts to set up the tribunal. Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen, in Bangkok for a conference, told The Associated Press that he was happy with the U.N. decision. "I welcome (it). We are preparing already" to cooperate with the United Nations, Hun Sen said without elaborating. The United Nations and the Cambodian government have been negotiating for the last five years to set up a tribunal for the leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime, which was blamed for the deaths of about 1.7 million people during its 1975-79 rule. The proposed tribunal suffered a setback in February when a U.N. team abruptly ended negotiations with Cambodia about the court, saying the government lacked the political will needed to conduct free and fair trials. At the time, U.N. legal counsel Hans Corell said the Cambodian government's decision that its own law setting up the tribunal would take precedence over any agreement with the United Nations meant there was no guarantee the tribunal would be independent and impartial. Many countries, including the United States and France, were upset at the U.N. decision to end the talks. The latest U.N. resolution, sponsored by France and Japan, still needs to be approved by the full General Assembly. No date has been set for a vote, but approval is believed to be virtually certain. The draft calls on the U.N. secretary-general "to resume negotiations without delay, to conclude an agreement with the government of Cambodia based on previous negotiations and to establish Extraordinary Chambers" to prosecute senior Khmer Rouge leaders. U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said Thursday that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan "will make his best efforts to implement the mandate" and conclude an agreement with the Cambodian government. London-based human rights group Amnesty International said the text of the draft resolution was "fatally flawed" and wouldn't meet international standards because there would be a majority of Cambodian judges and no international prosecutor.

Asia Times 30 Nov 2002 Will Cambodians ever get justice? By Tom Fawthrop PHNOM PENH - Cambodians have been waiting 23 years for the much-debated Khmer Rouge tribunal to get off the ground. Now a fresh resolution from member states mandates a reluctant United Nations Secretariat to revive negotiations to set up a special tribunal in Phnom Penh, rekindling hopes that former leaders of the Pol Pot regime may put on trial and held accountable. Japan and France co-sponsored the motion, which was passed by 123 nations in the third committee in New York, and which is expected to sail through the UN General Assembly in December. Survivors of other genocide campaigns in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda have the satisfaction of seeing their former tormentors being held accountable. A Sierra Leone tribunal is also in the wings. But for the survivors of the Cambodian holocaust that annihilated an estimated 2 million people, there has been no justice. After the 1979 toppling of the Pol Pot regime, many survivors called for an international tribunal. However, the genocide issue became a hostage of Cold War machinations, including Washington's support for a UN seat for the Khmer Rouge. From 1979-97 there was a deafening silence from the UN on an issue that has long soured relations with Cambodian authorities. The new draft resolution calls on the UN secretary general "to resume negotiations without delay, to conclude an agreement with the government of Cambodia, based on previous negotiations, to establish Extraordinary Chambers" to prosecute senior Khmer Rouge leaders. Only two Khmer Rouge leaders have been arrested and are awaiting trial. Another five of six major suspects are living quietly in Cambodia and have not yet been indicted. Nine months ago the prospect of an internationally credible UN-backed genocide tribunal appeared to have been killed stone dead by the UN's walkout. The refusal of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the Office of Legal Affairs (OLA) to resume negotiations over setting up the long-delayed Khmer Rouge Tribunal now appears to have been convincingly overruled by member states, a clear slap in the face for UN lawyers. In the UN third committee in November, 123 countries vote for it, with zero votes against and 37 abstentions. Swedish lawyer Hans Corell, the head of OLA, had argued that the Khmer Rouge Tribunal Law passed by the Cambodian National Assembly in August 2001 did not provide sufficient guarantees for an "independent tribunal and international legal standards". The core issue, according to Corell, was who had ultimate control over the judicial process - the UN or Cambodia? A Phnom Penh-based diplomat commented: "The UN does not like to enter things that it can't control." Phnom Penh rejected Corell's demand that the UN agreement should be accorded supreme status over the Khmer Rouge Tribunal Law. The UN declined Phnom Penh's invitation to finish off the negotiations and abruptly walked out in February this year. The UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva urged the UN's lawyers to get back to the negotiations. Member states led by Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada made repeated attempts to lobby the UN in New York. Annan stubbornly stood his ground, saying only a new mandate from the General Assembly or the Security Council could persuade him. A Phnom Penh-based Association of Southeast Asian Nations ambassador commented: "Kofi Annan is now obliged to resume negotiations [on the tribunal] even though it may not be exactly the mandate that he wanted." The Khmer Rouge Tribunal Law provides for a special court to be set up in which international and local lawyers and judges will comprise a "mixed tribunal" - aspiring to meet international standards, but within a Cambodian legal framework and jurisdiction. Three Cambodian judges will preside together with two international judges over the court, but majority verdicts must include the vote of at least one of the two international jurists. The Cambodian tribunal has always sparked intense controversy. The government of Prime Minister Hun Sen has been blamed for dragging their feet and displaying ambivalent commitment to the tribunal. The UN has been criticized for its past support for the Khmer Rouge and for its cultural insensitivity in negotiations with the Cambodian legal team. The result has been three years of legal wrangling and mutual distrust. Amnesty International in London has led the way in condemning the tribunal law passed by the Cambodian National Assembly as "deeply flawed" and urges the UN to "renegotiate everything" from square one. Many local and international human-rights groups have come up with similar criticisms based on the perception that the Cambodia justice system is hopelessly inadequate. Most observers are agreed that the legal system is riddled with corruption, lacking in competence and training, and is highly vulnerable to political interference. The argument of this school of thought is "better no trial at all than a flawed trial" - ironically a line that is more than welcome to surviving Khmer Rouge leaders hoping that no tribunal will ever take place. Some conservative members of Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party also oppose the Khmer Rouge tribunal for different reasons, fearing that many rank and file Khmer Rouge defectors might take up arms again and destabilize the hard-won peace. Dr Craig Etcheson, a Khmer Rouge researcher formerly manager of the Cambodian Genocide Program, told Asia Times Online: "Many voices in the international human-rights community support the idea of completely calling off the tribunal, on the grounds that 'real' justice is not possible under the current Cambodian government. This would have the result that the Khmer Rouge leadership would die quiet, peaceful deaths in their beds, having successfully defended their impunity for their entire lives. It is strange to see this tacit alliance between international human-rights activists and the most retrograde elements of Cambodia's ruling party, but then as they say, politics makes for strange bedfellows." However, other human-rights experts are alarmed at this prospect. A clear polarization has developed. These human-rights experts want to press for the best tribunal that can be achieved by taking into account the tortured Cambodian history, resulting realities, and the complexity of this particular tribunal. Peter Leuprecht, a former law professor, concluded: "I am a lawyer and I am sure: rather this tribunal than no tribunal." Leuprecht, as the UN's human-rights rapporteur for Cambodia, knows better than anyone the weaknesses of the country's legal system and its decimation during the Pol Pot regime. But the supporters of the Cambodian tribunal law argue that a tribunal is of the greatest importance to Cambodian society and in the promotion of human rights, and stress that the UN could bring this about if it had the political will. During his most recent visit to Cambodia, Leuprecht declared that this is almost certainly the last chance for a UN-backed tribunal. History may well judge both the UN and the Cambodian legal team harshly if this time they fail to set up the tribunal to judge the Pol Pot regime, a tribunal that has already the suffered from a record of over 20 years of obstruction, procrastination and delay.

China (see also Japan)

Financial Times UK 5 Nov 2002 Beijing looks to bring neighbours under its wing By Amy Kazmin China has wooed south-east Asia ever since the 1997 Asian economic crisis, when several countries began nursing grievances that their old cold war ally, the US, had let them down in their hour of need. That courtship deepened yesterday in Phnom Penh, where leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations agreed to hitch their wagons to a rising China - in the tentative hope that they can share their giant neighbour's growing prosperity. The centrepiece of the raft of agreements signed at the China-Asean summit yesterday was the framework deal for establishing a China-Asean free trade zone by 2010, a proposal seen as largely symbolic when it was endorsed last year but that China since pushed aggressively. Nicholas Thomas, a researcher at the China-Asean Project of the University of Hong Kong, says the framework deal "sets the scene for a 10 year period where we are going to see China and Asean growing a lot closer together - for better or worse". Despite continued doubts in some countries, Asean has agreed to embark on a process of economic integration with China as its best chance for continued economic survival relevance in the face of a powerful trade competitor. While Beijing too touts its desires for regional economic prosperity, analysts see China as driven more by a intense desire to bring the countries in its backyard firmly within its sphere of influence. It is a desire that has been heightened by Washington's increased projection of its military power in far-flung corners of the globe, including central Asia, where, before September 11, Beijing had been seeking to build up its influence. "China is now building a safety cushion around itself to relieve its security worries," Sheng Lijun, a senior fellow at Singapore's Institute for Southeast Asian Studies, told a recent conference in Bangkok. While a free trade deal with south-east Asia will not explicitly address security issues, he said, closer economic relations would tend to act as a constraint on the region if China were engaged in any conflict with the US in the future. In its quest for regional leadership, China isn't restricting its overtures to economic and development matters, either. Along with agreeing yesterday to refrain from provocative activities in the disputed South China Sea, China and Asean issued an unexpected declaration on joint efforts to combat non-traditional security problems, like the smuggling of arms, drugs and people, money laundering, cyber-crime and terrorism. While China has already been working closely with the countries that share the Mekong River on some of these issues, the declaration provides for the beginning of broader security co-operation between China and the wider region. South-east Asia's strengthening ties to China with have not escaped the attention of the Bush administration, which - before September 11 - had prickly relations with China, epitomised by the crisis over the downed US spy plane on Hainan Island. At the recent Apec summit, President George W. Bush offered to enhance US economic co-operation with Asean by entering into bilateral free trade agreements with the more developed members, a largely symbolic move to reassure Asean it is not forgotten. Washington has also offered more aid for efforts to bridge the development gap between different member states. Mr Thomas said the designation of south-east Asia as a second front in the war on terrorism also provides the rationale for an enhanced US engagement. Within Asean, many have qualms about China's rising influence. In Cambodia, many activists blame China for scuttling a proposed war crimes tribunal for surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge, a proceeding that would highlight Beijing's support for the genocidal regime. In Thailand, critics accused Beijing of bullying after Bangkok cancelled the signing of a deal with Taiwan aimed at improving conditions for 250,000 Thai labourers working there. The smaller countries along the Mekong river are deeply worried about the consequences to them of China's ambitious dam building schemes along the branches of the river, even as China pledges greater involvement in the region's development. Yet Asean, which has always operated on a consensus basis, still lacks the ability to speak with a unified voice on sensitive political issues, which leaves it in a weak position in dealing with China. So, even as it commits to a tighter embrace of Beijing, Asean is courting other regional powers such as India.

NYT 13 Nov 2002 China's Ghost of '89: Chief Ousted by Hard-Liners By ERIK ECKHOLM EIJING, Nov. 12 — In a maze of crumbling alleyways just off Beijing's premier shopping avenue, the former chief of the Communist Party spends his days and years of enforced silence in a spacious, gray-walled courtyard home. As the party prepares for a major transfer of power this Friday, no one dares utter the name of Zhao Ziyang, who was the general secretary before the current leader, Jiang Zemin. Today's leaders surely must wish that Mr. Zhao would just disappear. They do not speak of him in public, but the officials gathered this week in the Great Hall of the People, hardly a mile from the house where Mr. Zhao has been kept in near-isolation for 13 years, can hardly forget about their former boss and comrade. Mr. Zhao was purged in 1989 for being soft on the student democracy advocates who occupied Tiananmen Square. In party sanctums he was declared guilty of abetting the disastrous schism over liberal values that led his harder-nosed colleagues to mount a bloody, soul-scarring crackdown. But Mr. Zhao was never tried in court or convicted of a crime, and his unending detention has no legal basis. So simply by existing, Mr. Zhao — now 83, white-haired and suffering heart problems — is an embarrassment to a government trying to reinvent itself as open and advanced. More than that, as the armed police patrolling in front of his house testify, he is feared as a potential magnet for dissent. This week's transfer of power is gleefully described in official circles as the most orderly and rule-based in party history, a giant step toward political maturity and the rule of law. But Mr. Zhao's undeclared purgatory as well as the total secrecy and back-room dealing involved in choosing China's next leaders have only underscored, some restive party loyalists say, just how far the country's top-tier politics remain from law and democracy. "We have a country of 1.3 billion people, with 66 million party members, over 2,000 delegates to this congress and more than 300 central committee members," said the chief editor of a party-owned newspaper. "Yet all the important decisions about who will run this country are made by seven or eight men." "It's amazing," he added with a sigh. In his opening report to the 16th Communist Party Congress on Friday, Mr. Jiang spoke of fine-tuning procedures within the party but flatly rejected anything resembling Western democracy, which he says would plunge China into chaos. Perhaps the most central debate as China continues astonishing social and economic changes is whether greater political freedom would be catastrophic, as Mr. Jiang suggests, or whether it is instead a painful but necessary key to stability. It is a question that consumes many foreign experts and diplomats but one that the Chinese themselves are hardly allowed to discuss. "The party can govern, but it does not inspire support," said Joseph Fewsmith, a China specialist at Boston University, who warns that waning legitimacy could, in a social crisis, lead to political impasse or collapse. "To rebuild public faith, the party would have to be very different," he said. "It needs to articulate a vision that includes social equity and a vision of where China wants to go — what is it that we are proud about?" "And political reform, broadly defined, has to be part of the answer," he said. Optimistic loyalists see hope in Mr. Jiang's proposal to bring new social groups, including entrepreneurs, inside the ruling councils rather than watching them rise as independent forces. His theory of the "three represents," which aims to do that, is being formally written into the party constitution this week. That strategy will be a political experiment without any real precedent in Chinese Communism, but there is no guarantee that the end result will be closer to democratic freedom. Bruce Dickson of George Washington University, author of the forthcoming book "Red Capitalists in China" (Cambridge University Press), found that most of the successful entrepreneurs, the kind being courted by the party, feel that they do well in the cronyish system as it is and see no need to push for major reforms. "Trying to tinker with the system at the margins may not work," he added. "Liberalizing changes can quickly escalate out of control, as in 1989. But if you don't open up, the outside pressures for change will build up." Today's China is not Stalin's Russia, and even Mr. Zhao's status reveals a softer side of dictatorship: he lives quietly with his wife and grown daughter, is allowed to read books and magazines and is occasionally escorted to a golf course or on trips to the south. He is also, it seems safe to assume, receiving excellent medical care. Mr. Zhao had heart bypass surgery last year, a family friend said, and now has an implanted pacemaker. His heart condition is worrisome but not currently life-threatening, the friend said. If China's leaders consider Mr. Zhao, alive, to pose an unacceptable threat to stability, they must surely fear the day he dies. It was the death of another deposed, modestly liberal party secretary, Hu Yaobang, that triggered the fatal outpouring of student protests in 1989.

NYT 23 Nov 2002 Shouting the Pain From Japan's Germ Attacks By JOSEPH KAHN YIWU, China — Life's longest journeys can begin with a sudden epiphany, and for Wang Xuan that discovery came on a bright August morning seven years ago, as she lounged on a tatami mat in her home in Himeji, Japan. Browsing The Japan Times, she saw a brief item about elderly Chinese peasants planning to sue Japan for using bubonic plague as a weapon during World War II. The story mentioned that they lived in a rural village called Yiwu on China's east coast. Yiwu happened to be Ms. Wang's ancestral home, a place she had left behind years before for the promise of a new life in Japan. "History fell into place when I saw that article," Ms. Wang said. "I knew why I had really come to Japan, and what I had to do as a Chinese." What she vowed to do was to shake Japan, China and the United States out of the great Pacific amnesia about biological warfare. Ms. Wang assembled 180 Chinese victims and sued Japan, charging that its forces had spread bubonic plague and other diseases in China during World War II. The group claimed that 300,000 people were killed by germ warfare, though there are no official tallies. After five years in court, the plaintiffs scored a partial victory in late August when Judge Kohi Iwata of Tokyo District Court ruled that Japan's infamous Unit 731 "used bacteriological weapons under the order of the imperial Japanese Army's headquarters." The judge rejected compensation, however, saying the plaintiffs had no right to demand money from Japan under international law. That has forced Ms. Wang and her group to embark on a costly appeal against steep odds. The Japanese government still denies that its army ever used biological agents. China, suspicious of most social movements, has prevented plaintiffs from organizing formally or accepting donations. The United States, wary of alienating its staunchest ally in the region, remains more focused on the potential threat of biological weapons today than on the destruction they wrought 60 years ago. Even her plaintiffs' group, mostly elderly peasants in eastern and central China, threatens to collapse as its members despair of ever seeing justice in their lifetimes. "We are fighting Japan, China and the United States all at once," Ms. Wang said while riding through rural China to rally plaintiffs. "We need endless amounts of time to do this, and time is running out." Yet her cause, painful as it is, has already repaired the jagged ends of her fractured life. Ms. Wang was born in 1952 and grew up in relative comfort. Her father served as a judge on Shanghai's criminal court. He initially embraced China's new Communist leaders, but family members were persecuted as "rightists" in the late 1950's. During the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960's, Ms. Wang was "sent down," in the terminology of the day: she was ordered to leave the city and work as a peasant. She spent her college-age years plucking rice stalks in a tiny village called Chongshan, just outside Yiwu, where she lived with members of her father's ancestral family. As a city girl working the rice paddies, Ms. Wang said, "I nearly broke my back." But it crushed her spirit even more. Her education was on hold, and her family and friends seemed hopelessly distant. "There was not a single book in the whole village," Ms. Wang recalled. Yet she developed deep local ties. Those came from hearing peasant tales of grisly atrocities committed by "Japanese devils" during the war. An uncle she never knew, Wang Haibao, was one young victim of what the peasants then called rat disease. She learned later that it was the plague, which first infected rats, then people. She also developed a nagging sense of social justice. As hard as her life had become, she said, she realized that she was infinitely better off than the peasants around her. Her brief internment was their daily drudgery. "These were my relatives," Ms. Wang said. "They shared my name. But they had no rights. For the simple reason of being born in the city, I had a totally different life." After Mao's death in 1976, Ms. Wang dreamed of moving far away. The United States was her choice. But she was married by then, to a volleyball star. It was he who got the coveted visa — but to Japan. Ms. Wang, though wary at first, accepted Japan. She became fluent in the language, looking to prosper in what was then the center of the Asian economic miracle. But she soon found it oppressive. Japanese women stared at her if she did not wear stockings. The man who gave her driver's test tried luring her to a hotel. She discovered that European instructors at the language school where she taught were paid more. She asked for a raise, but her boss answered, "You are already too expensive for a Chinese." Then, in 1995, she stumbled on the article in The Japan Times. It seemed to confirm what she felt instinctively: Japan had changed only superficially since the war. It was a humble country on the surface, but still treated Chinese people as inferiors. "If Japanese society had been more accepting and open to Chinese women, I might never have gotten involved," she said. "But this place that had been devoid of meaning for me suddenly made sense." Ms. Wang still lives in Tokyo. But she divides her time between courtrooms there and dusty highways in China, raising money, doing research and recruiting witnesses. She is again the city girl in the country. She wears black leather and silk blouses on trips. It is as if she is reminding herself, and perhaps others, that she belongs elsewhere. Yet she knows Yiwu well enough to act as a guide. She shows visitors the Tragedy Pavilion, which lists 1,500 plague victims, most of them with the surname Wang. She describes how Unit 731 dropped plague-infected fleas from aircraft and how the disease worked its way through the village for months. It killed 20 villagers a day at one point in 1942, she says. She leads visitors through the gray-brick Buddhist temple with bare concrete floors where, she says, the Japanese performed autopsies to gauge the impact of their tests. And she fights, sometimes alone, to keep the case going. At a community meeting one evening, plaintiffs needled Ms. Wang about the lack of tangible results. Ms. Wang, one person said, carries too much on her own shoulders. Ultimately, some said, the government in Beijing must press Tokyo on their behalf. Mr. Wang slowly rubbed the bridge of her nose as they spoke. She explained that the court appeal was still their best hope. Beijing, with its trade priorities, is unlikely to start cooperating, she said: there is no quick fix. "If we wait for governments to settle this matter," Ms. Wang said afterward, "we will die and the truth will never come out."

India (see also Japan)

PTI 29 Oct 2002 BJP trying to incite communal hatred: Sonia PTI VARANASI: Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday said that the BJP, worried over by "rising" popularity of her party, was trying to incite communal hatred in the country in the pattern of what was witnessed in Gujarat. Addressing party workers as part of her campaign to revive the party in Uttar Pradesh, Gandhi said that developmental activities across the country had taken a back seat and unemployment risen during the reign of BJP-led NDA government at the Centre. Launching a scathing attack on BJP, she said that it was "perturbed" over the "rising popularity" of Congress and "is now trying to incite communal hatred in the country as was witnessed in Gujarat recently." Admitting that there was groupism in Congress, especially in its Uttar Pradesh unit, the AICC president said that this had not only damaged the party but also provided a chance to fundamentalist forces to raise their head. She appealed to party workers to shun differences and work for enhancing the support base of Congress. Commending the performance of Congress governments in several states, Gandhi said "the people's faith in the party has grown over the years." Senior Congress leaders, including AICC treasurer Motilal Vora, former chief minister Ram Naresh Yadav and UPCC president Arun Kumar Singh Munna were present on the occasion.

PTI 31 Oct 2002 BJP urges action on 1984 genocide perpetrators New Delhi, Oct 31. (PTI): Terming the 1984 anti-Sikh riots as a "state-sponsored genocide", the Delhi unit of the BJP Sikh cell today organised a protest day and urged the government to bring to book the perpetrators of the massacre. "It was not a riot, it was a genocide sponsored by the state, in which more than 3000 innocent people lost their lives," Delhi BJP President Madan Lal Khurana alleged while addressing a gathering. He said a delegation of the BJP Sikh cell would soon meet the Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani and would urge them to honour the suggestions of the Nanavati Commission which is likely to submit its report. The meeting was attended among others by S S Ahluwalia, MP, State BJP Vice President Harsharan Singh Balli and City Sikh Cell president, Harbans Singh Chawla.

PTI 31 Oct 2002 Indira's assassin honoured LUDHIANA, OCT 31 (PTI) Akal Takht jathedar Joginder Singh Vedanti today honoured family members of Beant Singh, the assassin of late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi at a function here. The Dal Khalsa organised a panthic convention in Beant Singh's memory who was shot dead by security forces minutes after he assassinated Gandhi on October 31, 1984. Bestowing the status of great martyr on Beant Singh, the jathedar said his act was in accordance with sikh traditions. Akali Dal leader Simranjit Singh Mann was among others who addressed the gathering.

PTI 31 Oct ,2002 BJP kickstarts poll campaign in Gujurat The BJP today took the campaign for the crucial December 12 assembly elections on a higher gear launching a broadside against Congress President Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin and playing the "nationalist" card to the hilt. Kickstarting the eighth leg of the Gaurav Yatra from the birth place of Sardar Patel on his 127th Birth Anniversary, Chief Minister Narendra Modi claimed a "divine will" behind the Election Commission's announcement of poll date, sought to appropriate the legacy of the iron man and charged Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf with attempts to defeat him. In a veiled message to his rivals within the party, including former Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel, who were conspicuous by their absence, Modi recalled that despite enjoying popular support, Sardar Patel agreed to Mahatma Gandhi's choice of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru as the country's first Prime Minister. Keshubhai Patel today organised a parallel function at Lodhika in Saurashtra where he was weighed in blood - a programme described by Modi as "coincidental". Senior Minister Haren Pandya, who had given his resignation following differences with Modi and later withdrawn it, was also absent. Union Minister Kanshiram Rana was also missing from the function. Without naming Sonia Gandhi, BJP General Secretary in charge of Gujarat Arun Jaitley, in his address, said had Sardar Patel been alive, he would have been in the opposite camp of those favouring persons of foreign origin for the posts of President, Vice-President, Prime Minister and Army Chief. Criticising the Common Minimum Programme of the PDP-Cong coalition in Jammu and Kashmir which supports disbanding of Special Operations Group, non-impelementation of POTA and review of cases of detained terrorists, he said "the Sardar would not have condoned this". Attacking Congress for the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Modi said Congress had no moral right to criticise BJP for Gujarat violence and added "Gujarat should show the political direction to the rest of the country". Alleging that Pakistan was attempting to foist a Government in Gujarat which suited it, he warned Musharraf of a befitting reply to the "merchants of death". Modi also sarcastically thanked Chief Election Commissioner M Lyngdoh for announcing the date which enabled him to turn the planned Gaurav Yatra into poll campaign launch and attributed the same to "divine will". Assailing Congress for ignoring the contribution of Sardar Patel, Modi, in a symbolic gesture, touched the feet and sought blessings of Patel's grand daughter-in-law Shantaben Patel. During the youth rally, the Chief Minister also promised "modernisation without westernisation", setting up of a global education employment board to enable Gujarati students admissions in the best educational institutions in the world. He also announced increase in the number of seats in technical institutes in the state to 25,000 in the next two years.

UNI 31 Oct 2002 '1984 riots political meat for leaders' New Delhi, Oct 31 Eighteen years on and each year leaders of different parties condemn the bloodshed of Sikhs in the wake of the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, shooting memoranda to Government and squatting on the streets as a mark of ''protest''. The saga of commissions and committees set up to determine the causes, consequences, deaths, prosecutions, compensation and disciplinary action relating to the 1984 carnage began that year itself and continues to this day. According to official figures, 2,733 Sikhs were brutally killed, burnt or slaughtered in the capital within 72 hours. Countless others were injured, women raped and hundreds of homes and shops looted and destroyed. The massacre sparked widespread protests for years -- and ironically many small-time politicians swept to public prominence by holding annual sit-ins for ''speedy justice to the survivors''. Today also, the BJP held a Protest Day, coinciding with the death anniversary of the slain Prime Minister, to ''highlight the Sikh community's sufferings during the 1984 riots''. Delhi BJP chief Madan Lal Khurana met Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani to demand that the report of the Justice Nanavati Commission -- the latest in the series of enquiries into the anti-Sikh carnage -- be submitted at the earliest. ''I do not believe in protests... they have become a racket in India,'' remarked columnist and author Patwant Singh. He disapproved of such acts as ''ridiculous'' and alien to ''civilised conduct''. At the same time, Patwant Singh blamed what he called ''absence of integrity of intention'' in delivering justice to the survivors of the pogrom. ''Not a single man has been hanged 18 years after Sikhs were burnt alive on streets of Delhi. Howsoever critical of the United States we may be, we should appreciate its justice-delivery system, an example of which is the death sentence to a man who killed a Sikh Arizona gas station owner, Balbir Singh Sodhi, in reprisal to 9/11,'' said Patwant Singh while speaking to UNI. The author, however, expressed optimism that the Nanavati Commission would provide valuable insights into the anatomy of the 1984 tragedy. ''I was the first witness to depose before the Nanavati Commission which has since examined a number of witnesses, including former Prime Ministers, politicians, police and administrative officials.'' UNI

PTI 31 Oct 2002 Riot victims postpone agitation KANPUR OCT 31 (PTI) The victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots have decided to postpone their agitation in Lucknow as the Allahabad High Court summoned the U P chief secretary and demanded a report over the distribution of compensation. The riot victims association has decided to cancel its dharna and procession at Lucknow tomorrow following legal advice as the chief secretary was asked to submit a report, the association president Manjeet Singh said in a release here today. Expressing concern over the delay in disbursement of claims even after 18 years, the association said "strong actions" would be taken if the claims were not settled by November 14.

UNI 4 Nov 2002 Paswan for probe into Dalit massacre Patna, Nov 4 Lok Janshakti Party supremo Ram Vilas Paswan has demanded a high-level probe into the killing of six Dalits at Budhganjoyee and Dighi Tola villages in Gaya district on Friday. Paswan visited Anugrah Narain Medical College and Hospital in Gaya on Sunday and consoled the bereaved. Criminals had kidnapped LJP block president of Tankuppa Deven Paswan's father, mother, wife and sister-in-law and subsequently killed them. The LJP president paid an ex gratia of Rs 25,000 to dependents of the bereaved family. He also paid an ex gratia of Rs 5,000 each to the dependents of two victims, Karu Paswan and Munna Kahar who were killed by criminals at Dighi Tola under Konch police station area in Gaya district on Sunday. The bodies were brought to Anugrah Narain Medical College and Hospital for post mortem. Later, talking to newsmen, Paswan demanded the dismissal of the Rabri Devi government for its 'failure' to protect the Dalits. He said he would also apprise President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam of the rising attacks on the weaker sections. UNI

Mumbai Newsline 5 Nov 2002 Page One NEWS Zakaria book delves into communalism Mohammed Wajihuddin Mumbai, October 30: RAFIQ Zakaria’s writes his books with a mission. His books are aimed at provoking intelligent debates to close the growing chasm between Hindus and Muslims. His latest book Communal Rage in Secular India, to be released by the Attorney-General of India, Soli Sorabjee, at Taj Mahal Hotel on Friday, is a sort of a requiem of his idea of India. Anguished at the diabolical dance of death that was witnessed in Gandhi’s land (Gujarat), Zakaria has devoted the opening chapters of this book to Godhra and its aftermath. ‘‘I couldn’t help it. The genocide raised doubts in my mind about the survival of India as a secular country. Is this the India our freedom fighters fought for?,’’ he asks. ‘‘ Through this book I wanted to register my protest and express my feelings (on this issue). What worries me more is the communal hatred that a large number of Hindus harbour for the Muslims of this country today.’’ Communalism is ademon eating into the very vitals of our society. However, it is the distortion of history by the divisive forces that is the grater cause for distress for me. As Nobel laureate Amartya Sen in the foreword for this book says: ‘‘The process has been fed by communal Hindu politics, fostering divisiveness (‘‘indirectly aping Jinnah,’’ as Zakaria sees it), combined with plentiful use of religious misinterpretations and historical distortions to alienate Hindus from their Muslim fellow citizens...” The Sanghparivar sees Chhatrapati Shivaji, Swami Vivekananda and Sardar Patel (Narendra Modi styles himself as Chhote Sardar) as its ideals. Referring to authentic documents, Zakaria shows how the three rose above communal politics and worked for peaceful co-existence.

Reuters 7 Nov 2002 Seven injured in Gujarat violence AHMEDABAD: After a relative calm for the past few weeks here, violence broke out in the communally sensitive area of Jamalpur following Diwali revelry on Wednesday night in which seven persons were injured, some shops and houses gutted and vehicles damaged in arson. Police had to open fire and lob teargas shells to bring the situation under control after two groups clashed and indulged in stone throwing and arson after midnight, police said. The injured included a woman. Tension prevailed in the area, which had borne the maximum brunt of post-Godhra violence, but the situation was under control, a top police official said here on Thursday. "The situation is under control but still under tense," DCP Vikas Sahay said here. Trouble broke out when a group of Diwali revellers arrived near Gaekwad haveli and burst crackers provoking protest from another groups. There were reports of some shops being set on fire. Initial reports said that three shops and a few houses were damaged. Gujarat has been relatively quiet for some weeks after the state was under the grip of communal violence for a few months since the Godhra train carnage on February 28.

Times of India 12 Nov 2002 Gujarat may have more 'nasty' surprises AHMEDABAD: It was said that Gujarat just needs a road accident involving persons of different communities to spark off a riot. Well, its turning worse now. It could even be a small-time cricket match in the alleys of a village or a rabid dog scurrying through a crowded place which could do the trick. With the assembly elections exactly a month away, and the Chief Election Commissioner J M Lyngdoh describing the situation as 'nasty', bottled-up emotions are exploding at the slightest provocation across Gujarat's countryside. Obviously, the communal riots earlier this year haven't released all the steam from a divided society having pent-up prejudices which do not augur well for the safe conduct of elections. Says a police official "if you see the pattern of violence since February, it is that of a series of over-reactions. The Ram Sevaks did not deserve the deadly end for whatever they did at the railway station. And 1,000 people did not have to die for whatever happened at Godhra. Unfortunately, the same trend of over-reaction is continuing till today." As Monday's riots in Mahudha town of Kheda district and Dasaj village of Mehsana district have shown, these two places which are located nearly 200 km apart, have one thing in common. People are on a short fuse and provocateurs on both sides are waiting to pounce on any opportunity to re-ignite the flames. Two persons, one from each community, were killed and several 22 injured in Dasaj. The incident followed some panic after a rabid dog ran around Gogha Maharaj temple where revellers were attending the concluding session of a three-day festival. A police official said "while a group of boys from the minority community started chasing the dog away, the rumour went around that the group was coming to attack the devotees." Earlier in the day, two persons who had a scuffle with a rival cricket team at Mahudha, were stabbed to death sparking off violence. Even as the funeral procession of the two victims, both brothers from a Patel family, was taken out under tight security, there were elements in the procession who were baying for blood. Those returning after the last rites lynched a bus passenger after dragging him out of the vehicle. There have been a string of communal incidents over the last three weeks, seemingly without adequate provocation, reflecting the undercurrent of tension prevailing in the same areas of central and north Gujarat which were up in flames earlier this year. Police officials are in fact asking the question whether these stray cases were spontaneous or engineered from within. "Both sides have elements with vested interests in stoking the communal fires till the elections," says a senior official. On November 8, eight persons were injured in clashes in Gomtipur area after two scooter riders crashed into each other. On November 7, group clashes took place late in the night in Raikhad and Jamalpur after a road accident involving a drunkard and an argument at a roadside tea-stall. On November 5, clashes took place in Gomtipur over rental of a bicycle. On October 26, violence broke out in Juhapura area of Ahmedabad as mobs started attacking each other with stones and crude bombs after a road accident in Vasna. Early on October 22, violence erupted at Dindhrol village of Patan district after a noisy procession, while passing a mosque, was asked to stop beating drums. Recovery of the body of a 22-year-old youth a day later only worsened matters. On the same day, tension gripped the Nadiad town when stone- throwing erupted after a youth travelling on a scooter was hit by a stone in a minority-dominated area. On October 14, in Jhalod town, two persons had fought over purchase of mutton which had snowballed into a communal conflict.

Milli Gazette 13 Nov 2002 Hate speech against Indian Muslims goes unpunished New Delhi: President of Congress Party Intellectuals Cell Syed Shamim Hashmi demanded “immediate arrest” of International President of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) Ashok Singhal on September 5, for inciting “genocidal violence” against Muslims. In a statement issued in the wake of Singhal’s anti-Muslim hate speech former Member of Parliament and Congress leader Hashmi said that by now Singhal should have been in jail for saying publicly “we will repeat the Gujarat experiment against Muslims all over India.” Singhal, whose VHP is part of the “Sangh family” of myriad organisations, including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which rules Gujarat and heads the ruling coalition at Centre, had also said in his speech earlier this week in Punjab state that Muslims deserved the genocidal attack in Gujarat. “People say I praise Gujarat. Yes I do.” He gloated over how "whole villages had been emptied of Islam" within days and how refugee camps swelled with Muslims. Singhal has gone scot free despite repeated hate speech as do most of his colleagues of VHP, BJP and allied organisations. Of late their impunity has grown because their people have been in power at Centre and in some states, which is detrimental to secular democracy and security of Muslims and Christians. The Congress Party has launched a campaign to halt hate speech against fellow citizens. Congress spokesman Anand Sharma has demanded Singhal’s arrest along with that of other leaders. Senior Congress leader Balram Jhakar said this fascist maniac must be put behind bars for his speech which could potentially create nationwide strife. Jhakar said VHP leaders must be put in jail for their anti-national acts. The influential Hindustan Times in one of its edits Saturday, September 5, wondered how come men like Singhal roam free while others are jailed under harsh anti-terrorist laws for far lighter offences, “Ashok Singhal has ceased to be a mere nuisance factor. He is a threat to any democratic, secular, modern society". The leader writer wondered” …what stops the NDA government from booking this man who is openly inciting mob violence against Indian citizens?” Though the Hindustan Times has "wondered" over the ruling coalition at Centre, National Democratic Alliance (NDA), allowing Hindu nationalists like Singhal to do as they please, there is nothing much to wonder about here. These people are allowed free-play because the ruling BJP shares its ideology with them and is a self-proclaimed part of Sangh family of VHP-RSS-BJP-Bajrang Dal etc. A prominent Urdu daily published from Delhi and Lucknow, Qaumi Awaz, in its editorial on September 5, said that Singhal was a self-proclaimed follower of Hitler. (The entire Sangh family, including BJP lionises Hitler.) “This man must be crushed like Hitler to prevent the rise of Nazism,” the strongly-worded editorial said. By now Singhal should have been jailed, but we know the present government would not do that. “Now is the time for civil society to rise against this menace”, the Qaumi Awaz wrote. Supported by its Parivar (family) organisation BJP, which holds power at Centre and in some states, VHP remains unrepentant, despite widespread condemnation. Central Secretary of VHP Mohan Joshi said at a press conference in Delhi on September 4, that the special protection provided in the Indian Constitution to minorities should be done away with. This is an idea which the BJP too believes in, although it is a bit hesitant in saying it publicly. Last month India’s Solicitor General Harish Salve, on BJP leaders’ orders told the Supreme Court of India that the minorities constitutional rights to establish their own educational institutions should be subjected to curbs. This move of the Centre was very much in line with the anti-minority ideas of VHP. Hindu nationalist organisations like VHP and BJP are against India’s secular Constitution also. They want a new Constitution, shorn of all guarantees to minorities, but cannot muster enough support in Parliament for this venture. Failing that, they formed a Constitution Review Commission 2000, which has not supported their ideas. The secular ethos of the country and independence of press, judiciary and other constitutional entities thwarts Hindu fascist plans for the country. Despite a thriving democracy, the justice dispensing system, however, has not always been successful in stopping fascist thuggery. There is no proper law against genocide or genocide-like crimes. Hence it is very difficult to book criminals against humanity, though there are certain other laws under which such people can be prosecuted. Fascists like Singhal are able to hoodwink the Indian state taking advantage of its weaknesses. The fact that like-minded people are in power at Centre also makes things easier for them.

American Muslim Council (AMC) 13 Nov 2002 Gujarat Genocide Awareness Week Starts Today WASHINGTON, DC, Nov 13, 2002: Major American Muslim organizations--AMC, CAIR, ICNA and ISNA--have endorsed Indian Muslim Council's call asking people to observe the second week of the Islamic month of Ramadan as the Gujarat Genocide Remembrance Week and the Friday, November 15 as the Gujarat Genocide Rembrance Day. The second week of Ramadan starts today. In a media release, the Indian Muslim Council (IMC) said: In the wake of recent brutal attacks, and serious threats raised against Indian Muslims by the Hindutva-fascists in India, it is incumbant upon all the peace-loving people of the world to understand the threat and educate themselves about one of the most racist idealogies whose followers have killed thousands of people in India. Actions Requested: Hold special prayer services, especially, after the nightly taraweeh prayers for the thousands of innocent victims who were brutally killed, maimed, and gang-raped, and also for hundreds of thousands who were displaced from their homes in the state of Gujrat, India. * Arrange Jumah khutba (Friday sermon) on the Gujarat genocide, and the impending threat of more ethnic-cleansing attacks on Indian Muslims by the Hindutva-fascist groups. Helpful educational material can be obtained from www.imc-usa.org or www.imannet.com * Distribute IMC brochures on the threat to Indian minorities by the Hindutva-fascists * Get petitions signed demanding that the Hindutva-terrorist organizations be banned (send a copy to IMC.) Petitions can be downloaded from www.imc-usa.org or www.imannet.com * Write to the media, your senator, and congressperson asking to send a fact-finding mission to Gujarat, India. The contact addresses of your representatives can be obtained from Congress.org or from www.imacweb.org or by calling 202-224-3121 * Collect donations to help the educational and advocacy work of IMC-USA to prevent future genocides of Indian Muslims. Send donations to IMC-USA, 265 Sunrise Highway, Suite1-355, Rockville Centre, NY 11570 American Muslim Council 1212 New York Ave, NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20005 Phone: 202-789-2262 - Fax: 202-789-2550 Email: media@amconline.org,

BBC 17 Nov 2002 Hindu march halted in Gujarat Authorities want to prevent a resurgence of violence Seventy-five Hindu activists have been arrested for defying a ban on a march in the Indian state of Gujarat. Two senior leaders of the World Hindu Council (VHP), Pravin Togadia and Acharya Dharmenda, were among those detained outside a temple in the city of Ahmedabad. Hundreds of their supporters had gathered there for a procession to the town of Godhra, where 58 Hindu activists were burnt to death on a train last February. The VHP hopes to mobilise Hindu support The attack was blamed on a Muslim mob and sparked a wave of religious clashes in Gujarat in which more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed. Ahead of the planned march, the VHP leaders had called for the establishment of a Hindu state. Gujarat goes to the polls next month and the Election Commission said it had decided to ban the VHP procession for fear it could increase religious tensions. Crucial polls The commission said the VHP march should not be allowed to go ahead because there was a likelihood of "provocative and intemperate" speeches being made during the procession. But the VHP called the ruling "an infringement of our fundamental right" and rejected an appeal by the prime minister to abide by the ruling. The state polls are crucial for the Congress Party too The proposed march was expected to feature replicas of the burnt train coach. Gujarat's elections are being seen as a crucial test for the main party in India's governing coalition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is also in power in Gujarat. The BJP lost a humiliating string of state elections earlier this year and faces another round next spring, ahead of general elections due by 2004. The party has dismissed allegations that it is trying to cash in on religious sentiment in Gujarat, which has a long history of religious violence. But opposition parties accuse it of using political gimmicks to mobilise Hindu voters. Correspondents say the main opposition Congress party is hoping to capitalise on voters who want an end to the violence and the economic disruption it has caused.

NYT 18 Nov 2002 India Blocks Hindu